Sept 3 (Reuters) – Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy as successor to long-time CEO Shantanu Narayen on Thursday, charging the insider with taking on a wave of new AI rivals threatening its design software dominance.
Narayen, who has served as CEO for over 18 years, will transition to executive chair, the company said.
Adobe has been trying to reassure investors worried about disruptions to its business from potential improvements in AI technology. Its shares have fallen around 18% this year after declining over 21% in 2025.
The Photoshop maker had raised its annual profit forecast in June, reflecting growing demand for its AI products and tools that are central to its strategy to hold on to its lead over challengers like Figma and Canva.
But the firm also announced the exit of finance chief Dan Durn the same month, adding to uncertainties till a permanent successor is named.
It had said in March that Narayen would step down as CEO once a successor was named, ending a tenure in which he helped turn flagship products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign into household names among creatives worldwide.
Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 to lead its digital experience business and later took on responsibility for improving how customers interact with Adobe, as well as overseeing its global sales and customer-support teams.
He was previously the chief executive of cloud data-management company Informatica for four years.
Shares of Adobe dropped 1% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das and Sahal Muhammed)
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