How should Adobe defend Experience Cloud if Figma launches a similar product

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Adobe is a creative, document, and marketing software company; its products include Creative Cloud, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Adobe Express, Firefly, and Experience Cloud. Figma is a collaborative design platform; its products include interface design, prototyping, FigJam, design systems, Dev Mode, comments, and handoff workflows.

Adobe Experience Cloud serves enterprise marketing teams and agencies that manage campaigns, content, customer journeys, analytics, personalization, and marketing operations across multiple clients and channels. Imagine Figma, with its strong collaborative design footprint and agency adoption, launches a competing product aimed at connecting creative collaboration with marketing execution and client-facing workflows.

Your task is to frame how Adobe should defend Experience Cloud in this scenario. Focus on the strategic decision Adobe must make: where to compete, how to protect its agency and enterprise customer base, which assets to leverage, and which trade-offs matter if Figma begins moving from design collaboration into marketing technology.

Consider the broader environment around creative tools, document workflows, generative AI, enterprise marketing platforms, and agency-client collaboration. The response should assess Adobe’s right to win, potential competitive threats, customer switching dynamics, partnership or bundling opportunities, and risks of overreacting versus underinvesting.

The experience should consider:

- Which agency and enterprise customer segments are most exposed to a Figma-led alternative

- What workflows Figma could credibly attack, such as collaboration, approvals, asset handoff, campaign planning, or client review

- Adobe’s defensible strengths across Experience Cloud, Creative Cloud, analytics, data, trust, enterprise relationships, and AI governance

- Strategic options available to Adobe, including product investment, packaging, pricing, partnerships, ecosystem moves, or go-to-market changes

- Trade-offs between defending core enterprise marketing workflows and simplifying for smaller or more design-led agency teams

- Key risks, such as customer migration, channel conflict, product complexity, AI commoditization, or erosion of creative workflow ownership

- Decision gates and signals Adobe should monitor to determine whether Figma’s move is a serious platform threat or a narrower feature-level challenge

The goal is to present a clear strategic recommendation framework for Adobe, grounded in customer needs and competitive dynamics, without jumping directly to feature ideas. Your answer should show how you would evaluate the threat, choose a defensible position, and define what success would look like for Adobe in protecting and expanding Experience Cloud.