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ByNN Desk
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to Quit as AI Pressure Mounts
Adobe announced on March 12 that Shantanu Narayen, who has led the company as CEO since 2007, will step down from the role once a successor is named.
The announcement came alongside Adobe’s fiscal Q1 2026 earnings, where the company reported $6.4 billion in revenue, a record quarter, but issued a muted forecast that sent shares down more than 7% in after-hours trading.
Adobe announced on March 12 that Shantanu Narayen, who has led the company as CEO since 2007, will step down from the role once a successor is named. Narayen joined Adobe in 1998 and will remain on the company’s board as its chair after leaving the CEO post.
Adobe’s board has appointed Frank Calderoni, the company’s Lead Independent Director, to chair a special committee that will oversee the search. The committee will consider both internal and external candidates. No timeline has been set for the appointment, and Narayen will continue in the role through the transition.
The announcement arrived the same evening Adobe reported its fiscal first quarter results for the period ending February 27, 2026. Revenue came in at $6.4 billion, up 12% year over year and ahead of analyst expectations. Adjusted earnings per share were $6.06, also above consensus estimates. Annualized revenue from AI-first products more than tripled compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the company.
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Despite the earnings beat, Adobe’s second-quarter guidance was softer than anticipated, which contributed to shares falling over 7% in after-hours trading. Adobe’s stock had already declined roughly 23% in 2026 through Thursday’s close, and remains more than 60% below its 2021 peak, as investor concerns about AI disruption to its core creative software business have weighed on the stock for several years.
Narayen’s tenure at Adobe is most associated with the company’s pivot from packaged desktop software to a cloud-based subscription model, a move that reshaped its revenue structure and, for a period, made it one of the more durable enterprise software businesses in Silicon Valley. That narrative has come under pressure more recently as generative AI tools have introduced new competition in image, video, and document creation, areas historically dominated by Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite.
Adobe did not name an interim CEO, and the company has not indicated a preferred successor profile or a target date for the appointment.
Sources: Adobe official press release dated March 12, 2026 (news.adobe.com); Adobe Q1 FY2026 earnings release. Share price data from CNBC and SiliconAngle reports.
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