I’m Bearish on The Future of Adobe

Designers and developers have had a very long and complicated relationship with Adobe. Over the years, we have seen scrappy upstarts come and take a bite out of Adobe’s lunch: inVision, SketchApp, Figma (which Adobe acquired in 2022) and countless others. Despite numerous attempts, Adobe is still standing.

Here we are in 2023, and another attack wave is being set upon companies like Adobe in the form of generative AI. Tools like DALL-E and Midjourney make generating images easy and even manipulating images without setting forth inside Photoshop. But, Adobe is not taking this lying down.

Recently, the beta of Photoshop introduced a generative fill option where you can select a part of an image and then use AI and a prompt to fill it in. It is pretty impressive, and people are amazed by it. The Adobe shareholders seem happy.

But, here is the secret Adobe doesn’t want you to know: they’re on shaky ground. Established companies like Adobe understand the impact AI will have on their business and how threatening it truly is.

Adobe’s reliance on Photoshop as its flagship product is becoming more of a hindrance as the world moves towards more automated design processes. To stay competitive, Adobe must invest more in machine learning and AI research and development. If they can pivot and adapt, they may be able to survive. Otherwise, they risk being left behind in a rapidly changing landscape.

While generative AI is a nice party trick, Adobe has to do more than that if they want to fight in the AI arms race.

This is not to say that Adobe is completely doomed. They have a lot of resources and talent at their disposal, and they could make it work if they play their cards right. However, they must start taking AI seriously and invest more in R&D to stay relevant. Generative AI is a good first step, but it’s not enough in a world of ChatGPTs and Midjourneys.

Right now, I am quite bearish on Adobe. I don’t think they’re doing enough to compete. As we’ve seen with other threats, Adobe endures. So, it’s possible they push through and live to fight another day as the AI threats around it crumble beneath the weight of their AWS server bills.