Cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh Quý 1 năm tài chính 2027 của C3.ai (AI): Doanh số hợp đồng chính phủ liên bang tăng vọt, chi phí giảm

Cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh quý 1 năm tài chính 2027 của C3.ai tập trung vào những tiến triển ban đầu trong quá trình tái cơ cấu, giảm chi phí đáng kể và giá trị đơn hàng ký kết từ khối chính phủ tăng mạnh. Doanh thu đạt 52,4 triệu USD, trong khi dòng tiền tự do chuyển sang dương ở mức 2,1 triệu USD.

Điểm tin chính

• Doanh thu quý 1 năm tài chính 2027 đạt 52,4 triệu USD. Doanh thu từ thuê bao đóng góp 49,2 triệu USD, tương đương 94% tổng doanh thu.
• Giá trị đơn hàng ký kết tăng 73%, trong khi đơn hàng từ chính phủ tăng 138% so với cùng kỳ năm trước. C3.ai đã hoàn tất 22 hợp đồng doanh nghiệp trong quý.
• Lỗ hoạt động non-GAAP là 36,2 triệu USD, tốt hơn 8,3 triệu USD so với mức trung bình trong dự báo của ban lãnh đạo.
• Dòng tiền tự do cải thiện lên mức dương 2,1 triệu USD, so với mức âm 34,3 triệu USD của cùng kỳ năm trước và âm 54,8 triệu USD trong quý trước.
• C3.ai đã đạt khoảng 135 triệu USD chi phí tiết kiệm tính theo năm, bao gồm việc cắt giảm khoảng 40% nhân sự trên toàn tổ chức.
• Ban lãnh đạo duy trì dự báo doanh thu năm tài chính 2027 ở mức 210 triệu USD đến 240 triệu USD, đồng thời nhấn mạnh tăng trưởng ổn định so với quý trước, dòng tiền tự do và khả năng sinh lời non-GAAP là các mục tiêu cốt lõi.

Dữ liệu tài chính cốt lõi

Kết quả kinh doanh và hoạt động

Tổng giám đốc Thomas Siebel cho biết C3.ai đã tái cơ cấu tổ chức bán hàng, sản phẩm và dịch vụ trong ba tháng đầu tiên của quá trình xoay chuyển tình thế. Công ty cũng tái thiết lập cơ cấu chi phí và áp dụng cơ chế quản lý tài khoản, phát triển chuỗi cơ hội kinh doanh và rà soát hoạt động chặt chẽ hơn.

C3.ai đã ký 22 hợp đồng doanh nghiệp, bao gồm các hợp đồng với Heidelberg Materials, Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Company, C-SPAN, Holcim, Bộ Quốc phòng Mỹ, Cơ quan Hậu cần Quốc phòng và Bộ Nông nghiệp Mỹ.

Mảng kinh doanh với khối chính phủ là động lực tăng trưởng chính, với giá trị đơn hàng ký kết tăng 138% so với cùng kỳ năm trước. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết chuỗi cơ hội kinh doanh với khối chính phủ vẫn duy trì mạnh mẽ, được hỗ trợ bởi cả cơ hội thay thế đối thủ và các dự án mới hoàn toàn, đặc biệt trong lĩnh vực quốc phòng và tình báo.

Công ty đang tập trung chiến lược sản phẩm vào Nền tảng C3.ai Agentic AI, C3.ai Generative AI, C3.ai Studio và C3.ai Code. Ban lãnh đạo mô tả C3.ai Code là sản phẩm tăng trưởng trọng tâm trong tương lai, có khả năng tạo ra các ứng dụng AI doanh nghiệp từ câu lệnh ngôn ngữ tự nhiên mà không cần lập trình thủ công.

Công ty cũng đang chuyển dịch sang mô hình nền tảng rộng lớn hơn. Các ứng dụng AI doanh nghiệp hiện tại đã được tách thành các thành phần có thể tái sử dụng tích hợp trong nền tảng, cho phép khách hàng lắp ráp ứng dụng theo yêu cầu.

Ban lãnh đạo dẫn nghiên cứu của Forrester Research xếp C3.ai đứng đầu ở các danh mục bao gồm mô hình hóa dữ liệu, phát triển agent, công cụ phát triển ứng dụng, kiểm soát quản trị, quản lý nền tảng và chứng nhận bảo mật.

