C3.ai(AI) 2027 회계연도 1분기 실적발표 콘퍼런스 콜: 연방 정부 수주 급증, 비용 감소

C3.ai의 2027 회계연도 1분기 실적 발표 콘퍼런스 콜은 턴어라운드 초기의 진전, 대규모 비용 절감, 연방 정부 관련 수주 호조에 집중되었습니다. 매출은 5,240만 달러를 기록했고, 잉여현금흐름은 210만 달러로 흑자 전환했습니다.

핵심 요약

• 2027 회계연도 1분기 매출은 5,240만 달러였습니다. 구독 매출은 총매출의 94%인 4,920만 달러를 차지했습니다.
• 수주액은 전년 동기 대비 73% 증가했으며, 연방 정부 관련 수주액은 138% 증가했습니다. C3.ai는 해당 분기 동안 22건의 엔터프라이즈 계약을 체결했습니다.
• 비GAAP 영업손실은 3,620만 달러로, 경영진 가이던스 중간값보다 830만 달러 개선되었습니다.
• 잉여현금흐름은 전년 동기 마이너스 3,430만 달러, 전 분기 마이너스 5,480만 달러에서 플러스 210만 달러로 개선되었습니다.
• C3.ai는 조직 전반에 걸친 약 40%의 인력 감축을 포함해 연간 약 1억 3,500만 달러의 비용 절감을 달성했습니다.
• 경영진은 2027 회계연도 매출 가이던스를 2억 1,000만 달러에서 2억 4,000만 달러로 유지했으며, 지속적인 전분기 대비 성장, 잉여현금흐름, 비GAAP 흑자 전환을 핵심 목표로 강조했습니다.

핵심 재무 데이터

사업 및 영업 실적

토머스 지벨(Thomas Siebel) CEO는 C3.ai가 턴어라운드 첫 3개월 동안 영업, 제품, 서비스 조직을 재편했다고 밝혔습니다. 또한 회사는 비용 구조를 재설정하고 고객 관리, 파이프라인 개발, 영업 검토 기준을 더욱 강화했습니다.

C3.ai는 하이델베르그 머티리얼즈(Heidelberg Materials), 존슨앤드존슨(Johnson & Johnson), 포드 모터(Ford Motor Company), C-SPAN, 홀심(Holcim), 미국 국방부, 국방물류청(DLA), 미국 농무부(USDA) 등과 22건의 엔터프라이즈 계약을 체결했습니다.

연방 정부 사업은 수주액이 전년 동기 대비 138% 증가하며 주요 성장 동력 역할을 했습니다. 경영진은 특히 국방 및 정보 분야에서 기존 제품 교체 수요와 신규(그린필드) 기회가 모두 뒷받침되면서 연방 정부 사업 파이프라인이 견조하게 유지되고 있다고 설명했습니다.

회사는 C3.ai 에이전틱 AI 플랫폼(C3.ai Agentic AI Platform), C3.ai 생성형 AI(C3.ai Generative AI), C3.ai 스튜디오(C3.ai Studio), C3.ai 코드(C3.ai Code)에 제품 전략을 집중하고 있습니다. 경영진은 C3.ai 코드를 수동 코딩 없이 자연어 프롬프트만으로 엔터프라이즈 AI 애플리케이션을 생성할 수 있는 미래 핵심 성장 제품으로 묘사했습니다.

회사는 또한 보다 광범위한 플랫폼 모델로 전환하고 있습니다. 기존 엔터프라이즈 AI 애플리케이션은 플랫폼 내에 탑재된 재사용 가능한 구성 요소로 분할되어 고객이 필요에 따라 애플리케이션을 조립할 수 있습니다.

경영진은 데이터 모델링, 에이전트 개발, 애플리케이션 개발 도구, 거버넌스 제어, 플랫폼 관리, 보안 인증을 포함한 부문에서 C3.ai를 1위로 평가한 포레스터 리서치(Forrester Research) 연구 결과를 인용했습니다.

경영진 가이던스

경영진은 C3.ai가 엔지니어링 분야에 선별적인 투자를 진행함에 따라 2분기 비GAAP 매출총이익률이 40%대 중반 수준으로 완화될 것으로 예상합니다.

