Adobe raises annual forecasts on steady adoption of AI-powered tools
Adobe raised its full-year results forecast on Thursday, helped by continued demand for its AI-powered software tools that generate images and video content.
The company, an industry veteran in the creative software market, is known for its flagship products, such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro, which have become essential tools for professionals worldwide.
Despite a weak first quarter marked by budget constraints and project delays amid macroeconomic uncertainties, Jefferies analysts said demand seemed to start recovering in the second quarter as clients resumed stalled projects and adjusted to the changing environment, supporting ongoing growth targets.
Adobe expects revenue to be between $23.50 billion and $23.60 billion in fiscal 2025, compared with its prior range of $23.30 billion to $23.55 billion.
Excluding items, it raised its full-year profit to between $20.50 and $20.70 per share, from its prior range of $20.20 to $20.50 each.
"We continue to invest in AI innovation across our customer groups to enhance value realization and expand the universe of customers we serve," finance chief Dan Durn said.
In 2023, Adobe launched Firefly, which enables users to create, edit and enhance images and videos from simple text prompts.
Powered by ethically sourced training from exclusively licensed or public domain images, Adobe Firefly expands the company's AI-driven creative tools, enabling users to accelerate ideation and content creation while ensuring brand safety and copyright compliance.
Adobe said in April it was integrating image-generation AI models from OpenAI and Google into its Firefly app.
Revenue for the second quarter stood at $5.87 billion, above the analysts' average estimate of $5.79 billion.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Analysis:Unglamorous world of 'data infrastructure' driving hot tech M&A market in AI race
Weighed down by tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, dealmaking has slowed to a crawl across most industries except one: the unglamorous world of data infrastructure. The companies that process the data used to build advanced AI models have become highly sought after targets for legacy tech companies like Meta, Salesforce, and ServiceNow in the scramble to stay competitive against the likes of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. 'AI without data is like life without oxygen, it doesn't exist,' said Brian Marshall, global co-head of software investment banking at Citi. 'Because of that, data is having a zeitgeist moment right now driven by AI,' Marshall said. Tech deals are one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy M&A market, accounting for $421 billion of the $1.67 trillion in global deals announced in the first five months of the year, or about 25 per cent of total M&A, according to preliminary data compiled for Reuters by Dealogic. That's up from about 20 per cent last year and 17 per cent in 2023, the data shows. Of the tech deals, those involving AI software makers accounted for almost three quarters of the overall value, the data shows. SPEED MATTERS Goldman Sachs Managing Director Matthew Lucas, who focuses on M&A relating to all aspects of computing, said enterprise data, as it applies to use in AI, is the 'most dynamic area in software M&A right now.' 'There's a very strong perception that speed matters a lot, getting there first matters a lot, and that tends to lend itself to doing M&A,' Lucas said. The software firms that help companies manage their data on cloud-based systems are increasingly valuable commodities as the number of such potential targets is rapidly shrinking. Enterprise data infrastructure and analytics companies like Confluent, Collibra, Sigma Computing, Matillion, Dataiku, Fivetran, Boomi, and Qlik, could become targets for legacy tech providers in the near term, investment bankers say. The companies, they say, may help businesses integrate, analyze, and store information better. Executives for Boomi, Dataiku, Fivetran, and Qlik all said they weren't surprised by the attention. "Messy, siloed data has long undermined the attempts of enterprises to deliver on the transformative potential of analytics. Now, with the urgency to deploy effective AI, fixing it isn't just essential — it's existential," Florian Douetteau, co-founder and CEO of Dataiku, said in a statement. Requests for comment from Confluent, Collibra, Sigma Computing, and Matillion weren't immediately returned. LEGACY TECH BUYS IN Several multibillion-dollar deals for data infrastructure companies have been struck or closed just in the last few weeks. Meta announced Friday a $14.8 billion deal for a 49 per cent stake in data-labeling company Scale AI. Salesforce announced plans last month to buy data integration company Informatica for $8 billion. Artificial intelligence is driving a once-in-a-generation makeover in tech that's forcing several of the largest social media platforms and software makers to buy companies that help AI-backed systems run smoothly. Worldwide, generative AI spending is expected to total $644 billion in 2025, an increase of 76.4 per cent from 2024, according to a forecast by technology data provider Gartner. In early May, IT management provider ServiceNow said it was buying data catalogue platform which will allow ServiceNow to better understand the business context behind data, executives said when it was announced. The Salesforce acquisition of Informatica, announced late last month, will allow Salesforce to better analyze and assimilate scattered data from across its internal and external systems before feeding it into its in-house AI system, Einstein AI, executives said at the time. IBM closed on its acquisition of data management provider DataStax the very next day. IBM said the deal, announced in February, will allow it to manage and process unstructured data before feeding it to its AI platform. BAD AI ADVICE Those deals highlight the strategic importance for legacy software players to own all aspects of data management, and M&A is often the fastest way to achieve it. Instead of building complex data systems from scratch, they are acquiring specialists that can help organize, clean, and connect data from across their business. Would-be targets have sometimes become the hunters as was the case when Databricks, a leader in data processing and AI that was recently valued at $62 billion, announced plans last week to buy serverless database manager Neon for $1 billion. But dealmakers warned that companies can't just buy any kind of data and throw it into an AI system and expect good results. Air Canada <> was found liable in small claims court and forced to refund airfare last year after one of its AI chatbots gave a customer bad advice. Those types of errors can happen if the wrong kind of unfiltered data is imported into an AI engine, tech dealmakers say. 