Why Adobe has a "laser focus" on content creators

We’ve had content creators as customers for a long time, I think if you talk to folks here, you'll hear a lot of them say, I use Premiere Pro, I use Photoshop, I use Illustrator. So this isn't necessarily a new audience to us, but as we started to dig and understand what are the unique needs of a creator versus, say, a traditional graphic designer, they're different, right? They're creating content sometimes daily or even more than twice a day. So the speed at which they're creating is so fast that we're having to adapt. They're solopreneurs, often having to manage their own brand, their own finances, their own marketing, and so they have this unique set of needs and challenges that we haven't been laser focused on before.

What we hear a lot from this audience is, because they're doing so much on their own, there's a lot that would help them from a tooling perspective, but also they want to learn from each other – that is so valuable to them, not just digitally, but in real life, making connections, feeling like they have a support system, people they can go to and ask questions, and so creating opportunities for them to come together in real life, it's huge. And so that's really what today is about.

Absolutely. I mean, community has always been important to us as Adobe, and we've always invested in the photography community, the design community, the video community, and we had creators coming and participating there. But we've learned, actually, that there's a difference for the Creator audience in terms of what they're trying to get out of their community. So for example, on the pro side, we hear a lot more around like really understanding the tools and the workflows and how to get the most out of our products, whereas the creator audience is trying to learn how to grow their following, how to get brand deals. So what we're trying to do is make sure we're catering to those needs.

I wouldn't say it's a shift. I think it's more of an expansion. So we are absolutely still deeply invested in the professional community, and continue to innovate across Photoshop, etc. But we have a number of products that were kind of built for creators, and that's who's been coming to them. So, Lightroom Mobile is a great example, but there's more that we could do. So we brought Photoshop to the phone, Premiere Pro to the phone this past year, and then with Firefly, we're seeing all types of audiences incorporating AI into their workflow. But creators are a great audience for that product as well, because it helps them kind of move quickly, maybe fill the gaps in their skill set, so that they can focus on the things that they're great at.

I think we have that heritage in professional tooling, which is a great foundation. There's a lot of respect for Adobe already in terms of like and trust. You already know you’re going to get great output because the tools, the technology underneath it, are really high quality. What we're doing, though, is repackaging those, especially on mobile and our web products, to make them more accessible to this audience. So for example, our mobile apps are free to start using. You don't have to start a trial. If you look at the UI, it's much more streamlined. But more like content in the apps to get you going. So really for us, it's still standing on the Adobe brand, but one doing things like this for a part of the community, but also building product that is accessible and enables this audience to get started without going through training.

Honestly, I’ve spoken to so many creators, and they're all on their individual journey, whether it's just getting started or figuring out, should I hire a team? And so it's for them to try and get those questions answered, get advice from other creators. Really, it's for this group to connect and get what they want out of it, and we want to be part of it too. We want them to know that Adobe is here helping them on their journey, and we get a lot out of it too. I can talk to creators, and I learn a lot, and then I can bring that back to our product teams and say, Hey, this keeps coming up. This is something we should build or fix.