The Total Economic Impact Of Adobe Acrobat Studio Cost Savings And Business Benefits For Content Creation JUNE 2026 © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY COMMISSIONED BY ADOBE, JUNE 2026
“With the templates that we build in Adobe Express [part of Adobe Acrobat Studio], our users can avoid an hour of work on individual pieces of content by making text and small elements editable while preserving the same overall design. Instead of putting together a campaign with a bunch of disparate looks in the content, we can maintain brand consistency.” — Senior project manager, conglomerate © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
3 Key Findings Key Metrics Adobe Acrobat Studio combines the capabilities of Adobe Acrobat Pro, Acrobat AI Assistant with PDF Spaces, and Adobe Express into one integrated platform. Teams can use Acrobat Studio to streamline content creation with AI-powered experiences — all with the PDF editing, conversion, and review tools they already rely on. By unifying Adobe technologies in a single platform, Acrobat Studio seeks to streamline fragmented workflows and help enterprises move from information to action faster. ROI 357% BENEFITS PV $2.8 million NPV $2.2 million PAYBACK <6 months © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. $1.1M $810K $533K $193K $164K Increase in insight generation from documents Acceleration in content production Improved employee revenue generation Cost savings on content management and creation Faster turnaround of document and content reviews
4 Methodology FINANCIAL MODEL FRAMEWORK Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and riskadjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees. COMPOSITE ORGANIZATIONS Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations. CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS AND SURVEY Interviewed decision-makers at seven organizations and surveyed 316 individuals with experience using Adobe Acrobat Studio’s capabilities and tools. Industry Interviewee Title Employees Hospitality Director of analytics 100,000+ Conglomerate Senior project manager 50,000+ B2B Senior product manager 20,000+ Public sector Chief information officer <5,000 Insurance Senior system engineer <5,000 Media and entertainment Creative director <1,000 Media Creative director of design 550+ © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Interviewees
5 Note: Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. Base: 316 global decision-makers Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, March 2026 Demographics Roles Sales 27% Finance/accounting 19% Marketing/advertising 18% Procurement 14% Human resources/training 13% Legal 12% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Industries (Top Five) IT/tech services 10% Financial services 10% Professional services 7% Manufacturing 7% Advertising/marketing 7% Company Size 10,000 or more employees 27% 5,000 to 9,999 employees 29% 2,500 to 4,999 employees 28% 1,000 to 2,499 employees 16% Company Region Latin America 16% Asia Pacific 24% EMEA 27% North America 33%
“In the past, we would enter a request for the design team to refresh images for a campaign, and it would take five to seven days. Now we have a person who can take the template and update the copy or colors on the image and have it done within a day.” — Senior project manager, conglomerate © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Increased Content Production Among Nondesigners With Acrobat Studio, powered by Adobe Express, nondesigners at interviewees’ and survey respondents’ organizations could fulfill their own content requests instead of waiting for design team support. Among survey respondents, 71% agreed that Adobe Express enabled nondesigners to create their own content and 62% agreed it reduced reliance on design teams to create content. Templates built in the solution were based on existing content from their organizations so that any new deliverable carried over onbrand formatting and colors. Not only was content creation democratized with Adobe Express, but the quality and volume also improved. Survey respondents reported that the percentage of content and assets that were templatized for reuse grew from 38% to 50% with Adobe Express. Visual content creation time savings for nondesigners with Acrobat Studio 30% to 40% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. $810K three-year benefit PV
70% 62% 55% 38% Faster time to market Better content creation quality More brand consistency Greater engagement with content Ways In Which Adobe Express Has Influenced Revenue Growth Base: 118 global decision-makers Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, March 2026 © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Improved Revenue Generation Better content creation quality was cited as a key contributor to revenue gains by 62% of Acrobat Studio user survey respondents. Faster collection and sharing of insights meant knowledge workers had more time to review information, reach consensus, and work toward higher-quality output. Among survey respondents, 70% reported that faster time to market enabled by Adobe Express was a factor influencing revenue growth. Marketers captured value sooner and built on that early performance by getting content live earlier in a campaign. They also kept a steady supply of fresh material in front of customers because the templates let them refresh content far more often. © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. $533K three-year profit benefit PV Incremental revenue growth with Acrobat Studio 2% Additional revenue over three years (pre-operatingprofit margin) $8.3M
“Maintaining and improving the quality of content is a big deal. … Instead of multiple tools stitching content together, we have one solution in Adobe Express that nondesigners can use to create outputs with visual richness.” — Senior product manager, B2B © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
© FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Cost Savings On Content Management And Creation Adobe Acrobat Studio’s end-to-end document management capabilities enabled interviewees and survey respondents, who had been leveraging multiple solutions for document workflows (e.g., processing, signatures, etc.), to consolidate licensing. The chief information officer at a public sector organization said that each of their two previous document workflow solutions had required an administrator who spent one-quarter of their time overseeing the platform; this time was rededicated to Adobe, which required less oversight given its solutions’ integrated ecosystem. Third-party resources usually brought in for support were freed up for other projects because nondesigners could now build content from templates themselves. Organizations also cut licensing costs for non-Adobe creative tools, since nondesigners could rely on Adobe Express instead. Annual content creation cost savings seen by 78% of surveyed Adobe Express users $30K+ $193K three-year benefit PV
“With Adobe Express [in Acrobat Studio], it’s all about standardization and branding guardrails to make sure our content is meeting compliance goals. These templates do not bottleneck us when creating materials because we don’t have to check if we’re following guidelines.” — Chief information officer, public sector © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Accelerated Turnaround Of Document And Content Reviews With Adobe Acrobat Studio, interviewees and survey respondents spent less time reviewing content for brand consistency and for compliance with internal and regulatory guidelines. Interviewees made templates within Adobe Express so that content retained on-brand colors, formatting, and any other essential assets while allowing text to be changed or images to be swapped out. Content produced by nondesigners required less review because templated designs limited how much could vary, leaving less to inspect. Survey respondents affirmed this trust in Adobe Express, with 76% agreeing that it strengthened brand consistency across content and 61% also agreeing it improved the reuse of existing content and assets across channels. © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Document and content review time savings with Acrobat Studio 70% to 80% $164K three-year benefit PV
“The presentation was 85% to 90% finished after it was generated [by Adobe Acrobat Studio]. It’s almost like you have the manuscript for a book done and only need to hand it off to the editor.” — Creative director, media and entertainment © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
© FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Faster Creation Of Polished Presentations With Adobe Acrobat Studio In Adobe Acrobat Studio, interviewees and respondents used Acrobat AI Assistant to take uploaded files and generate polished presentations. They also used AI Assistant to extract key facts, summaries, and data points, and then exported that content to Adobe Express to design the final graphic. According to the director of analytics at a hospitality organization, this feature eliminated the need to recruit a volunteer to assemble the deck or assign individual contributors to build their own slides. This improved collaboration because colleagues could start iterating and sharing feedback on a draft of the presentation almost immediately. The interviewee also used the same workspace to create one-pagers summarizing the presentation for executives or workers who missed the meeting. Content planning and development time savings with Adobe Acrobat Studio 20% to 30% Total hours saved on content planning and development annually 1,000 to 9,000+
“When a client gives us a script or folder of plot details for a project, a PDF can be dozens of pages for us, and we need to be quick in reviewing it. Acrobat AI Assistant can summarize [it] for us. It helps me be more efficient and spend more time on creative thinking.” — Creative director, media and entertainment © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Increase In Insight Generation From Documents Adobe Acrobat Studio can support content creation with all of the capabilities of Acrobat Pro to create, convert, edit, and sign documents. Users can quickly share files across shared folders and collaborate in real time on documents. Acrobat Studio’s AI-driven capabilities, such as Acrobat AI Assistant and PDF Spaces, build on this foundation to further enhance document management for knowledge workers. Interviewees also reported that AI Assistant in Acrobat Studio can automatically generate in-depth summaries of users’ files (e.g., transcripts, slide presentations, scans, etc.) and provide traceable citations. A creative director at a media and entertainment company reported that these features helped cut the time needed to digest lengthy PDFs by two-thirds. © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Efficiency gain in reviewing, finding information in, and summarizing documents 25% to 35% $1.1M three-year benefit PV
Additional Benefits And Flexibility Enabled By Adobe Acrobat Studio Audio narration of content More connected workflows enhancing employee collaboration Cost-effective localization of content • $32,000 median annual cost savings on localization with Acrobat Studio • More than 60% growth in translations for of content and assets among feature users Additional benefits that interviewees and respondents’ organizations experienced but were not able to fully quantify include: © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Increased trust in AI insights and comprehension of documents • 64% of respondents trusted insights from AI Assistant • Only 8% didn’t trust its insights • 67% of respondents cited a greater level of insights from documents as a factor helping influence revenue growth
. Total Economic Impact Approach Present value (PV) The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows. Net present value (NPV) The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made, unless other projects have higher NPVs. Return on investment (ROI) A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs. Discount rate The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%. Payback period The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost. Appendix A: Total Economic Impact Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders. Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization. Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution. Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated. Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.” The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur. © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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