Adobe and Microsoft have announced the next step in their years-long strategic partnership, as the companies look to reinvent the future of work in a bid to help employees and businesses thrive in the ever-changing hybrid world.

The new joint venture builds on years of Adobe and Microsoft collaborating on a common vision of the future workplace and transforming digital experiences. It is centred on further embedding Adobe's PDF, e-signature and document automation capabilities in Microsoft 365.

"As we enter a new chapter — the biggest transformation in how we work since World War II — it is critical to give employees modern tools to collaborate seamlessly, no matter where the team is or what device they are using," Adobe says.

"In this new environment, where documents are the currency of business, businesses must adapt to deliver against customer and employee demand for digital-first everything," it says.

"We're really excited about finding unique ways to further integrate Adobe and Microsoft's core productivity tools to unlock endless possibilities that come with the burdens of ineffective collaboration in the modern workplace."

Ashley Still, senior vice president and general manager of Digital Media at Adobe, says of the venture, “I am thrilled to deepen our partnership with Microsoft to reimagine a modern, secure, and connected workplace that helps employees thrive.

 “These deep product integrations allow people to do their best work by connecting the apps they use daily — from negotiating and signing a contract from within Microsoft Teams, Outlook or SharePoint, review PDFs on a mobile device with Liquid Mode in Microsoft Edge and more," Still says.

Remote and hybrid work have ushered in new opportunities for digital collaboration and streamlined productivity. According to recent Adobe research, “The Future of Time — an Adobe Report,” a third of the workweek is spent on unimportant tasks, and a vast majority of enterprise workers (86 percent) and small business leaders (83 percent) report that unimportant tasks like managing files and business documents get in the way of doing their jobs effectively.

As a result, half are working longer than they'd like. And at Microsoft, the company examined employee's technology usage and found the average workweek increased 10 percent after the shift to remote work.

“Our deeper collaboration has never been more important as companies become digital-first workplaces and pioneer new ways of working,” says Jared Spataro, corporate vice president, Microsoft.

“We're expanding our partnership with Adobe to solve the productivity paradox and make digital work and life as creative, collaborative, and efficient as possible," he says.

"Millions of joint Adobe and Microsoft customers will have easy access to the best digital document experiences wherever they are, changing the game for modern productivity and the future of work.