Dự báo của ban lãnh đạo

Ban lãnh đạo dự kiến biên lợi nhuận gộp non-GAAP quý 2 năm tài chính sẽ điều chỉnh về khoảng giữa 40% do C3.ai thực hiện các khoản đầu tư có chọn lọc vào mảng kỹ thuật.

Trong phần còn lại của năm tài chính 2027, ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng dòng tiền tự do về cơ bản sẽ tương thích với khoảng dự báo lỗ hoạt động non-GAAP. Một số khoản tiết kiệm từ tái cơ cấu dự kiến sẽ được ghi nhận đầy đủ bắt đầu từ nửa sau năm tài chính 2027.

Rủi ro và điểm cần theo dõi

Khả năng thực thi vẫn là vấn đề trung tâm trong quá trình tái cơ cấu của C3.ai. Ông Siebel cho biết kết quả kém khả quan trước đây của công ty phản ánh khâu thực thi hơn là do sản phẩm, cơ hội thị trường hay bảng cân đối kế toán.

Để đạt được mức cao nhất trong khoảng doanh thu cả năm sẽ cần một sự tăng tốc đáng kể. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết mục tiêu trọng tâm là xây dựng chuỗi cơ hội kinh doanh và bộ máy bán hàng cần thiết nhằm mang lại tăng trưởng doanh thu ổn định qua từng quý từ quý 3 năm tài chính trở đi, thay vì chỉ nhắm đến mức đỉnh của khoảng dự báo.

Khoản đầu tư vào mảng kỹ thuật trong ngắn hạn dự kiến sẽ làm giảm biên lợi nhuận gộp từ 50% xuống khoảng giữa 40% trong quý 2 năm tài chính. C3.ai kế hoạch đầu tư nhiều hơn vào đội ngũ kỹ sư triển khai trực tiếp để hỗ trợ khách hàng hiện tại, dù ban lãnh đạo dự kiến C3.ai Code sẽ giảm bớt nhu cầu nguồn lực này trong trung và dài hạn.

Quá trình tái cơ cấu đã gần hoàn tất, nhưng quy mô của nó—bao gồm việc cắt giảm khoảng 40% lực lượng lao động—đòi hỏi duy trì kỷ luật thực thi nghiêm ngặt trên toàn bộ các mảng bán hàng, sản phẩm và dịch vụ.

Nội dung nổi bật từ phần Hỏi & Đáp với chuyên gia phân tích

• Cơ hội từ khối chính phủ: Ban lãnh đạo cho biết các cơ hội bao gồm việc thay thế một nhà cung cấp hiện hữu lớn cũng như cạnh tranh cho các dự án mới. Họ cho rằng một phần chuỗi cơ hội kinh doanh đến từ sự không hài lòng của khách hàng đối với sản phẩm và phương thức kinh doanh của nhà cung cấp hiện hữu.
• Kỹ thuật triển khai trực tiếp: C3.ai sẽ tăng đầu tư ngắn hạn vào hỗ trợ triển khai để giúp khách hàng hiện tại đạt được hiệu quả kỳ vọng. Ban lãnh đạo tin rằng tự động hóa thông qua C3.ai Code có thể bù đắp một phần nhu cầu nhân sự này theo thời gian.
• Mức độ tiếp nhận C3.ai Code: Sản phẩm vẫn đang trong giai đoạn tiếp thị ban đầu. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết khách hàng có thể bắt đầu bằng các đợt triển khai nhỏ hơn và mở rộng theo thời gian, thay vì yêu cầu khoản mua sắm ban đầu trị giá hàng triệu USD.
• Chiến lược nền tảng: Ban lãnh đạo xác nhận C3.ai đang chuyển hướng sang mô hình định hướng nền tảng hơn, trong đó các thành phần tái sử dụng có thể được lắp ráp thành những ứng dụng như bảo trì dự đoán, dự báo nhu cầu và tối ưu hóa chuỗi cung ứng.
• Các ưu tiên tăng trưởng: Ban lãnh đạo ưu tiên tăng trưởng doanh thu liên tục qua từng quý, dòng tiền tự do và khả năng tiến tới có lợi nhuận non-GAAP hơn là bằng mọi giá đạt mức cao nhất trong dự báo của năm tài chính 2027.

Toàn văn biên bản cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Toàn văn cuộc gọi công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Phần trình bày của ban lãnh đạo

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.

Phần hỏi đáp

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.