Autodesk (ADSK) — Company Research

Last Updated: 6 May 2026

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) sells the design software that the world's architects, engineers, manufacturers, construction firms and visual-effects studios use to draw, model, simulate and build pretty much anything physical. AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, Fusion, Maya — all Autodesk. Fiscal 2026 (year ended 31 January 2026) was a clean step-up year on the headlines: revenue of $7,206m grew 17.5% year-on-year, free cash flow rose 58% to $2,376m, and Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AECO) — the company's largest product family — grew 22%. Underneath those numbers, though, FY2026 was also a restructuring year (a $216m charge, per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03, and a workforce that shrank from ~15,300 to ~14,300 employees per the FY2026 10-K Item 1), a transaction-model transition year (the shift to direct billing through Solution Providers reshaped how revenue and sales costs are booked), and a year of fresh shareholder-governance pressure that will land at the 17 June 2026 annual meeting. The stock at $242.04 sits about 26% below its 52-week high of $329.09, with the next print due on 28 May 2026.

1. Company Snapshot

Name	Autodesk, Inc.
Ticker / Exchange	ADSK / NASDAQ
Sector / Industry	Technology / Software — Application
Market cap	$51.07bn (6 May 2026)
Enterprise value	$52.77bn
FY2026 revenue	$7.21bn (+17.5% YoY)
FY2026 free cash flow	$2.38bn
Employees	~14,300 (as of 31 Jan 2026, per the FY2026 10-K, Item 1)
CEO	Dr. Andrew Anagnost
Headquarters	One Market Street, San Francisco, USA
Website	autodesk.com
Fiscal year-end	31 January
Next earnings	28 May 2026

2. Bull Case vs Bear Case

Bull case

• Revenue growth re-accelerated. Total FY2026 revenue grew 17.5% to $7,206m, with subscription revenue (the dominant line) rising 18% to $6,743m per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03). The largest product family — AECO — grew fastest at +22% to $3,583m, also per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03).
• Forward visibility is strong. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): remaining performance obligations (RPO) of $8.30bn at 31 Jan 2026 were up 20% year-on-year; current RPO of $5.48bn was up 23%; deferred revenue of $4.69bn was up 14%. Recurring revenue was 97% of total at $7,024m.
• Cash conversion is high. FY2026 operating cash flow was $2,452m and free cash flow $2,376m on a 33% FCF-to-revenue conversion; capex was just $76m. The cash flow figure is up 58% from $1,505m of FCF in FY2025.
• Net revenue retention is healthy. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): Net revenue retention rate (the company's "NR3" metric) was above the 100%–110% range on a constant-currency basis at both 31 January 2026 and 2025.
• Capital-return engine is on. The company repurchased shares for $1,402m in FY2026 (vs $852m in FY2025), with $2.48bn remaining under the November 2022 authorisation and $5.0bn under the November 2024 authorisation — about $7.48bn of headroom in total per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03).

Bear case

• FY2026 was a heavy restructuring year. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): restructuring, other exit costs and facility reductions hit $216m in FY2026, up from $15m in FY2025 (a 1,340% increase), reflecting the "January 2026 Plan" and "2026 Plan" that reduced headcount by roughly 1,000 to ~14,300 (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 1).
• GAAP operating margin (21.9%, calculated $1,578m / $7,206m) was flat year-on-year despite revenue growing 18% — the new transaction model and elevated marketing & sales spend (up 19% to $2,373m per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03) absorbed the operating leverage.
• The stock has lagged. At $242.04 the price sits 26.5% below the 52-week high of $329.09. One of the news items in this report's source data (Simply Wall St., 2026-05-05) noted a year-to-date share price decline of 13.67%, and the trailing P/E of 46.3x — calculated against $5.23 of GAAP diluted EPS — looks elevated against the slower share-price action.
• Governance overhang. In April 2026 shareholder activist John Chevedden filed a proposal that would let holders of 10% of common stock (or the lowest threshold permitted by state law) call online special meetings; the company has filed a preliminary proxy urging a vote against, ahead of the 17 June 2026 annual meeting (per recent_news, Simply Wall St., 2026-04-25).
• Indirect-channel concentration. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): approximately 37% of FY2026 revenue came from indirect channel sales through a network of approximately 1,170 distributors and resellers — concentrating credit, fraud and execution risk on partner performance.
• Capital structure has more leverage than peer software names. Total debt was $2,734m at FY2026 year-end against $3,045m of total equity, for a debt-to-equity of 0.90x; the current ratio is 0.85x.

