Billion-Dollar Deal: Adobe Buys AI Specialist Semrush

Adobe, the developer of Photoshop, will buy US software provider Semrush for 1.9 billion US dollars. Both companies announced this on Wednesday. With the billion-dollar acquisition, Adobe is expanding its business with AI-powered marketing programs. Semrush is a software platform that helps companies with search engine optimization, social media research, and online advertising. The AI software is used for keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink, and domain authority tracking. Major corporate customers of Semrush include TikTok and Amazon.com.

Adobe announced that it will pay 12 US dollars per share in cash for Semrush. This is almost double the company's current market value, which was just over one billion US dollars after the market closed on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Semrush's stock rose sharply. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first half of next year.

According to observers, the Semrush deal could enable Adobe to help marketing professionals better understand how their brands are perceived by consumers online through traditional search engines and generative AI bots like ChatGPT and Gemini. "This is a natural way for us to continue to grow in an area that is very important to our existing customers," said Anil Chakravarthy, president of Adobe's Digital Experience business, in an interview with the US daily Wall Street Journal. "Every Chief Marketing Officer today is thinking about how they appear in ChatGPT [and other platforms]."

In addition to Photoshop, Adobe offers design software such as InDesign, Acrobat, and Illustrator. Through Adobe Experience, customers can also analyze cloud data. However, given the intensifying competition in the design software sector, Adobe faces pressure from investors to drive the monetization of AI products and features.

(akn)