New Research on the Region

  • April 2025 (Revised April 2025)
  • Case

Adobe: GenAI Opportunity or Threat?

By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Allison Ciechanover

In December 2022, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen faced a pivotal strategic decision due to the rapid rise of generative AI image models from OpenAI, Midjourney, and StabilityAI. Adobe, a leader in digital media and marketing software with a 40-year legacy of innovation and successful adaptation recognized GenAI as both an opportunity and a threat to its core business. Many creative professionals, a critical Adobe customer segment, expressed deep concerns over GenAI models trained through data mined from the Internet, raising ethical and trust-related issues. The case explores Narayen and his leadership team’s deliberations: Should Adobe partner with or acquire an existing player, or build its own GenAI model? If Adobe chose to build, how might it responsibly train the model to protect its trusted relationship with enterprise and creative professional customers, while keeping its leadership position in the industry?

  • April 2025
  • Case

Salesforce Agentforce: The Limitless Workforce

By: Suraj Srinivasan, George Gonzalez and Allison Ciechanover

As Cloud CRM leader Salesforce introduces GenAI agents, they grapple with new pricing strategies and organizational shifts.

  • March 2025
  • Case

Primetime Partners: Investing in Healthspan, Wealthspan, and Workspan

By: Rembrand Koning, Nicole Tempest Keller and Susan Wilner Golden

In the fall of 2024, Abby Miller Levy (HBS ’01), co-founder and managing partner of Primetime Partners, was preparing to raise a second fund. Founded in 2020 with veteran investor Alan Patricof, Primetime was a horizontal fund focused on early-stage companies serving older adults, the fast-growing segment of the population. There were 62 million people aged 65+ in the US, controlling the majority of net worth. This demographic shift created business opportunities centered on healthspan, wealthspan, and workspan. Primetime’s $50 million Fund 1, invested in 36 startups, many of which showed strong traction, culminating in a 15% IRR. As investor interest in the longevity market increased and competition intensified, Miller Levy faced the challenge of refining Primetime’s investment thesis to guide its new $60 million Fund II. With five new potential investments under consideration, she needed to determine what types of deals would drive the best returns.

  • January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
  • Case

Duolingo: On a 'Streak'

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Nicole Tempest Keller and Nicole Luo

In December 2024, Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duolingo, reflected on the remarkable evolution of the language-learning app he helped launch in 2011. As the #1 most downloaded education app in the world, Duolingo had over 100 million monthly active users, 8 million paid subscribers, and a market cap approaching $15 billion in late 2024. The company’s success stemmed from its gamified approach to learning, its use of adaptive AI technology, and its alignment of incentives: maintaining a streak on the app not only helped users master a language but also drove subscription growth and reduced costs for Duolingo. To date, Duolingo had focused almost exclusively on language learning with an estimated market size of $17 billion in 2020. As a technology-first company, Duolingo recognized the enormous potential of Gen AI to power innovative products, such as conversational language practice. However, Hacker envisioned an even broader future in which AI could transform the app into a comprehensive AI-powered educational ecosystem that covered many subjects beyond language, allowing the company to tap into the $56 billion ed-tech market. The company had recently started to explore this direction by adding new subjects, such as math and music. This product line diversification raised several strategic questions: Did Duolingo have the brand license to extend into adjacent subjects? Which areas were the best fit for the app’s growth, and how quickly should they roll out? And what were the long-term benefits and risks to new subjects within the flagship app?

  • January 2025
  • Case

Ontra: Embracing GenAI in the Legal Technology Industry

By: Christopher Stanton and George Gonzalez

Ontra built a network of legal professionals to enable financial institutions to outsource contract negotiations. The rise of generative AI inspired the company to build software solutions to streamline its processes through automation. Now company leadership must navigate the challenges involved with building out a technical team, developing an AI strategy, and transforming its culture to become a successful software company.

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California Research Center Team

Allison Ciechanover
Executive Director
→ Biography
George Gonzalez
Senior Researcher
Matt Higgins
Senior Researcher
Jeffrey Huizinga
Assistant Director
Nicole Keller
Assistant Director
Don Maruyama
Research Associate