Acrobat Pro's comprehensive PDF features show why it's still the editor against which all others are judged. Editor's note: This review was updated December 9, 2024 to reflect the addition of AI Assistant and current pricing. Adobe created the PDF two decades ago and its PDF editor has continued to rule the category, despite what many users felt was its exorbitant price. But a couple of years back, Acrobat adopted a cloud subscription model that now makes it more affordable for folks without an enterprise budget. Acrobat Pro is composed of three components: Acrobat, which allows you to perform a variety of editing functions on your PDFs on desktop and mobile devices; Adobe Document Cloud, which lets you create and export PDF files, as well as store and send files and collect electronic signatures; and Acrobat Reader, which enables you to read, print, and sign PDFs.

I've written in the past how adopting e-signatures--specifically Adobe Sign--was a game-changer for our businessbecause it saves time, reduces costs, and greatly boosts efficiency. It's a no-brainer that e-signatures are the way to go for businesses in the digital age, especially given the importance of documents in our everyday workflow. Just because our reliance on documents as business tools has been around for so long, doesn't mean our approach to handling them should be archaic. In fact, focusing on the customer experience starts with documents, and nobody knows that better than Adobe Document Cloud. Through an app that leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI), Adobe Scan now allows users to convert photos of documents to versatile, editable PDFs, eliminating the need for scanners altogether and revolutionizing document storage in the process.

While it may be unrealistic for all business processes to be paper-free at the moment, many processes can be improved once data and information are digitised. Some people feel more comfortable reading, approving, and signing printed documents, but things are gradually changing as more people find that digital documents are just as valid as printed documents. Technology now enables collaborative reviews, recorded approvals, and secure digital signing. Adobe Scan uses Adobe Sensei's artificial intelligence technology to identify the edges of pictures and documents, and to recognise printed text and convert it to editable text. With Adobe Document Cloud, it's easy to sync items between devices – whatever is snapped and scanned in the app can be edited and finalised on your laptop.

Last summer, Adobe researchers surveyed over 2,000 office employees and nine thought leaders on the evolving definition of work. Through this exercise, researches uncovered several interesting insights about the future of work, including the most effective "carrots" used to motivate employees. "Employers may be focusing too much on ping pong tables and free dry cleaning instead of technology that helps their employees feel valued and encouraged," says Jeff Vijungco, vice president of global talent at Adobe. To help them find fulfillment, "employers need to pay attention to productivity more than perks," he adds. Workspaces that encourage subconscious thought, smart coffee machines and conference rooms that remember what you like, virtual assistants that delight, flexible attendance policies, and performance-based rewards were at the top of the list, according to the study.

Ten thousand creatives and designers, have descended on San Diego for the annual pilgrimage that is Adobe Max, showcasing the 2017 updates to its all-powerful Creative Cloud suite of software. Principal among its announcements was Adobe Sensei, the company's latest foray into artificial intelligence that will work across all three of its clouds – Document, Marketing and Creative. According to Adobe, Sensei (the Japanese word for teacher) is a new framework and set of intelligent services for dramatically improving the design and delivery of digital experiences. Adobe Sensei's intelligent services tackle today's complex experience challenges – including image matching across millions of images, understanding the meaning and sentiment of documents and finely targeting important audience segments – leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning capabilities. This announcement builds upon the machine learning capabilities unveiled in Adobe Marketing Cloud at Adobe Summit in March.