3. What Does This Company Actually Do?

Autodesk sells professional design software, mostly via subscription, to four primary customer industries that the company groups under four product families. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): "Our product offerings are focused in four primary product families: Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO), AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, Manufacturing (MFG), and Media and Entertainment (M&E)." The company is incorporated in Delaware, headquartered in San Francisco, and was founded in 1982.

Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03), revenue by product family for fiscal 2026 broke down as follows (with FY25 and YoY change for context):

Product family	FY26 revenue ($m)	% of total	FY25 revenue ($m)	YoY change
AECO	$3,583	49.7%	$2,937	+22%
AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT	$1,787	24.8%	$1,572	+14%
Manufacturing (MFG)	$1,379	19.1%	$1,189	+16%
Media & Entertainment (M&E)	$332	4.6%	$315	+5%
Other	$125	1.7%	$118	+6%
Total	$7,206	~100%	$6,131	+18%

FY2026 $7,206m AECO — 49.7% AutoCAD & LT — 24.8% MFG — 19.1% M&E — 4.6% Other — 1.7%

In plain English:

• AECO (~50%) is the design and project-delivery software for buildings, infrastructure and civil engineering. The headline products are Revit (Building Information Modeling), AutoCAD Civil 3D (civil/transportation design), Autodesk Build (jobsite project management), BIM Collaborate Pro, BuildingConnected (preconstruction bid management) and Tandem (digital twins for built assets), plus the AEC Collection that bundles them. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): the FY2026 increase was driven by the AEC Collections, enterprise business agreement (EBA) offerings, and Autodesk Construction Cloud (now branded as "Forma for Construction").
• AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT (~25%) is the legacy 2D/3D drafting workhorse. AutoCAD is the customisable CAD application that has been the company's flagship for over forty years; AutoCAD LT is the lighter-weight drafting/detailing variant.
• Manufacturing — MFG (~19%) covers Fusion (cloud-based CAD/CAM/CAE), Inventor (3D mechanical design), the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection, and Vault (engineering data management). Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): the FY2026 growth came from MFG Collections, Fusion and Inventor.
• Media & Entertainment (~5%) is Maya (3D modelling and animation), 3ds Max (rendering), Flow Production Tracking and the Media & Entertainment Collection — used in film VFX, games and design visualisation.
• Other (~2%) is everything else — assorted services, training and smaller product lines.

Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03), the same revenue base broken down by income-statement line was: Subscription $6,743m (+18%), Maintenance $33m (-20%, the wind-down tail of legacy maintenance contracts), Other $430m (+15%) — i.e. subscription accounted for roughly 93.6% of FY2026 revenue, and total recurring revenue was $7,024m or 97% of revenue. The geographic split (also per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7) was Americas $3,178m (44.1%), EMEA $2,794m (38.8%) and APAC $1,234m (17.1%); within Americas, the U.S. alone was $2,566m and "Other Americas" was $612m.

4. The Business Model

Autodesk is a near-pure-play subscription software company. Customers buy time-bound rights to use one or several products; the licences renew annually or multi-year. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): "Subscription revenue consists of our term-based product subscriptions, cloud service offerings, and flexible EBAs. Revenue from these arrangements is predominately recognized ratably over the contract term commencing with the date our service is made available to customers." That ratable recognition is what makes the deferred revenue ($4.69bn at FY2026 year-end, per the same filing) and RPO ($8.30bn) so material — they represent contracted future revenue not yet earned.

