Adobe completes Semrush deal to boost AI search tools

Adobe has completed its acquisition of Semrush, adding search and brand visibility tools to its customer experience business.

The transaction expands Adobe's reach across search engine optimisation, generative engine optimisation and agentic search optimisation as businesses adapt to AI-led discovery. Adobe is positioning Semrush within its broader push into customer experience orchestration, as marketers try to manage how brands appear across search engines, large language models and other AI interfaces.

Semrush will sit within Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration business, which has been broadening its focus beyond content creation and campaign management to include how consumers and software agents find and assess brands online. Adobe recently introduced Adobe CX Enterprise, which it describes as an end-to-end system spanning content supply chains, customer engagement and brand visibility.

Adobe argues the deal reflects a shift in how users reach commercial websites and digital services. It cited internal data showing that AI traffic to US retail sites rose 269% year on year in March, suggesting conversational interfaces are becoming part of the path to purchase. That shift has increased demand for tools that track and improve how brands appear in AI-generated answers as well as traditional search results.

Semrush brings a large installed base and a product suite built around search marketing, competitive intelligence and online visibility. Adobe plans to combine that discoverability data with products including Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe LLM Optimizer, Adobe Commerce, Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Brand Concierge.

Brand discovery

The transaction reflects a broader shift in digital marketing. Search engine optimisation has long been a standard discipline for brands seeking traffic from web search, but the spread of generative AI has created new concerns over whether a company's products, services and content are accurately represented in AI answers, recommendations and automated shopping journeys.

That has prompted software groups to develop new categories of tools around generative engine optimisation and agentic search optimisation. These products are designed to help brands understand where and how they are mentioned by AI systems, and to identify gaps between a company's owned content and the information surfaced to users through third-party platforms.

Adobe said the combined offering will serve customers ranging from small businesses to large enterprises. Semrush has built much of its reputation among marketing teams and agencies seeking search rankings, keyword data and competitor insights, while Adobe has focused more heavily on large organisations managing content, commerce and customer data at scale.

The deal gives Adobe an established foothold in a category that has grown in importance as customer acquisition patterns change. It also broadens the company's ability to sell into marketing departments that are being asked to account for brand visibility not only on their own websites and apps, but across external AI surfaces they do not directly control.

In a statement, Adobe linked the acquisition to concerns that brands may become less visible if they do not adapt their content and optimisation strategies to AI-led discovery. "The rules of brand discovery and commerce are being rewritten in real time, and marketers who aren't optimizing for that world today will find themselves invisible tomorrow," said Anil Chakravarthy, President of Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration Business.

He added: "Together with Semrush's leading SEO platform and agentic search intelligence, Adobe will empower our customers with an even more powerful solution: the full picture of how their brands show up to consumers, from discoverability in search engines and LLMs to content creation, customer engagement and conversion, all in one integrated system at scale."

Integration plans

Adobe said it will build on Semrush's customer adoption as it integrates the business into its existing portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Adobe said Semrush customers would continue to receive investment and a broader product roadmap as the two businesses are combined.

The message appears aimed at reassuring Semrush's existing users, many of whom rely on the platform as a standalone service for day-to-day search marketing work. Adobe must now show that bringing the company into a much larger software group will preserve the utility of those tools while also creating links with its own content, commerce and data products.

Semrush Chief Executive Officer Bill Wagner said the company viewed the combination as a way to expand its role in a changing market. "Semrush has spent more than 17 years helping marketers scale and grow - and that mission has never been more important than it is today," said Bill Wagner, Chief Executive Officer, Semrush.

He added: "By joining Adobe, we see an incredible opportunity to build the definitive platform for brand visibility in an AI-driven world, helping marketers ensure their brands are found, trusted and chosen at every touchpoint."

The integration comes as chief marketing officers face pressure to rethink digital strategy as more consumers rely on natural language tools for research and buying decisions. For software suppliers, that has created a new contest over who can provide the data and workflow tools that help brands stay visible as AI systems increasingly shape the path between a query and a transaction.

Semrush says its platform is used by more than 28 million users worldwide, from startups to large listed companies, giving Adobe a broad customer base in a segment closely tied to revenue generation. The challenge now is to turn that user base and data set into a tighter fit with Adobe's wider customer experience products, while persuading marketers that brand visibility in AI environments deserves the same attention once reserved for search rankings alone.