AI is accelerating customer behavior at unprecedented speed. Much like developers have embraced and expanded the AI-coding market, friction-free onboarding without immediate paywalls will result in greater customer acquisition and deeper engagement over time.
— Shantanu Narayen, Chair & CEO, Adobe Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call
While Adobe's freemium push dominates the consumer narrative, a parallel enterprise expansion is quietly compounding. Customer Experience Orchestration AI-first ARR grew 4X year over year — a pace that led Shantanu Narayen to declare Adobe 'the leader in both the traditional marketing category and the emerging CXO category.'
The Semrush acquisition brings SEO and generative engine optimization directly into the Adobe Experience Manager stack, creating a unified CXO offering Adobe plans to showcase at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in June 2026.
At Adobe Summit, the company introduced CX Enterprise and CX Enterprise Coworker, extending AI-agent capabilities into the marketing workflow. As Anil Chakravarthy put it, marketing professionals want to 'automate and rapidly create, deliver and personalize content at scale.' Business models are expanding to include consumption and outcome-based pricing alongside subscriptions.
I continue to be incredibly energized by Adobe's long-term AI opportunity — freemium top-of-funnel, AI-first ARR compounding, and CXO enterprise growth converging toward double-digit total ARR.
— Shantanu Narayen, Chair & CEO, Adobe — Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call, June 11, 2026