2027 회계연도 남은 기간 동안 경영진은 잉여현금흐름이 비GAAP 영업손실 가이던스 범위에 대략 부합할 것으로 예상합니다. 구조조정에 따른 비용 절감 효과 중 일부는 2027 회계연도 하반기부터 본격화될 것으로 예상됩니다.

리스크 및 관전 포인트

실행력은 C3.ai 턴어라운드의 핵심 과제로 남아 있습니다. 지벨 CEO는 회사의 과거 부진이 제품, 시장 기회, 재무제표가 아닌 실행력 문제 때문이었다고 말했습니다.

연간 매출 가이던스 상단을 달성하려면 대폭적인 성장 가속화가 필요합니다. 경영진은 가이던스 최상단을 명시적으로 목표로 하기보다는 3분기 이후 지속적인 전분기 대비 매출 성장을 이루는 데 필요한 파이프라인 및 영업 조직을 구축하는 데 집중하고 있다고 밝혔습니다.

단기적인 엔지니어링 투자로 인해 2분기 매출총이익률은 50%에서 40%대 중반으로 하락할 것으로 예상됩니다. C3.ai는 기존 고객 지원을 위해 현장 배치 엔지니어(forward-deployed engineers)에 대한 투자를 늘릴 계획이지만, 경영진은 C3.ai 코드를 통해 중장기적으로 이러한 인력 요구 수준이 낮아질 것으로 예상하고 있습니다.

구조조정은 거의 완료되었으나, 약 40%의 인력 감축을 포함한 그 규모로 인해 영업, 제품, 서비스 전반에 걸친 철저한 실행력이 지속적으로 요구되고 있습니다.

애널리스트 Q&A 주요 내용

• 연방 정부 사업 기회: 경영진은 신규(그린필드) 프로젝트 경쟁뿐만 아니라 대형 기존 사업자를 대체하는 기회도 포함되어 있다고 밝혔습니다. 또한 파이프라인의 일부는 기존 사업자의 제품 및 비즈니스 관행에 대한 고객의 불만족에서 기인했다고 덧붙였습니다.
• 현장 배치 엔지니어링: C3.ai는 기존 고객이 기대 수익을 달성할 수 있도록 구축 지원에 대한 단기 투자를 늘릴 예정입니다. 경영진은 C3.ai 코드를 통한 자동화로 시간이 지남에 따라 이러한 인력 수요의 일부를 상쇄할 수 있을 것으로 보고 있습니다.
• C3.ai 코드 도입: 해당 제품은 아직 마케팅 초기 단계에 있습니다. 경영진은 고객이 초기에 수백만 달러 규모의 구매를 할 필요 없이 소규모 도입으로 시작해 점차 확장할 수 있다고 설명했습니다.
• 플랫폼 전략: 경영진은 C3.ai가 재사용 가능한 구성 요소를 예측 보전, 수요 예측, 공급망 최적화와 같은 애플리케이션으로 조립할 수 있는 보다 플랫폼 중심적인 모델로 전환하고 있음을 확인했습니다.
• 성장 우선순위: 경영진은 무슨 수를 써서라도 2027 회계연도 가이던스 상단을 달성하는 것보다 지속적인 전분기 대비 매출 성장, 잉여현금흐름, 궁극적인 비GAAP 흑자 전환을 우선시했습니다.

실적 발표 콘퍼런스 콜 전문

전체 실적 발표 컨퍼런스 콜 녹취록

경영진 발표

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the C3.ai Fiscal First Quarter 2027 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And now I'd like to hand the call over to today's host, Amit Berry. Please go ahead.

Amit Berry

Good afternoon and welcome to C3.ai's earnings call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, which ended on July 31, 2026. My name is Amit Berry and I lead Investor Relations at C3.ai. With me on the call today are Thomas Siebel, Chief Executive Officer, and Hitesh Lath, Chief Financial Officer.

After the market closed today, we issued a press release with details regarding our first quarter results, which can be accessed through the Investor Relations section on our website at ir.c3.ai. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our IR website following the conclusion of the call.

During today's call, we will make statements related to our business that may be considered forward-looking under federal securities laws. These statements reflect our views only as of today and should not be considered representative of our views as of any subsequent date. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements or outlook.