'A lot of companies have a huge amount of data, but I think they're learning that you can't just funnel every piece of data you have into an AI engine with no organization, and hope that it spits out the right answer,' said Brian Mangino, partner at Latham & Watkins.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
Nippon Steel exec says firm needs freedom to manage US Steel, newspaper says
Shares of U.S. Steel dipped after a Nippon Steel executive told the Japanese Nikkei newspaper that its planned takeover of the company required "a degree of management freedom" to go ahead, even as sources told Reuters a deal with the U.S. government to greenlight the tie-up was effectively done. "Without a degree of management freedom, it may not be possible to reach an agreement with the U.S. government," the executive said, according to the newspaper, sending shares of the iconic U.S. steelmaker down 4 per cent. The comments appeared to take aim at remarks made by President Donald Trump, who said on Thursday that he had control over U.S. Steel via a "golden share" that gave the American people a 51 per cent stake in the company. But two of the three people said the deal could be finalized as soon as Friday. Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The $14.9 billion bid, first announced by Nippon Steel in December 2023, has faced opposition from the start. Both former President Joe Biden and Trump asserted last year that U.S. Steel should remain U.S.-owned, as they sought to woo voters ahead of the presidential election in Pennsylvania, where the company is headquartered. Biden blocked the deal in January on national security grounds, prompting lawsuits by the companies, which argued the national security review they received was biased. The Biden White House disputed the charge. The steel companies saw a new opportunity in the Trump administration, which began on January 20 and opened a fresh 45-day national security review into the proposed merger in April. But Trump's public comments, ranging from welcoming a simple "investment" in U.S. Steel by the Japanese firm to floating a minority stake for Nippon Steel, spurred confusion. At a rally in Pennsylvania on May 30, Trump lauded an agreement between the companies and said Nippon Steel would make a "great partner" for U.S. Steel. But he later told reporters the deal still lacked his final approval, leaving unresolved whether he would allow Nippon Steel to take ownership. Nippon Steel and the Trump administration asked a U.S. appeals court on June 5 for an eight-day extension of a pause in litigation to give them more time to reach a deal for the Japanese firm. The pause expires Friday, but could be extended. June 18 is the expiration date of the current acquisition contract between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, but the firms could agree to postpone that date.
CNA
3 hours ago
- CNA
Dollar gains, buoyed by safe-haven demand amid rising geopolitical tensions
NEW YORK :The U.S. dollar gained against major currencies, including the euro and yen, on Friday as markets sought safe-haven assets amid rising geopolitical tensions following the outbreak of an Israeli-Iranian conflict. Israel launched a barrage of strikes across Iran on Friday, attacking nuclear facilities and missile factories and killing a swath of military commanders. Iran responded with an armada of drones against Israeli targets. U.S. President Donald Trump, Israel's main ally, urged Iran to reach a deal on its nuclear program, suggesting that Tehran had brought the attack on itself by resisting a U.S. ultimatum in talks to restrict its uranium enrichment. The dollar gained 0.62 per cent to 144.36 against the Japanese yen and rose 0.39 per cent to 0.813 against the Swiss franc, with the greenback on track to snap two straight sessions of losses against safe-haven currencies. The dollar, however, is still poised for a weekly loss against both the yen and the franc, with markets worried about Trump's tariffs. Juan Perez, director of trading at Monex USA in Washington, said the U.S. dollar tends to gain in times of physical uncertainty and chaos including the Israel-Iran conflict, although tariffs remain the main concern among investors. "This (Israel-Iran conflict) just landed on us but the main concern remains tariffs and obstacles to global trade," Perez said. "When you actually have a physical situation and potential for armed conflict to be prolonged and to escalate, the U.S. dollar and gold jump into safe-haven assets. It's a bit of a psychological reaction." The euro was down 0.67 per cent at $1.1505, on track to snap four straight sessions of gains. It is on track, however, for the second consecutive weekly gain against the dollar. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.82 per cent to 98.48, snapping two straight sessions of losses. It is still set for a second consecutive week of losses. Gold prices jumped amid safe-haven demand. Spot gold rose 1.68 per cent to $3,441.04 an ounce. Oil prices jumped 7 per cent to multi-month highs, buoyed by the Israeli-Iran conflict. Brent rose 7 per cent to $74.23 per barrel. "It's difficult to fix every single item that we are facing this year that has crushed the market's ability to believe in the U.S. dollar," Perez added. "But at the same time, when it comes to the military and physical aggression or armed conflict, it seems like globally there's still a consensus that you should jump towards historically the safest assets, which is the U.S. dollar as a currency and gold as a commodity to hold on to."
