The Tech Democratizer: Prativa Mohapatra, VP & MD, Adobe India

Adobe’s master stroke in India: Empowering everyone to create.

Adobe, long synonymous with creativity and design, has redefined its mission around a simple but powerful idea: democratizing technology for everyone to create. The last five years have been transformational for the company in the region; and at the helm of this transformation sits Prativa Mohapatra, vice president & managing director, Adobe India.

She describes the period as profound, not just for the company, but for the world. The catalyst? Artificial intelligence (AI).

“Our mission has taken on new urgency in the AI era. Entry barriers to creativity have fallen, while the ceilings have risen dramatically,” said the MD.

At the heart of this shift is Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI engine, which has become a flagship product. Firefly exemplifies how Adobe is accelerating creativity, democratizing access, and enabling originality at scale.

The transformation doesn’t stop at creativity. Productivity is at the crux of Acrobat Assistant helping professionals summarize, analyze, and extract insights from complex documents in seconds. Adobe Express integrates creativity and productivity into a single tool, collapsing silos and empowering business professionals. Customer experience too has been reshaped with AI enabling personalization at scale.

For India, the impact has been colossal. As Mohapatra noted, “Across Adobe, it’s much more innovative. Specifically in India, we have seen our enterprise customers and consumers growing rapidly. And that’s something very exciting in the last four years.”

The journey so far: 1997 to 2026

When Adobe planted its flag in India back in 1997, it was a modest one‑room operation with a handful of engineers. Fast forward to 2026, and Adobe India has grown into a powerhouse of nearly 8,000 employees, a compact replica of the global giant. More than just a delivery center, it has become a hub of innovation, driving one‑third of Adobe’s global breakthroughs, powering flagship products.

With innovations comes the responsibility of skilling and the young demography of India is changing the strategy around talent. The entire concept of talent retention & management got a facelift. “We are really strong, encouraging everyone to be genuine, raising the bar and constantly striving for more. The learning mindset of new technologies is ingrained into the Adobe DNA. We help in employees’ quest for learning. We also encourage using our own products across our verticals, empowering employees and guiding them in taking the products to the market.”

What’s working best ?

Adobe’s growth story in India is backed by different sectors. The early adopters of AI-first wave in India are banking and financial services followed by travel and hospitality, driven by the need for deep personalization in a changing landscape. “Enterprise customers relate to end consumers and these areas have seen good traction. Banking and financial services were the ones who adopted digital first strategy and travel & hospitality followed next, because in all these sectors end consumers matter,” she explained.

Adobe’s real story lies in the ‘orange economy’. The fast-growing creator economy is thriving in regional languages and in non-metro cities. With easy-to-use tools, young creators and influencers are embracing Adobe to turn ideas into impact.

“Whether building a business, designing content, or sharing a picture, everyone has a little bit of Adobe in their work. That’s a kind of infusion we want to do to help India move forward in this creative economy,” she said.

With its AI-driven, quick and easy applications, the company aims to enable users to be creative and productive whether consuming or generating content across multiple media types and channels.

The roadmap ahead

The priority for FY26‑27 is not just delivering products, but partnering on governance, risk, and implementation to ensure AI adoption translates into real outcomes. India’s national AI agenda emphasizes small, use‑case‑specific language models and infrastructure investments. Adobe’s AI mission aligns with this, focusing on workflow‑enabled, commercially safe, and purpose‑built innovation.

“The goal is clear, AI that is fit for purpose, driving productivity and creativity in ways that matter,” she emphasized.

The company sees regulation as a critical enabler of trust. India’s digital personal data protection (DPDP) rules and growing concerns around deepfakes highlight the need for strong governance. Adobe has already invested in initiatives like the Content Authentication Initiative, which acts as a digital watermark for AI‑generated content. “By partnering with government and industry, Adobe aims to ensure AI adoption in India is both innovative and responsible,” she said.

India has been a place where the company has been investing for a long time. Sharing the capex outlook, she said, “We are ready to take on the future. We are investing in people, big locations across the country and data center initiatives. Most of the investments will be in line with our corporate philosophy of doing more in the space of Gen AI and Agentic AI, which are two big focus areas. Our entire philosophy continues to be AI first and being prepared for a future of co-existence,” she concluded.

Adobe delivered a strong Q1 FY26 with record revenue of $6.40 billion, up 12 per cent year over year, alongside 13 per cent subscription revenue growth and record operating cash flow of $2.96 billion. The company also highlighted that AI-first ARR more than tripled year over year, reinforcing continued momentum across its AI-powered creativity, productivity and customer experience offerings.