These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For a further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our filings with the SEC. All figures will be discussed on a non-GAAP basis unless otherwise noted.

Also, during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures to the extent reasonably available is included in our press release. Finally, at times in our prepared remarks, in response to your questions, we may discuss metrics that are incremental to our usual presentation to give greater insight into the dynamics of our business or our quarterly results. We advise that we may or may not continue to provide this additional detail in the future.

And with that, let me turn the call over to Tom.

Thomas Siebel

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Three months ago, I returned as Chief Executive Officer with a mandate to turn this company around. I returned as CEO because the company was candidly underperforming despite every advantage. The product offerings are exceptional. The market is huge and rapidly growing and the balance sheet is rock solid. None of that was the problem. The problem was execution. And 1 quarter into the turnaround, I believe the company is on track.

In the past 3 months, we have restored fundamental management discipline to this business. We completely restructured the company. We restructured sales. We restructured products. We restructured services. We reset the cost structure, driving massive costs out of the business and implemented rigorous cost controls. We reinstated the fundamental management practices necessary to run a business, clear ownership, hard deadlines, weekly reviews.

We rebuilt the selling motion around disciplined account management and pipeline development rather than heroics. We now have experienced executives in charge of every aspect of the business in sales, products and services, and finance and legal. This is the leadership team that will execute the turnaround. We refocused the product offerings on our Agentic AI stack, our greatest technical strength, and the largest and most rapidly growing segment of the market.

And this quarter showed meaningful progress. We came in guidance, bookings grew at 73%, and we took real costs out of the business to narrow our operating loss and generate free cash flow in the quarter. We closed 22 enterprise agreements in the quarter, including with Heidelberg Materials, Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Company, C-SPAN, Holcim, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Federal business was particularly strong, with federal bookings growing 138% year over year. These results are early evidence that the turnaround is taking hold.

The C3.ai Agentic AI platform remains the starting point of every sales engagement. It reflects over 15 years of software development in which we invested in excess of $3 billion. Last month, Forrester Research released a very significant study in which they evaluated the strengths of all the AI platform providers. And in that evaluation, they ranked C3.ai at the top of the stack.

Forrester ranked the C3.ai platform #1 in data modeling, #1 in agent development, #1 in application development tools, #1 in cohesivity, experience, #1 in governance controls, #1 in platform management, #1 in security certification, and #1 in supporting services and offerings. Other companies evaluated in the study include a who's who in software, Palantir, Google, Databricks, and 11 others. So this study is a pretty significant benchmark and really a hallmark of the technology of achievement of C3.ai in the marketplace over the last 15 years.

Our primary offerings today include the C3.ai Agentic AI Platform, C3.ai Generative AI, C3.ai Studio, and more broadly, importantly, C3.ai Code. The C3.ai Studio is our control plane for developing and operating large-scale enterprise AI applications. And C3.ai Code is our Agentic AI application builder that turns a natural language prompt into a working enterprise AI application in minutes to hours.

C3.ai Code will be at the vanguard of our growth engine going forward. This product is absolutely remarkable, and I encourage you to go onto the web, take a look at it, and take it for a try. As an example of the power of C3.ai Code, you can take a 1-hour RFP or you can take a 6-inch thick product specification. You can provide it to C3.ai Code. It assembles the data. It does the data aggregation. It autonomously builds the ontology. It develops the pipeline.

It builds machine learning models. It designs the user interface, and it autonomously delivers a working enterprise AI application without writing 1 line of manual code. This is really remarkable and you have to see it to believe it. C3.ai Code, broader platform adoption, federal systems growth, and sales discipline. At the heart of our growth engine going forward.

In closing, let me be clear about where we are going. Our priorities are clear. They are measured. The turnaround is on track. We have a well-designed plan, and this is all about execution. Return the company to quarter-over-quarter consistent revenue growth. Attain free cash flow from operations, and reach non-GAAP profitability.

Every objective in this company ties to those goals every day, every week, every month. We're not going to ask the market to underwrite a story. Our plan is to deliver results quickly, quarter over quarter, and let those results speak for themselves. And with that, let me turn the call over to Hitesh Lath to talk about the specific financial results of the quarter.

