Will generative AI kill Adobe the way it killed Kodak?

Generative AI and the Kodak mirror hanging over Adobe

An investment forum argues that Adobe could suffer the same fate as Kodak, and that generative AI — already capable of producing remarkably high-quality images from a text description — is the threat. The thesis running through these discussions is an uncomfortable one: Kodak was killed by the digital photography it had itself invented. And some find it odd that, in that scenario, so many analysts still recommend buying.

The video that planted the Kodak comparison

The topic did not spring from an offhand remark. A video is circulating about AI capable of generating images from a detailed text description, and it has served as the touchstone for the whole debate.


What stands out is the gap between the share price and the financial results. The thread argues that the company is posting record revenue and profits and yet trades at the same level as in 2022. The most common explanation is that it is uncertainty that puts it at those prices: the market is not pricing in what Adobe earns today, but what it will stop earning if its customers switch to the alternatives.

The stock already fell to this level in 2022 and then rose

It is worth looking at the chart before signing any obituary. In 2022 the stock fell to the price it trades at now. In 2024 it was nearly double, and that was with generative AI already up and running for some time. Anyone predicting collapse in 2022 was wrong for at least two years.

There is a second comparison in the thread: AMD. A company doing well, with reasonable numbers, that the market punishes time and again while rewarding Nvidia almost without question, according to one participant. The point is made that there is no basis explaining such a difference in treatment, and there the suspicion arises that the punishment of Adobe is more a matter of sentiment than of balance sheets.

What is left of Photoshop when AI draws on its own

Photoshop is probably still the most widely used tool in illustration and concept art, and in that niche AI has not made much of a dent yet. The argument of those who see no immediate risk is that professionals do not simply accept what a generative model hands back: they need control over layers, masks and tonalidad. And the program has already been integrating AI internally, so part of the threat has been digested.

The scenario that worries people is a different one. It is not the video game artist, it is the advertising agency, the illustration department of a magazine or a newspaper. Repetitive work where a text-to-image generator plus a free editor works out considerably cheaper than a license, argues the one raising the risk. If that segment migrates, Adobe does not lose the elite: it loses the volume.

Classrooms as a breeding ground for subscribers

The strongest defense lies not in the product but in training, according to those who trust the company. Academies and universities keep teaching the Adobe suite, so every course produces a fresh crop of customers accustomed to the tool. It is a moat that is hard for a competitor to cross, and it explains why some remain confident in the company despite the market noise.

It is worth remembering that Adobe is not just Photoshop: there is also the PDF format, the source of criticism aimed at its document software too. There are also those who have been looking for alternatives for years for reasons that have little to do with AI, from a preference for other tools to simple rejection of its software. That silent erosion does not show up in the accounts, but it weighs.

The thread settles nothing. Some predict that Adobe will not disappear, but will stop being indispensable outside the professional niche, and that the market will take time to decide what that is worth. The price says one thing; the revenues, it is argued, say the opposite. One of the two camps is going to be proven wrong, and it is not yet clear which.