When Adobe introduced the portable document format (PDF) in 1993, a consultant from Gartner called it “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my life”. Users would have to twiddle their thumbs waiting for the megabyte-sized files to download over their dial-up internet, then wait again for their PCs to render them. The software-maker’s board wanted to kill the project. But as sharing digital files became essential, the PDF triumphed—particularly after the Internal Revenue Service, America’s tax authority, started using it for its forms. Today more than 2.5trn PDFs float in the ether. But will the format survive the ai revolution?
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Attachment issues”
From the February 28th 2026 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents