Adobe's Semrush Deal Won't Help It Fight Google, OpenAI nor xAI
Nano Banana (GOOGL) Sora (OpenAI) and Grok Imagine (xAI) are far better than many of Adobe's Creative tools
Adobe (ADBE) Creative Cloud is under direct attack from Google (GOOGL), xAI and OpenAI, each of which has better creative tools than does Adobe. Better because they are cheaper (often free), far more intuitive to use and quick to generate outcomes.
Don’t take my word for it, try Nano Banana (Google Gemini, GOOG), Sora (OpenAI) and Grok Imagine (xAI) and judge for yourself.
Adobe Creative Cloud is toast. Narayen should have sold ADBE to Microsoft (MSFT) when he had the opportunity. Not sure what strategic acquirer would want Adobe now. I could see a PE firm having interest if it believed it could acquire the Productivity side of Adobe as a standalone. From my perspective Adobe Creative Cloud loses value with each passing day. Creative Cloud requires radical reform. Narayen is not the CEO to do it. A new CEO is required.
Death comes from below. First, individuals and small shops will adopt Sora, Nano Banana and Grok Imagine while discarding Adobe for certain tasks. That’s already happening. Those users will increasingly use the new tools. Eventually companies will realize they have expensive Adobe subscriptions, but marketers and creatives are using Adobe less and less while using Nano Banana, Grok Imagine and Sora more and more. Those Adobe subscriptions will be downsized to smaller bundles and many will be cancelled outright.
You can read about Adobe’s (ADBE) acquisition of Semrush (SEMR) HERE.
