Creativity, not code, main driver India's future economy: Adobe CEO

Global tech major Adobe Systems' chief executive Shantanu Narayen on Thursday said creativity, and not software code, will be the main driver of India's economy in the future.

Speaking at the WAVES 2025 event here, the India-born executive also announced that the company will help over 2 crore Indians and 5 lakh teachers to get trained in digital creativity with partners by offering free access to its wares.

It can be noted that the over USD 250-billion IT sector has been a big contributor to the country's economic growth over the last few years.

AI will supercharge creativity and production by enhancing human imagination, offering new tools, perspectives and possibilities that people can explore ideas in ways never seen before, he said.

"Given the size and breadth of the creative opportunity that AI unlocks, it's fair to say that India's next growth as an economy will not be in software code but in creativity," he said.

He added that by training AI models on Indian cultural, linguistic and historical data, we have an opportunity to create "new forms of digital sovereignty".

"Models are the foundation and the important part of differentiation and a competitive advantage," he said.

India's global access to build teams globally and competitive products using LLMs (large language models), AI agents and low-code tools will give India's vast outsourcing industry the opportunity to evolve and create new AI-driven workflows as well as build AI agents, Narayen said.

India has the opportunity to lead through ethical AI on the global stage, the American company's chief executive said, adding AI will enable India to build on its leadership in mobile infrastructure and payments to imagine and foster new business models.

Startups can rapidly prototype, test and scale innovative solutions tailored to local and regional needs using AI, he said.

Today there are over 100 million content creators in India, and there has been a 10 per cent on year growth in freelance creators and small design studios over the last decade, he said.

Over 500 million Indians consume over the top content on their mobile phones, enabled by world-leading affordable mobile internet, he added.

Meanwhile, Adobe also announced a partnership with country's largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services to launch a new AI-powered Creative Experience Studio (ACES) for the India market, which will be aimed at businesses and public sector enterprises.