Adobe (ADBE) is about to return to the spotlight. The San Jose, California-based software giant will report its fiscal first quarter 2026 earnings on March 12. And after a strong finish to fiscal 2025, investors have real reason to pay attention.
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Wall Street is watching closely for clues about whether Adobe’s artificial intelligence push is finally becoming a major revenue driver.
The consensus among analysts heading into March 12 is cautiously optimistic.
According to estimates compiled by Yahoo FinanceAnalysts project first-quarter revenue of about $6.28 billion, up about 9.85% from the $5.71 billion Adobe posted in the same period a year ago.
As for earnings, the average estimate is calling for normalized earnings per share of $5.87, compared to $5.08 a year ago, indicating a jump of more than 15%.
This squares well with Adobe’s own guidance. The company told investors to expect first-quarter revenue of between $6.25 billion and $6.3 billion, along with non-GAAP earnings per share of $5.85 to $5.90.
In short, Adobe is setting a bar that it believes it can surpass.
For the full fiscal year 2026, analysts forecast revenue of around $26.04 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of $23.49. Adobe’s own targets are between $25.9 billion and $26.1 billion in revenue and between $23.30 and $23.50 in non-GAAP earnings per share, putting the company and the Street largely in agreement.
Adobe is no longer just a creative software company. Over the past two years, the company has aggressively transformed its products around AI.
At Adobe MAX in October 2025, the company introduced expanded capabilities in Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and its Firefly generative AI application, integrating more than 25 partner AI models from companies like Google, OpenAI, and Runway alongside Adobe’s own Firefly models.
The payoff is starting to show up in the data.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen noted during the company’s fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter earnings call in December that generative credit consumption, a key measure of how much users rely on AI features, tripled from the previous quarter.
Monthly active users on Adobe’s freemium products, including Firefly, Express, and Premiere Mobile, surpassed 70 million, a year-over-year increase of more than 35%.
“The fourth quarter was an inflection in the early indicators, which we continue to follow,” Narayen said on the conference call.
Adobe also said that more than a third of its total business portfolio now qualifies as AI-influenced, meaning customers are actively using or paying for AI-powered features. That’s no small feat. Adobe ended fiscal 2025 with total annual recurring revenue of $25.66 billion, and the company is targeting more than 10% growth in that figure for fiscal 2026.
Beyond the core Creative Cloud business, Adobe has been developing what it calls “customer experience orchestration,” a set of tools for marketers to create, manage and measure content at scale.
Adobe Experience Platform and its AI agents now process more than 70 billion profile activations per day, according to the company. Subscription revenue for those apps grew more than 40% year-over-year in fiscal 2025.
Adobe also announced in November 2025 its intention to acquire Semrush Holdings for approximately $1.9 billion in cash.
The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of fiscal 2026 pending regulatory approval, would give Adobe a stronger position in search engine optimization and brand visibility tools.
These verticals should gain massive traction as AI-powered search engines reshape the way consumers discover brands.
It’s worth noting that Adobe’s fiscal 2026 financial targets do not include any contributions from Semrush. That means if the deal closes as planned, it could provide benefits to full-year results.
When Adobe reports on March 12, these are the three things worth paying close attention to:
First, let’s look at generative credit consumption. The quarter-on-quarter jump of three times in the fourth quarter was a notable figure. Investors will want to see if that momentum continued through the first quarter or if it was a one-time spike.
Second, look at Digital Media’s annual recurring revenue. Adobe exited fiscal 2025 with $19.2 billion in digital media ARR. Any signs of a reacceleration there would probably be welcomed.
Third, stay tuned for updates on Semrush’s acquisition timeline. If Adobe signals a faster-than-expected closing, that could boost investor confidence in fiscal 2026 revenue prospects.
Adobe has been building the infrastructure for an AI-powered content economy for years. March 12 may be the next time investors find out how far that journey has come.
Valued at a market capitalization of $115 billion, ADBE stock is down 59% from its all-time highs and has underperformed the broader markets over the past five years. Of the 37 analysts covering ADBE stock, 17 recommend “Strong Buy”, two recommend “Moderate Buy”, 14 recommend “Hold” and four recommend “Strong Sell”. The average price target for ADBE stock is $411.88, up from the current price of about $284.
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On the date of publication, Aditya Raghunath had no positions (either directly or indirectly) in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article are for informational purposes only. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
