Adobe: the maker of Photoshop, Acrobat, PDF and Creative Cloud software

Adobe Inc. is an American software company based in San Jose, California, best known for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Acrobat and the PDF format. It sells its creative, document and marketing software mainly through subscriptions such as Creative Cloud.

The company matters now because it is in the middle of a leadership change and a push into generative AI. In September 2026 Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy as its next chief executive from December 1, 2026, after a record fiscal 2025 in which revenue reached $23.77 billion.

Overview and Founding

Adobe was founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who set out to change printing and publishing with an all-digital approach. Its first major technology, PostScript, became a standard for computer printing in 1985.

The company is incorporated in Delaware and has its head office at 345 Park Avenue in San Jose, according to its annual report. Over four decades it widened from printing software into design, video, documents, digital marketing and AI.

The product range grew step by step. Illustrator was released in 1987, Premiere arrived for video editing in 1991 and InDesign followed in 1999. In 2003 Adobe began offering Acrobat Reader under a freemium model, and the PDF format it created became an open standard in 2008.

Key Milestones

• 1982: John Warnock and Charles Geschke found Adobe.
• 1990: Photoshop is introduced.
• 1993: Adobe introduces PDF and Acrobat.
• 2005: Adobe acquires Macromedia.
• 2009: Adobe acquires the web analytics company Omniture.
• 2012: Creative Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud subscriptions are announced.
• 2013: Adobe says in May it will stop new boxed Creative Suite versions and focus on Creative Cloud.
• 2023: Adobe Firefly launches as a family of generative AI models.
• 2026: Adobe acquires Semrush and Topaz Labs, and names Anil Chakravarthy as its next chief executive.

What It Does

Adobe’s business has two main parts. Digital Media covers Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and InDesign, together with Acrobat, Adobe Express, Adobe Stock and the Firefly AI models.

Digital Experience covers software that companies use to run marketing and customer data, including Adobe Experience Platform, GenStudio and the newer CX Enterprise products. Adobe says it has more than 20,000 enterprise customers worldwide.

Its apps also run on new kinds of AI computers. Photoshop and Premiere support the new RTX Spark laptops natively through beta versions, as we reported in RTX Spark laptops from six PC makers go on sale.

In the Kingdom, Adobe became the first global software company announced as moving regional AI workloads onto HUMAIN’s locally hosted AI computing infrastructure, accelerated by Qualcomm, as covered in Snapdragon Summit and Qualcomm’s Saudi AI Moment.

Adobe’s move from boxed software to subscriptions in 2013 changed how it earns money. A full Creative Cloud plan then cost $49.99 a month and a single app $19.99, The Next Web reported at the time.

For fiscal 2026, Adobe has set a revenue target of $25.90 billion to $26.10 billion and expects total annualised recurring revenue to grow by 10.2%. It ended fiscal 2025 with total annualised recurring revenue of $25.20 billion, up 11.5%.

Its AI work goes back further than Firefly. Adobe Sensei brought AI-powered features across its products in 2016, and in 2019 the company co-founded the Content Authenticity Initiative, a project on the origin of digital content.

In Numbers

• Revenue: $23.77 billion, up 11% (fiscal 2025)
• Digital Media revenue: $17.65 billion (fiscal 2025)
• Digital Experience revenue: $5.86 billion (fiscal 2025)
• Operating cash flow: $10.03 billion (fiscal 2025)
• Employees: 31,360, half in the United States (November 28, 2025)
• Monthly active users of Adobe products: more than 1 billion (2026, company figure)

Leadership

Adobe is led by Shantanu Narayen, chair and chief executive officer, who has run the company since 2007. From December 1, 2026, Anil Chakravarthy, now president of the Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations, becomes president and chief executive, and Narayen becomes executive chair.

Frank Calderoni is the board’s lead independent director.