Dive Brief:
- After nearly eight years at Airbnb, Lucius DiPhillips joined Adobe on Tuesday to serve as its CIO, the company said. DiPhillips previously held leadership roles at eBay, PayPal and Bank of America.
- As CIO, DiPhillips will be tasked with leading Adobe’s global technology services team, focusing on digital transformation and strengthening the technology foundation, the company said.
- DiPhillips will report to Daniel Durn, CFO and EVP of finance, technology, security and operations at Adobe, the company told CIO Dive. “His vision will be instrumental as we continue to scale and innovate in the era of AI,” Durn said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
The tech leadership appointment at Adobe follows the departure of CIO Cynthia Stoddard, who left the company in August after nearly a decade with the software provider. Stoddard is now SVP and CIO at Intel effective Dec. 1, 2025.
In making their CIO announcements, both companies cited AI as a strategic priority. At Intel, Stoddard has been tasked with pushing forward internal AI-enabled IT transformation, while DiPhillips will work on infrastructure initiatives as the company looks to scale AI efforts.
One day after introducing its new CIO, Adobe unveiled a slate of new features to its Acrobat Studio platform for PDF tools and document management. Automatic podcast-like summaries, additional collaboration capabilities and chat-based PDF editing tools were included in the Wednesday launch.
During the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call in December, Durn reported that Adobe’s “AI-influenced [annual recurring revenue] now exceeds one-third of our overall book of business, as we integrate AI deeply into our solutions and continue to launch new AI-first offerings.”
Adobe is not alone in its pursuit of enterprise AI spend as businesses evaluate the crowded provider field. Tech titans stacked their portfolios with AI capabilities last year, from Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 platform and ServiceNow’s AI Agent Orchestrator to hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Google building out their enterprise offerings.
Global AI spending will reach $2.52 trillion this year, surging 44% year over year, according to a projection published last week by Gartner. AI agents are spreading throughout software suites, helping contribute to the spending frenzy.
