Adobe Ends AnimateAbandoning Millions Of Artists Amid AI Push

For more than a quarter centuryAdobe Animateformerly known as Flashhas been a giant of 2D animation production. It facilitated TV seriesindie shortsadvertising campaignseducational mediaweb animationand gaming. Countless animators were introduced totrained onand made their living using the software. It underpinned pipelines at studios of all sizes around the world.

NowAdobe is drowning that legacy in gasoline and putting a match to itabandoning millions of artists in the process by sunsetting the software and going all in on AI. (It looks like there were approximately 3 million animate CC users as recently as October 2023and over 30 million Creative Cloud users in 2025)

The company announced on MondayFebruary 2that Adobe Animate will be discontinued effective March 1with limited support extending only until 2027 for individual users and 2029 for enterprise customers. After thataccess to the software andcriticallyto project data in its native environment will come to an ignominious end.

This is not a routine product sunset. It is an industry-shaking event with immediate consequences for ongoing productions and long-term implications for the future of 2D animationespecially as Adobe and other software giants increasingly pivot toward AI-driven tools and services.

OvernightCartoon Brew was flooded with emails and DMs from artiststechsdirectorsand producers reacting with angerdisbeliefand anxiety. The message was consistent and concisely summed up by one email that put it bluntly: “Fuck Adobeand fuck AI.”

From FutureSplash to Flash to Animate

Adobe Animate has been around for a long timeeven if the name hasn’t. The software started life as FutureSplash Animator in 1996built by a small company called FutureWave to create lightweight animation and interactive content for the web. A year laterFutureWave was bought by Macromediathe software was renamed Flashand animation on the internet changed almost overnight.

Flash took off because it was fastsmalland easy to shareat a time when internet access could still be cut off if your sister picked up the phone. Macromedia also made Flash Player free. That decision helped turn Flash into one of the most omnipresent tools for both production and distribution of early internet animation. For many animatorsit was the first software they ever used.

As Flash evolvedit also legitimized itself. Studios began using it for television productionincluding shows like My Little Pony: Friendship Is MagicTotal DramaMetalocalypseand El Tigre. It proved that a tool born online could scale up to real-world production demands. The Wikipedia page listing Flash/Animate productions is a testament to the software’s incredible legacy.

After Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005Flash eventually became Adobe Animate. Even after the Flash Player disappearedthe software itself remained a workhorsepowering productions long after the early internet crowd had moved on.

Not a Routine Product Sunset

Adobe’s Animate shutdown is not a product updateretirementor consolidation. The company is pulling the plug on a widely usedproduction-critical tool without offering a suitable professional replacementa credible migration pathor any apparent concern for the projects or people still dependent on it.

According to Adobe’s releaseAnimate will stop being sold and supported on March 1. Support will linger briefly after thatpresumably handled largely by automated processesbut these details feel more like a countdown than a safety net. Once support endsaccess to Animate project files in their native environment also ends. Adobe explicitly urges users to export their work before that happens.

That detail has set off alarm bells across the industry and has many artists on edge.

Animate projects are not static assets. They are complex environments that integrate timelinesbespoke symbolsreusable librariesscriptsexport presetsand countless other factorsoften built and refined over years or decades. Exporting files does not preserve that larger environment. This is more than just a case of going out and buying another wrench. The entire toolshed is being demolished.

Unconvincing Alternatives

In its end-of-life noticeAdobe points users toward other products in its ecosystemmost notably After Effects and Adobe Expressas potential alternatives. Among our readersat least those who have reached outthat guidance has been met with widespread skepticism.

After Effects is primarily a compositing and motion graphics tooland while it includes features such as Puppet tools and procedural animationmany argue it was never designed for sustained frame-by-frame character animationasset-heavy productionor long-running workflows. Tasks that are relatively lightweight in Animate can quickly become cumbersome in After Effects.

