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.
Chakravarthy takes the reins as Adobe tries to reassure investors worried about disruptions to its business from advances in AI technology.
Its shares, in parallel with other software firms perceived as being vulnerable to a shakeout, have fallen around 18% this year after declining over 21% in 2025.
Although the firm has looked to strengthen its offerings with AI in focus, some analysts have remained skeptical.
Still, the Photoshop maker 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.
Adobe also announced the exit of finance chief Dan Durn the same month, adding to uncertainties until a permanent successor is named.
Chakravarthy’s appointment comes after Adobe in March announced plans for Narayen to step down 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, an MIT graduate, 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, before which he held executive roles at Symantec, VeriSign and McKinsey & Co.
Shares fell 1.7% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das and Sahal Muhammed)
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