The economics are typical of mature application software. Gross margin is very high (90.98% trailing per the JSON ratios; calculated $6,556m gross profit / $7,206m revenue), because once the code is written each incremental subscription costs only a slice of cloud-hosting, customer-support and amortisation expense. The cost of revenue itself (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03) was $650m in FY2026 — split into $463m for subscription delivery, $90m for "other" costs and $97m for amortisation of developed technologies. Where the operating dollars actually go is below the gross-profit line, into operating expenses of $4,978m: $2,373m on marketing & sales, $1,643m on R&D, $693m on general & administrative, $53m on amortisation of purchased intangibles, and $216m on restructuring (all per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03). The result is a GAAP operating margin of 21.9% ($1,578m / $7,206m) and a GAAP net margin of 15.6% ($1,124m net income).

The company also reports non-GAAP figures. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): non-GAAP gross profit was $6,703m, non-GAAP income from operations was $2,737m (a non-GAAP operating margin of 38%), non-GAAP net income was $2,242m, and non-GAAP diluted EPS was $10.43 — about double the GAAP EPS of $5.23, with the gap mostly stock-based compensation, restructuring charges and amortisation of purchased intangibles excluded.

Distribution. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): Autodesk sells through a hybrid channel — direct internal sales for the largest accounts, an online Autodesk-branded store, and an indirect network of approximately 1,170 distributors and resellers. About 37% of FY2026 revenue came from the indirect channel (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 1). The company is in the middle of moving Solution Provider transactions to a "new transaction model" in which the customer transacts directly with Autodesk while the partner provides quoting and service support — that change has shifted what was previously contra-revenue into marketing & sales expense, which is part of why M&S grew 19% in FY2026 (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03).

Moat. Autodesk's competitive position rests on workflow lock-in (AutoCAD and Revit files are the de-facto interchange formats in their industries), a 40+ year install base of trained professionals, deep collections of complementary tools (AEC, MFG and M&E "Collections" bundle multiple products on one subscription), and increasingly the data network effects of cloud platforms — Forma for Construction, Build, Fusion, Flow Production Tracking — that pull design, build and operation data into one place.

Subsidies / regulatory credits. Not disclosed as a material item in this report's source data. Autodesk is a software company with negligible direct exposure to government tax credits or subsidies; no specific subsidy revenue or tax-credit benefit is broken out in the source JSON or the available 10-K extracts.

5. Financial Health

Five-year trend from the source JSON. (FY2022 has only operating income disclosed in the dataset; the rest is "not disclosed in this report's source data".)

Fiscal year ended	Revenue ($m)	Operating income ($m)	Net income ($m)	Diluted EPS	Free cash flow ($m)
31 Jan 2022	n/a	$618	n/a	n/a	n/a
31 Jan 2023	$5,005	$989	$823	$3.78	$2,025
31 Jan 2024	$5,497	$1,128	$906	$4.19	$1,252
31 Jan 2025	$6,131	$1,354	$1,112	$5.12	$1,505
31 Jan 2026	$7,206	$1,578	$1,124	$5.23	$2,376

Balance-sheet evolution from the JSON:

Fiscal year ended	Cash & equivalents ($m)	Total debt ($m)	Total equity ($m)	Diluted shares (m)	Buybacks ($m)
31 Jan 2023	$1,947	$2,666	$1,145	218	$1,101
31 Jan 2024	$1,892	$2,626	$1,855	216	$795
31 Jan 2025	$1,599	$2,559	$2,621	217	$852
31 Jan 2026	$2,249	$2,734	$3,045	215	$1,402

Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): Autodesk also held marketable securities on top of cash and equivalents — total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities was $2.97bn at 31 January 2026. The company repurchased 5 million shares of common stock for the $1,402m total in FY2026 (the JSON figure used here), versus 3 million shares for $852m in FY2025. Diluted share count edged down from 218m (FY23) to 215m (FY26), reflecting the cumulative buyback activity net of stock-based compensation issuance.

