The Total Economic Impact Of Adobe Acrobat Studio Cost Savings And Business Benefits For Document-Driven Work JUNE 2026 © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY COMMISSIONED BY ADOBE, JUNE 2026
“Acrobat AI Assistant showing you how information is retrieved by providing citations is a huge advantage over comparable AI chat solutions. You can click on that citation to double-check the text it’s pulling from to see if it’s being cited correctly; you don’t have to do a separate search to verify the information.” — Senior system engineer, insurance © 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 unlock traceable insights from documents, accelerate knowledge sharing through collaborative workspaces, and streamline content creation with AI-powered experiences — all with the PDF editing, conversion, and review tools they already rely on. 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 Interviewees 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.
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 © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Roles Sales 27% Finance/accounting 19% Marketing/advertising 18% Procurement 14% Human resources/training 13% Legal 12% 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%
76% 61% 54% 47% Interrogating and extracting document information Generating summaries (across multiple complex documents simultaneously) Reviewing and comparing documents Writing assistance Acrobat Studio AI Assistant Top Use Cases © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Base: 251 global decision-makers Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, March 2026
Increase In Insight Generation From Documents Interviewees noted that Adobe Acrobat Studio has 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. The top use cases for AI Assistant among surveyed users included understanding and interrogating documents (76%) and generating multidocument summaries (61%). For these use cases, respondents saw an average efficiency gain of 32% and 35%, respectively. PDF Spaces enables users to add more than 100 files of various formats (e.g., PDF, .txt, etc.) to a centralized shared workspace to query insights, generate summaries, compare docs, and collaborate with colleagues on files and notes. Among surveyed users of PDF Spaces, at least half of respondents saw an improvement in efficiency of between 11% to 20% for document review and feedback with the solution. © 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
“We’re launching a new initiative, and you have the business, analysis, partnerships, marketing and business teams. Having a workspace to share information and documents, and to bring it all together in a holistic report, streamlines our decision-making.” — Director of analytics, hospitality © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
© FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Faster Creation Of Professional-Grade Presentations With PDF Spaces In PDF Spaces, users at interviewees’ and respondents’ organizations were able to query Acrobat AI Assistant to take files uploaded to a workspace and generate professional-grade 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. The director of analytics at a hospitality organization said that with PDF Spaces, there was no need to get someone to volunteer to assemble the deck or task individual contributors with creating their own slides. The group used Acrobat Studio to adjust the length, level of detail, and target audience for the presentation to ensure that it met expectations. The interviewee said: “The presentation was 85% to 90% finished after it was generated [by PDF Spaces]. It’s almost like you have the manuscript for a book done and only need to hand it off to the editor.” Content planning and development time savings with Acrobat Studio 20% to 30% $810K three-year benefit PV
“PDF Spaces is a collaboration and output tool. In the past, where you’d share a mockup of a presentation and collaborate on it, you can automate those steps now. You’re not spending time on menial tasks like formatting or adding slides to a deck; you’re gaining value from having an output to work from in front of you.” — Director of analytics, hospitality © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Improved Revenue Generation For interviewees and survey respondents where revenue generation was a key business goal, the impact of productivity and time efficiencies on revenue was tangible with Adobe Acrobat Studio. For example, better content creation quality was cited as a key contributor to revenue gains by 62% of Acrobat Studio user survey respondents. The senior project manager at a conglomerate shared that among sales teams, users expedited customer presentation creation by collating customer information, contracts, and email information through Acrobat AI Assistant and PDF Spaces while leveraging Adobe Express for visuals. Salespeople were able to respond faster to customer demand with these presentations, accelerating timelines for closing on opportunities. © 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
“We consolidated two [document workflow solutions] for management purposes. It was easier to manage one contract, and at an enterprise level with Adobe, we got a better picture of who was using the tools so we could appropriately scale our spend.” — Chief information officer, public sector © 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. As nondesigners could iterate on templates to make content with Adobe Express, third-party resources often brought in for support were reallocated to other projects that needed help. In addition, organizations no longer had to pay for licensing non-Adobe creative tools for nondesigners to build content since they could lean on Adobe Express. $193K three-year benefit PV Annual content creation cost savings seen by 78% of surveyed Adobe Express users $30K+
Accelerated Turnaround Of Document And Content Reviews Over half of survey respondents (54%) used Acrobat AI Assistant for reviewing and comparing documents. According to interviewees, documents reviewed included contracts or policies that contained required language. To ensure that language was properly carried over to their in-progress document, they shared past versions or similar files with AI Assistant and asked it to compare them. If there were any inconsistencies in language, such as missing words or alterations between versions, AI Assistant automatically flagged that for users. These insights helped users accelerate the finalization, distribution, and sign-off of documents. Document and content review time savings with Acrobat Studio 70% to 80% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. $164K three-year benefit PV
Streamlined collection of e-signatures • 69% of survey respondents agreed they improved their ability to collect e-signatures More connected workflows enhancing employee collaboration Increased trust in AI insights and comprehension of documents • 64% of respondents trusted insights from AI Assistant • 67% of respondents cited a greater level of insights from documents as a factor helping influence revenue growth Additional Benefits And Flexibility Enabled By Adobe Acrobat Studio Enterprise control and security in protecting documents Additional benefits that interviewees and respondents’ organizations experienced but were not able to fully quantify include: © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
. 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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