Adobe ANZ MD Katrina Troughton: It’s not about AI, it’s about better marketing

If you had a dollar for every time someone called AI "scary," you'd be swimming in cash. Katrina Troughton, ANZ Managing Director of Adobe, sees it differently. Speaking at the Adobe Summit 2025 in Las Vegas (March 18–20), she described AI as "exciting" and "inspiring," a technology unlocking creative and marketing possibilities previously unimaginable at scale.

Bridging the marketer-tech gap
Troughton highlighted how AI, increasingly woven into Adobe's products, bridges the gap between marketers' ambitions and execution. "In this world of AI, there's so much opportunity to connect what marketers want to do with the tools that turn intent into reality," she said. "The agents we've been talking about this week execute key tasks without marketers needing to grasp the underlying tech." She's referring to Adobe's "agentic AI," a step beyond traditional generative AI, where autonomous agents handle complex workflows based on goals.

What Is Agentic AI?
Unlike standard large language models or generative AI (which create content like text or images), agentic AI acts independently. Built on Adobe's Sensei platform, it understands context—enterprise data, customer journeys, brand guidelines—makes decisions, executes tasks, and learns from results to improve. At Summit, Adobe showcased this through tools like the Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, which builds and manages AI agents across Adobe and third-party systems, and Brand Concierge, a real-time, multichannel AI assistant personalizing customer interactions using first-party data.

Simplifying complexity for marketers
For Troughton, agentic AI is a game-changer because it tackles the complex tasks marketers envision but struggle to implement. "Marketers aren't usually technologists," she noted. "AI acts as a connector, cutting through for those who don't want to dive into the tech," in much the same way most of us use smartphones without understanding how they work. Yet, she sees a shift: "There's a rising number of marketers with tech skills, and it's becoming fundamental to the role."

A toolbox for every challenge
Summit 2025 was a showcase of Adobe's innovation, with new products, capabilities, and tech galore. Troughton framed it as a toolbox for marketers. "It's about understanding where the opportunity lies," she said. "Every customer has a challenge with the content supply chain—the process of planning, creating, managing, distributing, and measuring digital content. Sometimes it's creation, sometimes publishing, sometimes reuse. We offer solutions across the board."

ANZ customers push the edge
Adobe serves a diverse ANZ customer base with varying maturity levels, but Troughton sees strong interest in bleeding-edge AI. She pointed to Summit 2025 highlight Auckland Airport as a standout. Using Adobe Experience Cloud and Journey Optimizer, the airport orchestrates omnichannel messaging from real-time data including parking bookings, e-commerce, and more. The results? A 72% jump in automation revenue, 40% faster email production, and a 5x transaction boost.

AI makes the impossible possible
Troughton's optimism shines through. "The acceleration in AI innovation is helping customers drive value faster and simplify their goals," she said. "And that's upside across the board." For her, it's not about AI for AI's sake—it's about empowering marketers to do better, faster, and at scale. And as a result, when AI handles the heavy lifting, the impossible becomes reality.