Quarterly trend (last five quarters from the JSON):

Quarter ended	Revenue ($m)	Gross margin	Operating income ($m)	Net income ($m)	Diluted EPS	Free cash flow ($m)
31 Jan 2025 (Q4 FY25)	$1,639	90.6%	$381	$303	$1.40	$673
30 Apr 2025 (Q1 FY26)	$1,633	90.2%	$338	$152	$0.70	$549
31 Jul 2025 (Q2 FY26)	$1,763	91.0%	$450	$313	$1.46	$444
31 Oct 2025 (Q3 FY26)	$1,853	91.1%	$475	$343	$1.60	$417
31 Jan 2026 (Q4 FY26)	$1,957	91.5%	$531	$316	$1.48	$966

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

$1.64 $1.63 $1.76 $1.85 $1.96

90.6% 90.2% 91.0% 91.1% 91.5%

Q4 25 Q1 26 Q2 26 Q3 26 Q4 26

Revenue ($bn) Gross Margin (%)

Revenue Gross Margin

The shape is clean: revenue rose every quarter through FY2026 (Q1 was the only sequential dip, of $6m, vs the seasonally strong Q4 FY25), gross margin expanded from 90.2% to 91.5%, and Q4 FY26 free cash flow of $966m alone was almost two-thirds of all FY2025 free cash flow. The Q1 FY26 EPS dip to $0.70 reflects timing of the "2026 Plan" restructuring charge that was announced and largely incurred in that quarter (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03, which describes the 2026 Plan as initiated during the first fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2025).

Cash flow from operations rose to $2,452m in FY2026 from $1,607m in FY2025 and $1,313m in FY2024 (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03). Cash used in financing activities was $1,361m (FY26) vs $987m (FY25) and $852m (FY24), reflecting the step-up in buybacks.

6. Valuation & Market Data

Raw market data only — no commentary on cheap or expensive. All figures from the JSON unless flagged otherwise. As of 6 May 2026:

Metric	Value
Share price	$242.04 (intraday, 6 May 2026)
Previous close	$249.43
Day range	$240.00 – $248.75
52-week high	$329.09
52-week low	$214.10
Market cap	$51.07bn
Enterprise value	$52.77bn
Shares outstanding	211m
Float	210.4m
Average daily volume (10d)	1.79m
Volume (6 May 2026)	0.77m
Beta	1.32
P/E (trailing, GAAP)	46.28x
P/E (forward, yfinance)	17.16x
P/S (trailing)	7.09x
P/B	16.77x
EV / Revenue	7.32x
EV / Operating Income (proxy)	33.44x (D&A unavailable in source data; proxy uses operating income)
FCF yield	4.65% ($2,376m / $51,070m market cap)
Gross margin (TTM)	90.98%
Operating margin (TTM, GAAP)	21.9%
Net margin (TTM)	15.6%
Return on equity	36.91%
Return on assets	9.02%
Debt-to-equity	0.90x
Current ratio	0.85x
Dividend yield	None — Autodesk does not pay a dividend
Short interest	Not disclosed in this report's source data
Put/call ratio	Not disclosed in this report's source data

Note on the trailing-vs-forward P/E gap: trailing GAAP EPS of $5.23 produces 46x at the current price, while the forward number (17.2x per yfinance) reflects management's non-GAAP earnings power — non-GAAP diluted EPS was $10.43 in FY2026 (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03), with the $5.20 GAAP-vs-non-GAAP gap mostly stock-based compensation, restructuring charges and amortisation of purchased intangibles.