Adobe Expressmeanwhileis a minimalist design platform aimed at quick turnaround social media and marketing use cases. Artists and studio leads have told us plainly that it cannot meaningfully replace the professional 2D animation environment Animate provides.

The recurring concern voiced by professionals is not simply that Animate is being discontinuedbut that there is no clearlike-for-like replacement within Adobe’s portfolio that can do what Animate does.

Perhaps more important than which tools can replace Animate is why artists should trust Adobe going forward. The company already sent waves of artists packing when it shifted to a subscription-based modelwhile many others have stuck with now-outdated perpetual-license versions rather than migrate to Creative Cloud. For manythe Animate shutdown reinforces a sense that Adobe’s business priorities no longer jive with the community that has long depended on its tools.

All of this is before even getting into the baseline issues many artists have with AI-heavy toolsetswhich appear to be the direction Adobe is heading.

Uncertainty For Ongoing Productions

For studios of all shapes and sizesthe implications of this shutdown are immediate and profound. Animation takes a long time to produceand Adobe is not offering a particularly generous runway to adapt ongoing productions.

Anything currently in development or mid-season must now factor Animate’s end-of-support timeline into their planning. Even with Adobe’s tiered shutdown scheduleour readers are feeling like the rug has been pulled out from beneath them. Pipelines that were expected to remain viable for a show’s lifespan now have an expiration date.

Migrating away from Animate is far from straightforward. Studio leads are now having to plan to retrain artistsadapt or rebuild rigsconvert large asset librariesand rethink export and delivery workflows. Several artists told us they expect to lose the ability to revise older material without significant additional work.

The challenges are particularly brutal for small-scale studios and independent productions. Budgets and schedules are typically built around existing tools with very little margin for disruption. Being forced to move away from Animate creates a logistical nightmare for work already being created on razor-thin margins.

AI Looms Large

Many artists view Animate’s discontinuation as part of Adobe’s growing emphasis on AI-driven tools. Dozens of articles have been published in the last 12 hoursand social media is being flooded with posts from artists mourning another casualty of artificial intelligence.

Over the past several yearsAdobe has invested heavily in generative and assistive AI technologies designed to automate or accelerate production processes. For many artistsAnimate represents a more traditional and preferred approachbuilt around human-ledframe-by-frame craft and direct artistic control.

The concern voiced by artists is not simply that one piece of software is disappearingbut that its removal signals which creative workflows will be prioritized going forward.

Calls For Preservation

In response to Adobe’s announcementpetitions have been launched in hopes that Adobe will make Animate open-sourcerelease specificationsor provide tools that would allow long-term access to existing projects.

The suggestion is that if Adobe no longer intends to develop Animatethe broader community could maintain Animateor something comparable to and compatible with it. Blender is open-source and has become one of the most widely used and best-supported animation tools in the world. Many artists see no reason why a similar community effort could not keep Animate viable for years to come.

So farAdobe has given no indication that it plans to pursue this option. And from a business standpointit is not hard to see why. There is no obvious financial incentive to allow another open-source competitor to its future tool setsand the company’s leadershipits current leadership anywayis not exactly known for prioritizing goodwill over growth.

Human Impact

Beyond software logisticsartists online and those speaking directly to us have emphasized the human impact of Animate’s shutdown.

Careers have been built around the tool. Studios have hired and trained staff with Animate-specific expertise. Schools and educators have relied on it to teach animation fundamentals. Entire generations entered the industry from their family PC through Flash and continued working in Animate long after the web moved on.

For many of those artistsAnimate’s shutdown feels like a collapse of viable professional pathwaysparticularly at a time when the animation industry is already under economic pressure and facing widespread job insecurity.

A Turning Point

Whether Adobe intended it or notthe end of Animate marks a significant turning point for animation production of nearly all sizes and scales.

Studios are now being forced to reassess long-term pipelines. Artists must weigh whether to retrainswitch toolsor leave certain kinds of work altogether. The industry as a whole is being reminded how fragile creative infrastructure can be when it is owned and controlled by large software companies with shifting priorities.