SoundHound's Earnings Beat Reflects This Emerging Trend In Voice AI

Dow Jones
Nov 07

SoundHound AI delivered record third-quarter revenue and raised its outlook for the year on its view that it has "enormous potential" as enterprises around the world increasingly adopt artificial intelligence.

SoundHound shares rose 2% in after hours.

The voice and conversational AI company raised its full-year revenue guidance to between $165 million and $180 million, which at the midpoint exceeds the FactSet consensus of $166 million. SoundHound's prior full-year outlook was for between $160 million and $178 million.

September-quarter revenue came out to $42 million, ahead of the $40.5 million consensus on FactSet, and up 68% from a year before. SoundHound (SOUN) reported an adjusted loss of 3 cents a share, whereas analysts were expecting a loss of 5 cents a share.

"Enterprise AI adoption is booming globally, and SoundHound is strengthening its leading position with deployments in millions of end points across highly diversified industries and customers," SoundHound Chief Executive Keyvan Mohajer said in a statement. He added that SoundHound sees "enormous potential" for its business in both the near term and long term.

During the quarter, SoundHound acquired customer-service AI company Interactions to expand its agentic AI offerings and improve its position in the market for AI-powered voice customer service for enterprises. The acquisition was for approximately $60 million in cash, with the possibility for more payments based on reaching specified revenue milestones.

"We're rapidly moving toward a future of AI agents, where voice and conversational AI are absolutely integral to high-quality customer service," Mohajer said in a statement at the time. "This has always been SoundHound's vision, and we're committed to working with the very best to get there."

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria took a favorable view of the acquisition in a September note, due to it adding "major brands for SoundHound to sell into," such as Citi and Fortune 100 companies.

SoundHound said at the time that the deal "is expected to be immediately accretive" to its operating profitability.

Wedbush's Dan Ives said the boost to the company's operating profitability comes "as the company realizes various synergies across existing solutions, including complementary capabilities."

Ives said in his September note that the acquisition gives SoundHound a much larger addressable market and client base, therefore adding additional revenue streams with more product offerings and a wider geography and supply chain channel.

Now combined with Interactions, SoundHound can provide customers a "full suite of options for omnichannel Agentic AI," according to Ives, and deliver full AI automation to customers that typically use "human-in-the-loop or agent-only solutions." Ives also noted that SoundHound's intellectual property includes close to 400 patents after the acquisition.

"We believe this was a smart strategic move by [SoundHound] that will increase choice, flexibility, and scale for its customers and will better position the company to meet this transformational market shift coming towards more agentic interactions while broadening its customer portfolio," Ives said.

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