7. What Are They Building / What's Coming?

The FY2026 product strategy is summarised in the 10-K. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): "we are focused on three strategic priorities: build the platform of choice for Design and Make, accelerate adoption of Fusion, Forma, and Flow, and transform how customers experience Autodesk." In product terms that translates into a small set of bets:

• Forma platform — the cloud-native AECO platform. Autodesk Construction Cloud has been rebranded as "Forma for Construction" (per the FY2026 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-03-03), and the Forma family is the company's preferred platform for new architecture and infrastructure workflows. It pulls together Build, BuildingConnected, Tandem (digital twins), BIM Collaborate Pro and Revit data into a unified cloud back-end.
• Fusion — the manufacturing equivalent. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): "Fusion is the first 3D CAD, CAM, and computer-aided engineering (CAE) tool of its kind. It connects the entire product development process on a single cloud-based platform." Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03), MFG growth in FY2026 came from MFG Collections, Fusion and Inventor.
• Flow — the M&E equivalent (Flow Production Tracking is the cloud production-management software for film/TV/games studios).
• AI in the platform. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): the January 2026 Plan and 2026 Plan restructurings reallocate resources "to our strategic priorities of investments in cloud, platform and artificial intelligence." Per recent_news (Simply Wall St., 2026-04-25): "Autodesk's growth story was reinforced by fresh AI-focused leadership and large-scale enterprise [partnerships]." (See URL in Section 11.)
• Acquisitions and disclosed M&A. Per recent_news (Insider Monkey via Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-05): on 31 March 2026, Autodesk closed its acquisition of Rhumbix, a construction technology company specialising in real-time jobsite data capture; the stated rationale is to bridge the gap between field activity and backward-looking financial reporting that drives cost overruns. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): "During the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, Autodesk did not complete any business combinations" — meaning Rhumbix is the first FY2027 deal disclosed in the source data; in FY2025 the company had acquired Payapps Limited (a cloud-based construction-payment platform).
• Autodesk for Small Business launch. Per recent_news (Simply Wall St., 2026-05-05): Autodesk launched "Autodesk for Small Business," a dedicated hub with flexible pricing options and product tweaks aimed at smaller design, manufacturing and media teams.
• R&D spend. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): R&D expense was $1,643m in FY2026 (+11% YoY, $158m increase), about 22.8% of revenue — driven by employee-related costs from higher headcount, merit increases and cloud-hosting costs.

Specific patent filings, named data-centre footprint and custom-silicon programmes are not disclosed in this report's source data — Autodesk has neither historically reported a custom-silicon programme nor broken out a data-centre capex line, and the source 10-K extract does not contain those details.

8. Competitive Landscape

Autodesk operates in several adjacent markets where the competitor sets are different. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "competitors in one vertical segment may enter other vertical segments that we serve. In addition, some of our competitors in certain markets have greater financial, technical, sales and marketing, and other resources than we do." Public market-share percentages for these specific markets are not disclosed in this report's source data, so the table below is qualitative; named-share data was not in the source JSON or the cleanly-extractable 10-K sections.

Market	Autodesk products	Principal competitors
Architecture, Engineering & Construction (BIM, civil, project mgmt)	Revit, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Build, BuildingConnected, Forma, Tandem	Bentley Systems (BSY), Trimble (TRMB), Procore (PCOR), Nemetschek
Mechanical / Manufacturing CAD & CAM	Inventor, Fusion, Vault, Product Design & Manufacturing Collection	Dassault Systèmes (SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, 3DEXPERIENCE), PTC (Creo, Windchill), Siemens Digital Industries (NX, Solid Edge), Hexagon
Generic 2D/3D drafting	AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT	Bricsys (BricsCAD), Hexagon (CADWorx, GstarCAD partners), Graebert
Media & Entertainment (3D modelling/animation)	Maya, 3ds Max, Flow Production Tracking	SideFX (Houdini), Foundry (Modo, Nuke), Adobe (Substance), Blender (open source)
Construction-payment management	Payapps (acquired FY2025)	Procore (Procore Pay), Textura (legacy)

Key competitive notes:

• Per recent_news (StockStory, 2026-04-24): Bentley Systems, BILL and Autodesk all traded down on the same day after quarterly results from "two major companies raised fresh questions about AI's impact on the sector" — reflecting how investors view BSY and ADSK as the two pure-play public design-software names with comparable AECO exposure.
• In MFG, Dassault, PTC and Siemens are larger or comparable in resources and have decades-long incumbencies in automotive and aerospace OEM accounts; Autodesk's edge has been the cloud-first Fusion platform aimed at small/mid-sized manufacturers and the "Collection" bundling that simplifies procurement.
• Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1): "We have a network of approximately 1,170 resellers and distributors worldwide. For fiscal 2026, approximately 37% of our revenue was derived from indirect channel sales through distributors and resellers." That partner network is a competitive asset against startups but a concentration risk against rivals with stronger direct-sales footprints.

