By: Gerrit Smit
Gerrit Smit is Head of Equity Management. He manages the Stonehage Fleming Global Best Ideas Equity Fund.
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We thought it'd be useful just to spend a few more minutes going into a bit more
depth, perhaps on, on one of the, perhaps the best position companies, uh,
in terms of what they've been doing, uh,
over the last few years of developing their AI capability, uh,
and the potential it has to really strengthen their competitive edge. Uh, Adobe,
as I'm sure you all know,
is the world's leading creative software and document management software, uh,
provider. Uh, and actually the fact is they've been talking about ai, uh,
for a very long time. And I can remember when we actually,
before we first bought it, uh, we spent a lots of time talking about, uh,
a product they have called Sensei, uh, or a unit they have called Sensei,
which is their machine learning, big data, AI pool, uh,
which they've been investing in and, and developing for, for over a decade.
And the fact is actually,
they've actually been deploying AI tools to their customers without 'em really
being aware of it for, for a number of years. Now,
if you're a creative Cloud user through Photoshop, it's been making suggestions,
giving you ideas, uh, inspirational tips and such,
all of which really has been AI generated and is kind of gone under the radar
of, of many, uh, investors. Um,
they're deploying it now, uh,
with much more high profile and a lot more attention. Uh,
really they've been developing the concept of the co-pilot AI as the
co-pilot. Uh, you may have heard Bill Gates also talking about that, uh,
for particularly really, uh, humans interacting with AI to,
to get the best out of the product and to democratize the products,
and which ultimately has the benefits of,
of significantly increasing the addressable market that you can get those
products and those software, uh, tools out to and being used.
Um, in terms of generative AI specifically,
which is perhaps the hot topic of AI at the moment, uh, is interestingly,
uh, Adobe actually did a demo last year, uh, long before Microsoft, uh,
raised everyone's attention to generative AI this year, um,
where they went through their capabilities and, uh,
it's a very sophisticated tool. Uh, you can, uh,
play around with images and video and, and it's, it's a very, uh,
comprehensive tool as well that really is now considered to be sort of the
industry leading product. Uh, then earlier this year, they've,
they've branded this, uh, particular product is Adobe Firefly, uh,
and they really have plans to integrate it and develop it across their full
suite of products, across all divisions, um,
and really have AI as a core of their offering,
which I think not many actually companies have,
but we've seen quite a lot of technology companies scramble to have some sort of
product out there on the market, whereas Adobe, uh,
really has it embedded in their core offering of their own, uh,
technology that they've developed themselves in-house. One of the real, uh,
key advantages that Adobe has, uh,
that its competitors are currently lacking is they've got the intellectual
property rights to their content. Um, so when you generate an image,
you can be safe, uh,
and comfortable in the knowledge that you are not going to have a lawyer
knocking on your door saying, uh, sorry,
you can't use that image of Mickey Mouse in your presentation. Uh,
and that is a real competitive edge. Adobe has one of the best stocks of,
of content and, and images in the world, um,
and is really partnered with the content creators out there around the world,
uh, and that gives them a tremendous competitive edge. Uh,
so what does all this mean for us as the investors of, of, uh, Adobe?
Uh, as I said, right at the start,
I didn't address it significantly increases the addressable market. Uh,
you know, then you and I as,
as perhaps maybe not be digital savvy content creators will soon be able
to just go into an image and tell, uh, the software what to do.
But we can already do it by typing, uh, but we'll already interact with,
with the software and, and, and develop our own AI generated images.
Um,
it also provides tremendous upselling and pricing power opportunities for Adobe,
which should continue their strong and attractive growth trajectory.
But as I said, again, at the start, the most important thing that it does,
it really reinforces and strengthens the strategic competitive edge of Adobe,
uh, which is, you know, the most advanced,
most innovative creative software company out there, uh,
with a very attractive and resilient recurring subscription based revenues.