Hitesh Lath

Thank you, Tom. Total revenue for the quarter was $52.4 million. Subscription revenue was $49.2 million, representing 94% of total revenue. Professional services revenue was $3.2 million, of which $1.8 million was revenue from prioritized engineering services, or PES. Our subscription and PES revenue combined was $50.9 million and accounted for 97% of total revenue. Non-GAAP gross profit for the quarter was $26.1 million and non-GAAP gross margin improved sequentially from 37% last quarter to 50%, primarily due to cost reduction actions we've taken over the last few months.

Next quarter, as we make selective investments in engineering organization, we expect a non-GAAP gross margin to moderate to mid-40s. Non-GAAP operating loss for the quarter was $36.2 million. This was $8.3 million better than the midpoint of our guidance. Non-GAAP net loss for the quarter improved to $30.7 million and 20 cents per share. Our non-GAAP expenses for the quarter were $88.5 million. This reflects a reduction of almost $40 million as compared to the actual non-GAAP expenses of $128.1 million same quarter last year, and a reduction of over $17 million as compared to the last quarter.

Free cash flow for the quarter was positive $2.1 million as compared to negative $34.3 million same quarter last year and negative $54.8 million last quarter. This was due to a significant reduction in our quarterly cash expenses as well as strong collections. We continue to be very well capitalized and close the quarter with $651.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities.

Quick update on our restructuring plan. Our restructuring is almost complete and we have been able to achieve annualized cost savings of approximately $135 million across our business. This includes cost savings from approximately 40% headcount reduction across all organizations, as well as from reduction in non-employee expenses. As we said on the last quarter's earnings call, some of the cost savings will be fully realized starting with the second half of fiscal year 2027.

With a substantially improved cost structure, reorganized and focused sales services and products organizations, we are well positioned to achieve revenue growth, materially improve our operating efficiency and free cash flow, and position the company for long-term success. Now, I'll move on to our guidance for second quarter and fiscal year 2027.

Our revenue guidance for second quarter of fiscal year 2027 is $51 million to $55 million. Our guidance for non-GAAP loss from operations for second quarter is $34.5 million to $42.5 million. Our revenue guidance for fiscal year 2027 is $210 million to $240 million. Our guidance for non-GAAP loss from operations for fiscal year 2027 is $123 million to $155 million. For the remainder of fiscal year 2027, we expect our free cash flow to broadly align with a guidance range for non-GAAP loss from operations. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the operator to begin the Q&A session.

Operator

Certainly. Our first question for today comes from the line of Patrick Walravens from Citizens. Your question please.

질의응답

Patrick Walravens

Tom, congratulations on the beginning of the turnaround here. With federal up 138%, I think I have to start with that, which is, what was sort of the biggest thing that you won? How did you win it? And what does the pipeline look like for more things like that in federal?

Thomas Siebel

The pipeline in federal looks very good and I would say there's an incumbent there that has a large market share with very high levels of dissatisfaction, both with their product and their business practices. So a lot of that dissatisfaction is spinning off now in opportunities for us. So, in addition, I mean, you know, the government's spending a lot of money on these types of technologies, particularly in the intelligence and the defense sectors.

I think the defense budget's about to go from $1 billion to $1.5 billion like this month, and our next month, so there's, I'm sorry, $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. Thank you. So there are a lot of spending there, and we're getting a lot of traction. Thank you.

Patrick Walravens

Great, and then as a follow-up, Tom and Hitesh, you mentioned this in your remarks too. So you're going to invest more in a forward-deployed engineering organization. What does that mean for C3.ai? And did you have forward-deployed engineers before? And if not, what are you doing differently here?

Thomas Siebel

We've always had forward-deployed engineers, I think going back to about 2014, I could be wrong by a year or 2. We've always had that function. And we need to be absolutely sure that each and every 1 of our satisfied customers are achieving what they need to achieve. And so we're going to increase our investment in people to help them with these deployments.

And I think that investment in people is going to be offset in the medium run by this C3.ai Code product that you just have to see, where it's doing all of these data aggregation, pipeline building, machine learning development, user interface, without any programmers. It is way cool. So that's going to mitigate the need for forward-deployed engineers in the medium and long run. But in the near term, we're going to overinvest in existing customers to ensure they continue to realize the returns they're looking for.