(Competitor market-share SVG omitted: named market-share percentages for the relevant submarkets are not present in this report's source data, and the chart's data condition — three or more competitors with named share % — is not met.)

9. Leadership and Ownership

CEO. Dr. Andrew Anagnost is CEO of Autodesk per the source JSON. Specific tenure and biographical detail beyond the name are not disclosed in this report's source data.

Other named executives (from the source JSON insider transactions data):

• Janesh Moorjani — Chief Financial Officer
• Steven M. Blum — Chief Operating Officer
• Ruth Ann Keene — Officer
• Rebecca Pearce — Officer

Insider transactions in this report's source data. All ten transactions in the JSON dataset are dated 24 March 2026 and 10 April 2026, with a blank "transaction" type and a value of $0. These appear to be reportable equity events (consistent with RSU vesting / award activity rather than open-market purchases or planned 10b5-1 sales) — the source JSON does not contain transaction-type, price or 10b5-1 designation information that would let us classify them more specifically. There are no disclosed open-market buys or large planned-sale dispositions in this dataset.

Date	Insider	Role	Shares	Reported value
10 Apr 2026	Anagnost, Andrew J.	CEO	52,762	$0 (type not specified in source)
10 Apr 2026	Moorjani, Janesh	CFO	12,424	$0 (type not specified in source)
10 Apr 2026	Blum, Steven M.	COO	12,921	$0 (type not specified in source)
10 Apr 2026	Keene, Ruth Ann	Officer	7,785	$0 (type not specified in source)
10 Apr 2026	Pearce, Rebecca	Officer	7,454	$0 (type not specified in source)
24 Mar 2026	Anagnost, Andrew J.	CEO	43,091	$0 (type not specified in source)
24 Mar 2026	Moorjani, Janesh	CFO	18,932	$0 (type not specified in source)
24 Mar 2026	Blum, Steven M.	COO	15,403	$0 (type not specified in source)
24 Mar 2026	Keene, Ruth Ann	Officer	7,751	$0 (type not specified in source)
24 Mar 2026	Pearce, Rebecca	Officer	7,751	$0 (type not specified in source)

Top institutional holders (from the source JSON; positions as of 31 December 2025 unless noted):

Holder	Shares	% held	Position value
BlackRock Inc.	21,987,736	10.40%	$5.32bn
Vanguard Group Inc.	21,493,167	10.17%	$5.20bn
State Street Corporation	10,157,826	4.81%	$2.46bn
Loomis Sayles & Co. L.P.	5,796,887	2.74%	$1.40bn
Geode Capital Management, LLC	5,682,041	2.69%	$1.38bn
FMR, LLC (Fidelity)	5,348,803	2.53%	$1.29bn
Ninety One UK Ltd (as of 31 Mar 2026)	4,025,659	1.90%	$0.97bn
Massachusetts Financial Services Co.	3,509,562	1.66%	$0.85bn
UBS AM (UBS Asset Management Americas LLC)	3,159,489	1.50%	$0.76bn
Morgan Stanley	3,044,163	1.44%	$0.74bn

The holder list is dominated by index and quasi-index ownership (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Geode, FMR-Fidelity together hold ~30.6%), which is typical of a large-cap technology name. The active-management presence is led by Loomis Sayles, MFS, Ninety One UK and UBS AM.

10. Risks and Challenges

Distilled from Item 1A of the FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-03-03) and the source-data news.

