Semrush is a Boston-based SEO and brand visibility platform that gives marketing and PR teams data on how brands appear in search engines and AI answers. Adobe agreed on November 19, 2025 to acquire it for about $1.9 billion in cash, or $12.00 per share, and completed the purchase on April 28, 2026. Adobe says Semrush has more than 28 million users, and Bill Wagner is its chief executive.
Last updated: October 29, 2026
What are the key facts about Semrush and the Adobe deal?
Semrush is a 17-year-old marketing software company that is now owned by Adobe. The table lists the core facts, taken from Adobe's April 28, 2026 completion announcement and the November 19, 2025 deal announcement posted by Semrush.
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|
| Company | Semrush Holdings, Inc., now an Adobe company |
| U.S. headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Chief executive | Bill Wagner |
| Age | More than 17 years, according to Semrush's CEO |
| Users | More than 28 million globally, according to Adobe |
| Deal announced | November 19, 2025 |
| Deal price | $12.00 per share in cash, about $1.9 billion in equity value |
| Deal completed | April 28, 2026 |
| Products Adobe cites | Search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) and agentic search optimization (ASO) |
| Semrush adviser | Centerview Partners (financial), Davis Polk (legal) |
How much did Adobe pay for Semrush, and why?
Adobe paid $12.00 per share in cash, a total equity value of about $1.9 billion, because it wants brand visibility products that cover both search engines and AI assistants. Daily Research News reported that the price compared with a closing price of $6.89 the day before the announcement, which is a premium of about 74 percent.
Semrush's founders and other stockholders holding more than 75 percent of its voting power committed to vote for the deal on the day it was announced. Bloomberg reported that it is Adobe's third-largest acquisition, after Marketo at about $4.75 billion in 2018 and Macromedia at about $3.4 billion in 2005.
Anil Chakravarthy, president of Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration business, said in the completion announcement that marketers who do not optimize for AI-driven discovery risk becoming invisible. Adobe cited its own data showing AI traffic to U.S. retail sites rose 269 percent year over year in March 2026.
What does Semrush sell for AI visibility?
Semrush sells software that measures how a brand appears across search and AI answers, and Adobe describes its products as covering SEO, GEO and agentic search optimization. Adobe's description of Semrush also lists content marketing, paid media and social strategy among the areas its data supports.
Adobe says it will connect Semrush's data with Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe LLM Optimizer, Adobe Commerce, Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Brand Concierge. Bill Wagner, Semrush's chief executive, said the combined company aims to build the definitive platform for brand visibility in an AI-driven market. EPR covers how Semrush, Ahrefs and Conductor responded to the funded startups in its SEO incumbents analysis.
How does the Semrush price compare with Profound's valuation?
The $1.9 billion Adobe agreed to pay for Semrush is within about $100 million of the $1.8 billion valuation Profound reached in its September 15, 2026 Series D. The two figures measure different things, since one is the equity value of a public company and the other is a private post-money valuation, but the comparison shows how the market prices the two routes into AI visibility.
| Company | Route into AI visibility | Value or funding | Date |
|---|
| Semrush | 17-year-old SEO platform adding GEO, acquired by Adobe | About $1.9 billion equity value | Completed April 28, 2026 |
| Profound profile | Venture-backed AI visibility platform founded in 2024 | $1.8 billion valuation, $334.5 million raised | Series D, September 15, 2026 |
| Bluefish profile | Agentic marketing platform for Fortune 500 brands | $68 million raised | Series B, April 14, 2026 |
| Brandlight profile | Enterprise AI visibility program | About $36 million raised | Series A, February 11, 2026 |
| Peec AI profile | Self-serve AI analytics for mid-market teams and agencies | About $29 million raised | Series A, November 2025 |
In EPR's reading, the Adobe deal sets a ceiling for what an incumbent will pay for an established data business with a GEO product, and Profound's valuation shows investors pricing a two-year-old company at nearly the same level. The full funding map is in EPR's Capital Behind AI Communications tracker.
What should PR and communications teams do with this news?
PR and communications teams should find out whether their company already pays for Semrush and whether its AI visibility reports are shared beyond the SEO team. Adobe says Semrush customers can expect continued investment and an expanded product roadmap as the two companies integrate, so teams should ask for roadmap and pricing terms in writing before renewal.
- Ask the SEO or marketing lead which AI visibility reports the company already receives, and request them.
- Record a fixed set of buyer questions and the answers from each AI assistant with the date, so your baseline does not depend on one vendor.
- List the third-party articles and pages those answers cite, and compare them with your earned media list.
- Pitch or correct the sources that appear most often. A KDD 2024 paper by researchers at Princeton, Georgia Tech and IIT Delhi found that adding citations, statistics and quotations could raise visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40 percent, with results that varied by subject area.
EPR's AI visibility audit method explains how to run and record the question set.