Patrick Walravens

All right, great, thank you. We did see it by the way, we came in and did a demo and it was remarkable, that was a surprise. Six months ago, so I'm sure it's evolved a lot since then, but it was really pretty amazing. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of an Unknown Analyst from UBS. Your question please.

Unknown Analyst

I guess maybe just to follow up on the Fed opportunity, I'm curious how much of that opportunity is in sort of displacing incumbents like you mentioned versus sort of greenfield work? And then what gives you confidence that you can displace that incumbent or those incumbents successfully?

Thomas Siebel

Well, we've been doing it for a while and I think it accelerated last quarter. I think they're a fine company, they make a good product, but you know, there's people who want to replace them and that creates an opportunity for us, I'd say. And then there's, you know, lots of greenfield opportunity where we, you know, compete with them and win. So that federal just has been and remains a really good business sector for us.

Unknown Analyst

Got it. And just 1 quick follow-up. If we think about the high end of the full year guide does imply a pretty steep acceleration if you hit that. And I guess like my question is fundamentally what needs to happen, what needs to go right for you to hit that high end of the guide? And I guess like what gives you, you know, what gives you confidence that could happen?

Thomas Siebel

You know, I'll be honest with you. I'm less interested in hitting the high end of that guide that I am making sure that we built the pipeline and we have the sales organization in place to demonstrate consistent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, you know, from, you know, Q3 on into perpetuity.

And I think that if we're able to demonstrate consistent revenue growth, if we ever get to the point where we're running free cash flow operations and get the company to non-GAAP profitability, I think it's highly likely this company will not be trading at a revenue multiple of like 3.5x, it'll be trading at a revenue multiple of 10x, 15x, 20x, or 25x, and I think that will bode well for our investors.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Latimore from Northland Capital Markets. Your question, please.

Mike Latimore

Yes, the C3.ai Code obviously sounds really interesting. Is that a meaningful part of the pipeline? Are you still kind of in early stages of marketing that?

Thomas Siebel

Honestly, Mike, we're in the early stages of marketing that, but hold on to your socks because it doesn't have to be a multi-million dollar acquisition. And so people could start small and then grow and grow. The initial customers who are using it just love it.

And I used it here to replace a pretty substantial piece of enterprise software that we have in place that will remain unnamed. And these guys, and we pay a lot of money for this application. It's in the kind of HR management space. And these guys built an application in 1 day that replaces an enterprise application in 1 day. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Mike Latimore

Yes, that was great. And I mean, in the past, you've sort of promoted selling enterprise AI applications. It feels like you're maybe moving more towards a little bit of a platform strategy here, or is that the wrong interpretation?

Thomas Siebel

I think you nailed it, Mike, and we weren't that explicit about it. So in the past, we have sold the AI platform, and then we have used the AI platform to build enterprise AI applications, which are kind of big applications that do things like predictive maintenance or demand forecasting or fraud detection or supply chain optimization.

Going forward, all these applications have been broken down into their atomic particles. And atomic particles are, if you will, are embedded in the AI platform. And if you want to build 1 of these applications for predictive maintenance for aircraft or process optimization in oil refining, whatever it might be, you could assemble those atomic particles in real time that become that application.

So it's not, they're just there and there are thousands of those elements that kind of reassemble on demand either because you asked them to do it or you did it through C3.ai Code. So it is, what's going forward is a little bit different. It's a good, you know, insightful what you caught there.

Mike Latimore

Great, thanks. And then just last on customer concentration, any kind of metric you can provide there? Do you have any customer, you know, over 5% or over 10% of revenue or, you know, what are your top 10 customers or percent, anything like that?

Hitesh Lath

Yes, Mike, not a meaningful change from before. We will disclose that to the extent appropriate in our 10-Q, which will be out in a few days. I don't think there's any 1 customer.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Mr. Siebel for any further remarks.

Thomas Siebel

Thank you everybody for your time. We appreciate it and keep your eye on the ball. We're very focused here. All of these executives have their eye on the ball. I think if they continue to execute their plans as they have been, this will bode well for C3.ai investors and that's the game we're playing.

Operator

Thank you for your interest. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.