• AI governance and integration risk. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): a stated key risk is "Challenges relating to the proper management and governance of our use of AI in our offerings." Autodesk is layering generative-AI features into design products where output errors can have downstream physical consequences (built buildings, manufactured parts, films) — a different liability profile from text/chat AI.
• Cybersecurity and software defects. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): risks include "Security incidents compromising the integrity of our or our customers' offerings, services, data, or intellectual property" and "highly complex software, which may contain undetected errors, defects, or vulnerabilities." Cybersecurity is referenced 11 times in Item 1A.
• Third-party reliance. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "Reliance on third parties to provide us with a number of operational and technical services as well as software." The 1,170-strong reseller and distributor network (per Item 1) is also a single-point-of-failure on the partner side.
• Regulatory: privacy, data protection and export controls. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "Increasing regulatory focus on privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity issues and expanding laws" and "Governmental export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we violate the controls."
• Trade policy and tariff risk. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): the filing flags "significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the United States and its trading partners with respect to trade policies, tariffs, taxes, and similar policies affecting cross-border operations" — and cites recent and proposed tariff actions including supplementary measures under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and retaliatory actions by Canada, China, Russia and others.
• Foreign exchange. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "Fluctuations in currency exchange rates" remain a flagged risk; the company generates a significant portion of revenue in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Japan and Canada (per Item 7). FY2026 FX impact on revenue and total spend was neutral, but that can shift quickly.
• Software piracy. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): piracy is explicitly listed among international-operations risks. AutoCAD has historically been one of the most pirated professional applications and the company runs continuous compliance and enforcement programmes.
• Litigation, investigations and tax positions. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): tax issues are referenced 59 times, investigations 22 times, litigation 19 times. The company also flags "$257 million of unrecognized tax benefits would impact the effective tax rate" if recognised.
• Capital structure. Per the source JSON: total debt of $2,734m at FY2026 year-end; debt-to-equity 0.90x; current ratio 0.85x. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "Our debt service obligations" are an explicit risk factor.
• Subscription revenue-recognition complexity and attrition. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 1A, filed 2026-03-03): "We make assumptions, judgments, and estimates for a number of items, including revenue recognition for product subscriptions and enterprise business agreements (EBAs)..." and the filing flags that "changes in our attrition rate may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods."
• Governance pressure. Per recent_news (Simply Wall St., 2026-04-25): shareholder activist John Chevedden has filed a proposal granting holders of 10% of common stock (or the lowest threshold permitted by state law) the power to call online special meetings. The company has filed a preliminary proxy urging investors to vote against, ahead of the 17 June 2026 annual meeting.
• Restructuring execution risk. Per the FY2026 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-03-03): the January 2026 Plan and 2026 Plan are described as designed "to optimize and complete our go-to-market organization and, at the same time, to reallocate resources to our strategic priorities of investments in cloud, platform and artificial intelligence." Execution-error risk on a workforce reduction of ~1,000 net (15,300 → 14,300, per Item 1) sits inside that.

11. Recent Developments

The most recent developments are listed first. URLs are taken byte-for-byte from the source recent_news JSON entries.

• 5 May 2026 — "Autodesk (ADSK) Completes Acquisition of Rhumbix to Enhance Real-Time Jobsite Data Capture" (Insider Monkey via Yahoo Finance). On 31 March 2026, Autodesk closed its acquisition of Rhumbix, a construction technology company specialising in real-time jobsite data capture. The stated aim is to bridge the gap between field activity and backward-looking financial reporting that often causes cost overruns. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/autodesk-adsk-completes-acquisition-rhumbix-141809088.html

• 5 May 2026 — "Autodesk (ADSK) Valuation Check As Small Business Initiative Draws Fresh Investor Attention" (Simply Wall St. via Yahoo Finance). Autodesk launched Autodesk for Small Business, a dedicated hub with flexible pricing options and product tweaks aimed at smaller design, manufacturing, and media teams. The article notes a 7-day share-price return of +5.32% and a year-to-date share-price decline of 13.67%, against a 3-year total shareholder return of 28.93%. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/autodesk-adsk-valuation-check-small-141020000.html

• 4 May 2026 — "Autodesk (ADSK) Increases Despite Market Slip: Here's What You Need to Know" (Zacks via Yahoo Finance). Notes ADSK closed at $247.54, +1.31% on the day. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/autodesk-adsk-increases-despite-market-221502944.html

