Acrobat desktop: what's new in October 2026 and recent releases
Adobe Express AI Assistant in Acrobat, chat-based PDF editing and PDF Spaces updates

1 October 2026

Adobe has updated its what’s-new page for Acrobat desktop (last updated 13 October 2026). The company notes that some features are rolling out in phases and may not be available to everyone yet.

October 2026

Create visual assets from your documents. Turn document content into flyers, social posts, newsletters and other visual assets with Adobe Express AI Assistant. Designs are generated from the source material, and the selected design can be refined through conversational requests before sharing or downloading. Learn more

August 2026

Customize the PDF Spaces experience with Overview: arrange content, edit generated text and audio summaries, and adjust the presentation with themes, thumbnails and supporting content. Learn more
Edit and format PDF text with chat. Natural-language prompts rewrite, replace, format or highlight text; AI Assistant identifies the relevant text and supports changes across matching content before edits are applied. Learn more
Redact sensitive information with AI: Acrobat suggests information to remove, reducing the manual effort of reviewing and applying redactions. Learn more
Stylize PDFs with Adobe Express templates inside Acrobat: a styled version of the document is generated and can be refined further in Adobe Express before sharing or export. Learn more

June 2026

A mini podcast player keeps audio running when you switch between files, with playback and volume controls.
Translate PDFs from Acrobat Reader: when the app language differs from the document language, Reader prompts a translation, saving the file to Adobe cloud storage and opening it in Adobe Express.
AI prompts for common PDF tasks in the Acrobat Search tool and the AI Assistant floating bar.
A step-by-step guide for setting up a PDF Space, selecting files and arranging content.
Themes, thumbnails and custom images for PDF Spaces.
MathML support for LaTex tagged PDFs, so NVDA users hear equations and formulas read aloud accurately.

April 2026

Edit PDFs using chat: reorganise pages, add headers or footers and apply watermarks via natural-language requests.
Track when recipients view a shared PDF Space, and add comments for reviews and follow-ups.
Guided onboarding and action cards for PDF Spaces.
Generate presentations in Japanese and Italian, in addition to English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.
More accurate form field detection in Fill & Sign.

Previous releases

More recent files with clearer details in the Acrobat Studio Home view; updated keyboard navigation and screen reader announcements.
Keyboard access to podcasts, including the F6 focus cycle.
A generative summary banner with a 60–70-word overview for files longer than three pages.
Presentation creation on Acrobat desktop, and presentations in German, Portuguese and Spanish.
Creating a PDF Space when combining files instead of merging them into one PDF.
Podcasts generated from a PDF and audio summaries of long reports in a PDF Space.
Smart Assistance for Acrobat free and Reader users.
Organising and editing PDFs in ChatGPT: merging files, extracting data from scans, compressing and editing.
Generate presentation for Acrobat Pro, Standard, Trial, free and Reader users; enterprise access requires the AI Assistant add-on.
Image editing with Adobe Express in Acrobat Reader on macOS.
Tool-based AI Assistant actions for teams and enterprise users.
Suggested questions and prompt ideas in the AI Assistant panel.
PDF Spaces in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
Display scale preference remembered across screens.
PDF Spaces enhancements: rename spaces, compact source file view, uploads during AI chats, folders from Adobe cloud storage and SharePoint connection.
AI-powered suggested highlights based on reading behaviour.

A summary of updates and fixed issues is published in the release notes.