Adobe shares slumped lower in early Thursday trading following a host of price target changes on Wall Street following the web-design and graphics software group's end-of-year earnings and fiscal 2025 outlook.

Adobe  (ADBE)  has been of the tech market's biggest underperformers this year, falling around 13.2% over the past 12 months as it struggled to monetize its ambitions to infuse AI technologies across its broad software suite.

That said, the group's backlog, including unbilled revenue — known by analysts and investors as remaining performance obligations — rose to just under $20 billion at the close of its 2024 fiscal year, which ended in September.

The tally suggests that while monetization has been elusive, its creative offerings have generated strong interest from clients in what is becoming and increasingly competitive marketplace.

"Twenty-twenty-four was also a transformative year of product innovation, where we delivered foundational technology platforms," CEO Shantanu Narayen told investors on a conference call late Wednesday.

Adobe: AI demand vs. AI monetization

"We introduced multiple generative AI models in the Adobe Firefly family, including Imaging, Vector, Design, and most recently, Video," he added.

"Adobe now has a comprehensive set of generative AI models designed to be commercially safe for creative content, offering unprecedented levels of output quality and user control in our applications."

The group's fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings were solid, rising 13% from a year earlier to $4.81 a share and topping Wall Street forecasts. Revenue rose 11% to a Wall-Street-beating $5.61 billion.

Digital media, a division focused on content creation and document management, saw revenue rise 12% to $4.15 billion. Digital experiences, which centers on digital marketing, generated revenue of $1.4 billion.

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Looking into the coming fiscal year, however, Adobe sees overall sales in the region of $23.3 billion to $23.55 billion, a forecast that missed analysts' targets.

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria lowered his price target on the group by $60 to $625 a share. He said Adobe's outlook for revenue growth was conservative, "given the various growth levers the company has to monetize the value provided to enterprises and proliferate freemium offerings.

"Management provided positive AI commentary but noted that AI monetization is still early and ongoing," Luria said. "We continue to believe Adobe is well positioned to monetize its growing portfolio of generative-AI-enabled offerings while maintaining best-in-class margins."