Adobe is getting a new chief executive.
The company announced on September 3 that Anil Chakravarthy, currently president of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations, will become its president and CEO from December 1, 2026.
Shantanu Narayen, who has led Adobe as CEO for more than 18 years, will move to the role of executive chair. He will continue working with Chakravarthy during the transition and remain involved with the company’s future direction.
The change comes at a crucial time for Adobe. The software giant is trying to adapt its products to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence while facing increasing competition from AI-powered companies and changing expectations from investors.
Who Is Anil Chakravarthy?
Chakravarthy is not new to Adobe.
He joined the company in January 2020 as executive vice president and general manager of its Digital Experience business. Later that year, he also took responsibility for Adobe’s worldwide field operations, serving enterprise customers across the company’s product portfolio.
In December 2021, he became president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations. He currently leads Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business.
Before joining Adobe, Chakravarthy spent four years as CEO of Informatica, the cloud data management company. He also held senior roles at Symantec, VeriSign and McKinsey & Company.
His experience is particularly relevant to where Adobe is heading next: cloud software, enterprise technology, customer experience and artificial intelligence.
“I could not be more confident that Anil is the right person to lead Adobe’s growth in an AI-driven era and look forward to working closely with him in my new role as executive chair,” states Narayen.
Why Is Shantanu Narayen Stepping Down as Adobe CEO?
Narayen’s departure from the CEO role does not mean he is leaving Adobe.
He will become executive chair and is expected to work closely with Chakravarthy during the transition. Narayen had announced in March that he planned to step down as CEO once a successor was chosen.
His tenure has been one of the most significant periods in Adobe’s history. Narayen became CEO in 2007 and helped transform Adobe’s business from selling traditional software licences to a subscription-based model built around Creative Cloud and other cloud services.
Products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign became central parts of Adobe’s global creative ecosystem during his leadership.
Why Is Adobe Choosing Chakravarthy Now?
The timing is difficult to ignore.
Artificial intelligence is changing the software industry, including the market Adobe has dominated for years.
Generative AI tools can now create images, videos, designs and other content with relatively simple prompts. Adobe has responded by adding AI capabilities to products such as Photoshop and expanding its Firefly platform.
But the company is competing against a growing group of AI-focused products and established rivals such as Canva and Figma. Investors have also become increasingly concerned about whether AI could disrupt Adobe’s traditional software business. Adobe shares have fallen significantly over the past two years.
Chakravarthy has already been involved in Adobe’s AI strategy, particularly on the enterprise side. His work has included products such as GenStudio and Adobe’s customer experience tools, which use AI to automate and improve marketing workflows.
That makes his appointment look less like a complete change of direction and more like a move to put an executive with experience in Adobe’s enterprise and AI businesses at the centre of the company.
Adobe’s AI Strategy?
Chakravarthy has said his focus will include growing Adobe’s leadership in what the company describes as agentic software.
Agentic AI refers to systems that can take a series of actions to complete tasks rather than simply responding to individual prompts.
For Adobe, this could mean software that does more than help a person edit an image or create a document. The company wants its tools to increasingly assist with entire creative, productivity and customer experience workflows.
That could become one of the biggest tests of Chakravarthy’s tenure.
Adobe has a huge existing customer base and some of the world’s best-known creative software. The challenge is making sure those products remain essential as AI makes content creation faster and easier.
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