Adobe told customers on February 2 that Animate, the 2D animation program that began life as FutureSplash and became Flash, would stop being sold and supported from March 1. Individual users were given limited support until 2027 and enterprise customers until 2029, after which Adobe said access to the software, and to projects in its native format, would end. It advised everyone to export their work before then.
Cartoon Brew reported that artists, technical staff, directors and producers flooded it with angry messages overnight. Many read the decision as part of Adobe's broader shift toward generative and assistive AI, and saw a hand-drawn, frame-by-frame way of working being pushed aside to make room for automated tools.
The practical worries were specific. Animate files hold timelines, symbol libraries, scripts and export presets built up over years, and an export does not carry that working environment across. Adobe pointed users to After Effects and Adobe Express, but studio leads told the outlet that neither is built for sustained character animation or long-running series production. Shows in the middle of a season suddenly had to plan retraining, rebuilt rigs and converted asset libraries, and small independent studios were described as the most exposed.
The software's reach explains the reaction. It was used on television series such as My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Total Drama and Metalocalypse, and for many animators it was the first tool they ever learned. Macromedia bought it in 1997 and made its player free, which helped it define early web animation, and Adobe inherited it with Macromedia in 2005. The outlet cited estimates of roughly three million Animate users in 2023. Petitions quickly asked Adobe to open-source the program or publish its file specifications so the community could keep it going, pointing to Blender as a model, though Adobe gave no sign it would.
A day later Cartoon Brew reported that Adobe had walked the announcement back: Animate would stay available to new and existing subscribers in maintenance mode, with bug and security fixes but no new features, and no end date. The episode left animators questioning how far they can rely on software they rent from a company whose priorities are moving toward AI.
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