• 2 May 2026 — "Is Now An Opportune Moment To Examine Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK)?" (Simply Wall St. via Yahoo Finance). URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/now-opportune-moment-examine-autodesk-120027786.html

• 29 April 2026 — "BL vs. ADSK: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now?" (Zacks via Yahoo Finance). URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bl-vs-adsk-stock-value-154004905.html

• 25 April 2026 — "Did Governance Pushback and New AI Partnerships Just Reframe Autodesk's (ADSK) Investment Narrative?" (Simply Wall St. via Yahoo Finance). Autodesk faced shareholder activism in April 2026 as John Chevedden proposed giving holders of 10% of outstanding common stock (or the lowest percentage allowed under state law) the power to call online special shareholder meetings. The company filed a preliminary proxy urging investors to vote against the measure at the 17 June 2026 annual meeting. The article also notes "fresh AI-focused leadership and large-scale enterprise" partnerships supporting the growth narrative. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/did-governance-pushback-ai-partnerships-011116312.html

• 25 April 2026 — "3 Reasons to Sell ADSK and 1 Stock to Buy Instead" (StockStory via Yahoo Finance). URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/3-reasons-sell-adsk-1-063723143.html

• 24 April 2026 — "4 Solid Stocks to Grab as S&P 500 Hits New All-Time Closing High" (Zacks via Yahoo Finance). ADI, APH, ADSK and AVGO highlighted alongside an S&P 500 record-close note. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/4-solid-stocks-grab-p-122900486.html

• 24 April 2026 — "Autodesk's Quarterly Earnings Preview: What You Need to Know" (Barchart). Autodesk is set to report its first-quarter (FY2027 Q1) results "shortly". URL: https://www.barchart.com/story/news/1495654/autodesks-quarterly-earnings-preview-what-you-need-to-know

• 24 April 2026 — "Bentley Systems, BILL, and Autodesk Stocks Trade Down, What You Need To Know" (StockStory via Yahoo Finance). A number of design-software stocks fell after results from two larger peers raised fresh questions about AI's impact on the sector. URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bentley-systems-bill-autodesk-stocks-094923014.html

Filings in the source data (last six months): the FY2026 10-K was filed on 3 March 2026 (accession 0000769397-26-000015) covering the fiscal year ended 31 January 2026. An 8-K was filed on 24 April 2026 (accession 0000769397-26-000024). The most recent 10-Q was filed on 26 November 2025 covering the quarter ended 31 October 2025.

12. Key Dates Coming Up

Date	Event	Source
28 May 2026	Next earnings (per source-data calendar; FY2027 Q1, quarter ending 30 April 2026)	JSON calendar
17 June 2026	Annual shareholder meeting; Chevedden 10%-special-meeting proposal vote	recent_news (Simply Wall St., 2026-04-25)
Dividend	None — Autodesk does not currently pay a dividend (source JSON: dividend_yield is null)	JSON

Other potential catalysts from the source data (no fixed date disclosed): rollout cadence of Autodesk for Small Business (announced 5 May 2026), continued integration of the Rhumbix acquisition (closed 31 March 2026), execution updates on the January 2026 Plan and 2026 Plan restructurings, and any additional AI-related leadership or partnership announcements following the April 2026 Simply Wall St. note.

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Disclaimer. This research is compiled from primary sources — SEC filings (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K), the source data JSON dated 6 May 2026, and named news items linked above. It contains no analyst price targets, no buy/sell/hold ratings, and no consensus estimates. Forward-looking statements are attributed to Autodesk's own filings and announcements. Numerical data is sourced from the JSON dataset for headline metrics and from the FY2026 10-K (filed 3 March 2026) for segment splits, geographic revenue, MD&A narrative, non-GAAP figures and risk factors. Where the same metric is reported differently in JSON and the 10-K, the JSON value is used per ChartsView's source-precedence rule. This is not investment advice.