Real company · filing evidence · no rating
Adobe (ADBE)
Where AI sits in the product. Of the 66 AI sentences in the business section of its latest 10-K, 3 describe the AI carrying out a step itself (agents orchestrating customer journeys and multi-step workflows) and 20 describe it helping a person (generating, suggesting, assisting); the other 43 name AI without saying what it does. Labels by Claude Fable 5.1, with a reason for each.
Workflow evidence · 10-K Item 1
66 AI sentences in Item 1 (8,915 words) of the 10-K filed 2026-01-15 ↗, each labelled by Claude Fable 5.1 into AI that carries out a step, AI that helps a person do it, and AI named without either. Up to three of each are quoted, with the reason given for each label. The labelling can be wrong, which is why the sentences are shown.
AI does the step · 3
“Through AI-powered features and AI agents, our solutions enable businesses to provide real-time orchestration of customer journeys and help marketers deliver impactful, data-driven campaigns while optimizing return on investment.”AI agents provide real-time orchestration of customer journeys.
“Adobe Agent Orchestrator Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator is the technology underpinning Adobe’s agentic framework, powering the ability to understand context, retrieve precise information, plan multi-step actions, drive intelligent automation, refine responses, and automate key workflows.”Agent Orchestrator plans multi-step actions and automates workflows.
“Adobe Brand Concierge Adobe Brand Concierge is an AI-powered solution that helps enterprises configure and manage AI agents and deliver personalized, immersive and conversational experiences for their customers.”AI agents deliver conversational experiences directly to end customers.
AI helps a person · 20
“For Business Professionals & Consumers, we are democratizing productivity and creativity with AI-driven, quick and easy applications ("apps") that enable users to be creative and productive whether consuming or generating content across multiple media types and channels.”AI-driven apps enable users to generate content; person creates.
“As AI fundamentally transforms content production, distribution and monetization, our solutions accelerate creative expression for creators and creative professionals and enable anyone to create by using the AI functionality infused in our flagship creative applications as well as our AI-first solutions.”AI functionality enables people to create; person does creating.
“Over the past several years, we have incorporated AI into our solutions and delivered hundreds of AI capabilities to enable customers to create, work and collaborate more efficiently.”AI capabilities help customers work and collaborate more efficiently.
Generic · 43
“In the artificial intelligence ("AI") era, we are harnessing the power of AI across our solutions by bringing together our commercially safe first-party and leading partner AI models best suited for the job; deploying conversational and agentic capabilities across offerings; ensuring ubiquity on all surfaces; delive…”Strategy statement; agentic and conversational capabilities named without operating detail.
“We power the entire content workflow with Adobe’s AI platform, which offers customers brand safety, compliance, intellectual property protection, and reliability.”AI platform powers workflow; no description of what the AI does.
“Underpinning our customer-focused solutions is our AI strategy and Adobe’s AI platform.”Strategy statement naming AI platform only.
Claim evidence · earnings releases
8-K Exhibit 99.1, narrative text only: tables, safe harbor and the “About” paragraph removed. The counts cover the last eight releases, oldest first.
| Filed | AI / 1k words | Quantified |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-12-11 | 2.6 | 0/2 |
| 2025-03-12 | 2.9 | 1/2 |
| 2025-06-12 | 10.2 | 0/3 |
| 2025-09-11 | 14.8 | 1/4 |
| 2025-12-10 | 8.5 | 0/5 |
| 2026-03-12 | 12.5 | 1/5 |
| 2026-06-11 | 12.4 | 2/6 |
| 2026-09-10 | 12.4 | 1/5 |
From the 2026-09-10 release
with a figure“Adobe AI-first ARR grew more than 150% year over year”
no figure“"Adobe delivered record Q3 results, reflecting the strength of our AI innovation, expanding customer reach and leadership across creativity, productivity and customer experience," said Shantanu Narayen, chair and CEO, Adobe.”
no figure“"Reaching a landmark of more than one billion monthly active users is a defining moment for Adobe, and I have confidence that Anil will build on this momentum to drive Adobe's next chapter of growth and innovation in the AI era."”
Quarterly results
Each quarter links to the filing it came from. Q4 values are derived from the 10-K less the nine-month 10-Q.
| Quarter | Revenue | Gross margin |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-11-29 | $5.6B | 89.0% |
| 2025-02-28 | $5.7B | 89.1% |
| 2025-05-30 | $5.9B | 89.1% |
| 2025-08-29 | $6.0B | 89.3% |
| 2025-11-28 | $6.2B | 89.5% |
| 2026-02-27 | $6.4B | 89.6% |
| 2026-05-29 | $6.6B | 89.2% |
| 2026-08-28 | $6.8B | 88.7% |
What Adobe’s filings show
Adobe reported revenue of $26.0 billion over the four quarters to 2026-08-28, up 12.0% on the four quarters before. Gross margin over those four quarters was 89.3%: of each dollar of revenue, about 89 cents was left after the direct cost of delivering the product.
Item 1 of its 10-K filed 2026-01-15 runs to 8,915 words and contains 66 sentences that mention AI. 3 describe the AI carrying out a step itself, 20 describe it helping a person, and 43 name AI without saying what it does.
In the latest quarter, ending 2026-08-28, revenue was $6.8 billion: up 2.1% on the quarter before and up 12.9% on the same quarter a year earlier. Over the 8 quarters in the table, quarterly revenue ran from $5.6 billion to $6.8 billion.
Quarterly gross margin ranged from 88.7% to 89.6% over the same period. It was 88.7% in the latest quarter against 89.3% a year earlier, a change of −0.6 percentage points.
Across its last 8 earnings releases (2024-12-11 to 2026-09-10), 32 sentences mention AI and 6 of them carry a figure, about 19%. The four most recent average 11.5 AI mentions per 1,000 words, against 7.6 in the first four.
How to read this page
Reading the workflow evidence
A software company’s annual report opens with Item 1, a description of the business and its products. How Item 1 describes AI says something about where the AI sits in the customer’s work: whether the software carries out a step itself (detects and blocks the threat, routes the claim, closes the books) or helps a person do it faster (suggests, drafts, summarises).
These pages take every sentence in Item 1 of the latest 10-K that mentions AI and sort it into one of three groups: the AI carries out a step, the AI helps a person, or the sentence names AI without saying what it does. Each label comes with a short reason, and up to three sentences from each group are quoted so the sorting can be checked against the filing’s own words.
The sorting can be wrong, and one company’s count depends on how much of its business section it gives to AI. The quoted sentences are the evidence; the counts are a summary of them.
Reading the earnings-release language
Each quarter, US companies file their earnings press release with the SEC as an exhibit to a Form 8-K. The release is the company’s own account of the quarter, written for investors and the press. These pages count how often it mentions artificial intelligence, after removing the financial tables, the forward-looking-statements boilerplate, the “About the company” paragraph and the company’s own name.
Two counts are shown for each of the last eight releases. The first is AI mentions per 1,000 words of narrative text, which makes long and short releases comparable. The second is how many of the sentences that mention AI also carry a figure: a dollar amount, a percentage, a count of customers. “AI demand drove record data-centre revenue of $X” and “we continue to lead in AI” are both AI sentences; only the first gives a reader something to check against the financial statements.
The counts use generic AI vocabulary only, not product names, so companies that brand their AI differently are counted the same way. Example sentences from the latest release are quoted with and without a figure, so the counting can be checked by reading them.
Reading the quarterly results
Every figure in the quarterly table comes from the company’s own XBRL filings with the SEC: the structured data attached to each 10-Q and 10-K. Companies report the fourth quarter only as part of the full year, so the fourth-quarter figures are the annual 10-K total less the first nine months reported in the third-quarter 10-Q. Each quarter links to the filing it came from.
For software and services companies the table shows revenue and gross margin: revenue less the direct cost of delivering the product, as a share of revenue. AI features that run on rented computing show up in cost of revenue, so a product that leans harder on AI with no change in price tends to show in the gross margin before it shows anywhere else.
For companies that build or sell the hardware and capacity AI runs on, the table shows revenue, operating cash flow, capital expenditure and free cash flow (operating cash flow less capital expenditure and finance-lease principal payments). Data-centre spending appears as capital expenditure long before it appears as revenue, so cash flow during a build-out often looks very different from reported profit.
The three filings behind the evidence
The 10-K is the annual report. It holds the audited financial statements, the notes that explain the accounting choices behind them (including how long equipment is depreciated and which customers matter most), the risk factors, and Item 1, the company’s own description of its business and products. The 10-Q is the quarterly report: reviewed rather than audited financial statements for each of the first three quarters, with shorter notes.
The earnings release is filed as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K on the day a company reports its results. It is not audited and is written to present the quarter in the company’s preferred terms, which is why its language is worth reading next to the financial statements that follow it.
All three are free on the SEC’s EDGAR system. The financial figures are taken from the XBRL data companies attach to their 10-Q and 10-K, which tags each number with a standard accounting concept so that companies can be read the same way.
Questions about Adobe’s filings
How often does Adobe mention AI in its earnings releases?
In its four most recent earnings releases, Adobe averaged 11.5 mentions of AI per 1,000 words of narrative text, compared with 7.6 in the four releases before them. Of the 32 AI sentences across all 8 releases, 6 include a figure such as a dollar amount or percentage.
How does Adobe’s annual report describe its AI?
Item 1 of the 10-K filed 2026-01-15 has 66 sentences that mention AI: 3 describe the AI carrying out a step, 20 describe it helping a person, and 43 mention AI without saying what it does. Example sentences from each group are quoted on this page.
Where does this data come from?
From Adobe’s filings on SEC EDGAR: the XBRL financial data in its 10-Q and 10-K reports, the text of those reports, and the earnings releases it files as exhibits to Form 8-K. The data was last pulled on 2026-10-30. Every quote and every quarter on this page links to its source filing.
Is this a rating or a recommendation?
No. This page shows what Adobe disclosed and nothing else: no rating, score or view on the stock. It is part of a prototype and is not investment research.
Prototype · not investment research. Quotes are the filing’s own words, found by rule-based readers; each links to the filing so it can be checked. This page shows evidence only: the gauge’s rating for real companies is not published while the method is calibrated.