AEYE - NASDAQ

Good afternoon, and welcome to AudioEye's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us for today's call are AudioEye CEO; Mr. David Moradi; and CFO, Ms. Kelly Georgevich. Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions from the company's publishing analysts. I'd like to remind everyone that this call will be recorded and made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.audioeye.com. Before I turn the call over to AudioEye's Chief Executive Officer, the company would like to remind all participants that statements made by AudioEye management during the course of this conference call that are not historical facts are considered to be forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for such forward-looking statements. The words believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, confident, will and other similar statements of expectation identify forward-looking statements. These statements are predictions, projections or other statements about future events, and are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in today's press release and the comments made during this conference call and in the Risk Factors section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in its other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Participants on this call are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's beliefs only as of the date hereof. AudioEye does not undertake any duty to update or correct any forward-looking statements. Further, management's remarks today will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to these non-GAAP financial measures is available in the company's earnings release or otherwise posted in the Investor Relations section of the website at www.audioeye.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to AudioEye's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. David Moradi. Sir, please proceed.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report our results for 2025, highlighted by our 40th consecutive quarter of record revenue growth, a remarkable achievement. We are not aware of any other SaaS company in the public markets, which have grown sequentially for 40 straight quarters or more. In addition to 40 sequential quarters of revenue growth, we also demonstrated strong operating cash flow in recent years. In 2025, adjusted EBITDA grew by approximately 35% to a record $9.1 million with a record margin of 22%. For the full year 2025, AudioEye achieved record revenue which was even more impressive given that our performance includes our previously noted accelerated customer migrations last year. I'm happy to report that the integration of these acquired customers is now substantially complete, which should drive meaningful ARR acceleration in 2026 with business momentum in the U.S. and EU. In 2026, we expect adjusted EBITDA to grow by at least 30%, implying adjusted EBITDA of at least $11.8 million for the year. Looking at a couple of quarters ahead, we expect to generate a run rate adjusted EBITDA of $15 million by year-end, driven by AI efficiency across our products and operations. This implies an accelerating rate of cash flow growth into 2027, potentially higher than the 30% we are guiding for this year. As we survey today's technology landscape, while AI coding has been top of mind in 2026, the tangible impacts on people with disabilities are largely being overlooked. AI is accelerating how businesses build digital experiences, but it is also accelerating the pace at which accessibility failures compound. Since LLM's draw data that is not accessible to begin with, digital accessibility on the Internet is not improving and may even be getting worse. With this backdrop, we are seeing increased rates of litigation utilizing AI to detect accessibility issues. We believe 2026 will be the highest year of digital accessibility lawsuit on record. Yesterday, we released our next-generation platform to address these market needs. The next-gen platform unifies AI detection, expert audits and custom fixes in a single platform that delivers unmatched transparency, ease of use and 3 to 4 times of legal protection and other solutions. The platform also utilizes years of proprietary data from detecting and fixing accessibility issues across hundreds of thousands of sites and billions of unique visits. Additionally, we are unaware of any other accessibility solution that delivers custom fixes directly within the platform, which gives customers a complete picture of their accessibility compliance. Other solutions may make claims of custom fixes, but cannot back them up. In prior years, on these conference calls, we called out similar claims from the same vendors that automation couldn't fix 100% of accessibility issues, which proved accurate. The next-gen platform use our proprietary data engine to power its results. In February, an independent study conducted by audience found that AudioEye detected between 89% and 253% more WCAG issues than competitive products. AudioEye was the only solution that identified issues at all WCAG levels, including single A, AA, AAA across every website analyzed. Combining our proprietary data set, with newly released agentic models, creates opportunities to solve digital accessibility in ways that were not possible before. Our pace of innovation, which is leveraging our proprietary data is rapidly accelerating, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon. As we enter 2026, we see meaningful opportunities ahead. The EAA is expanding the market globally. The DOJ rule under Title II is increasing regulatory requirements. Record litigation is driving demand. And businesses increasingly recognize that accessibility is not just about compliance, it's about reaching the broadest possible audience, including AI agents that scan a website's accessibility tree instead of the [indiscernible]. Based on our momentum and the market dynamics we're seeing, we are providing the following guidance for 2026: For the first quarter of 2026, we expect revenue of between $10.5 million to $10.6 million, adjusted EBITDA of $2.2 million to $2.3 million and adjusted EPS of $0.17 to $0.18. We typically see lower cash flow in the first quarter as we pay social security taxes and legal and administrative fees associated with the proxy. And this year, we are attending an industry event during the quarter. For the full year 2026, we expect revenue of between $43 million and $44.5 million, and we expect the rate of ARR growth to outpace the rate of revenue growth as we focus less on nonrecurring revenue. We expect adjusted EBITDA will grow by at least 30%, reaching $11.8 million representing a 27% margin at the revenue midpoint. I'll now turn the call over to AudioEye's CFO, Kelly, to review our results in detail. Kelly?

Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. Revenue again reached record levels with Q4 2025 revenue at $10.5 million, an 8% increase from Q4 2024 and a 10% annualized increase sequentially from Q3 2025. On a full year basis, our revenue grew 15% to $40.3 million from $35.2 million in 2024. Breaking this down by channel, our partner and marketplace channel includes all revenue from our SMB-focused marketplace products and revenues from partners who deploy these same products for their SMB customers. For the fourth quarter of 2025, this channel grew 8% year-over-year and represented approximately 59% of ARR. For the full year 2025, this channel's revenue grew 10% from $20.2 million in 2024 to $22.2 million. We continue to see expansion of existing customers and new partners engaging with AudioEye contributing to this channel's group. AudioEye's enterprise channel consists of our larger customers and organizations, including those with non-platform custom websites who generally engage directly with AudioEye sales personnel for pricing and solutions. In Q4 2025, the enterprise channel grew 8% from the comparable period of the prior year. And for the full year 2025, it grew 21% to $18.1 million from $15 million. This growth was driven in part by our expansion into the EU in 2025, which we expect to continue to grow in future periods. The enterprise channel represents approximately 41% of ARR as of December 31, 2025. Annual recurring revenue, or ARR, at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025 was $40 million, a 9% increase over ARR at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 and an increase of $1.3 million sequentially. Gross profit for the fourth quarter was $8.3 million or approximately 79% of revenue compared to $7.8 million or 80% of revenue in Q4 of 2024. For the full year 2025, our gross margin was approximately 78% with gross profit increasing from $27.9 million in 2024 to $31.6 million in 2025. Going forward, we will be reporting adjusted gross margin, a SaaS industry non-GAAP metric that provides insights in the underlying profitability of our core operations by excluding stock-based compensation and depreciation and amortization included in our cost of revenue. Adjusted gross margin was 85% in Q4 2025 compared to 86% in the prior comparable period. Adjusted gross margin was 84% for the full year 2025 compared to 85% in the prior year comparable period. Even with an 8% increase in revenue, operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2025 remain consistent with the same quarter last year. On a full year basis, with revenue increasing 15% over the prior year, operating expenses increased 7% or approximately $2 million to $33.4 million, driven primarily by increases in sales and marketing expense. Increase in items such as stock compensation expense, depreciation and amortization and litigation expense were mostly offset by savings in noncash valuation adjustments to liabilities and lower business combination expenses year-over-year. Our total R&D spend in Q4 was approximately $1.6 million, with approximately $450,000 reflected the software development costs in the investing section of the cash flow statement, a decrease from $1.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Total R&D spend was around 15% in Q4 2025 revenue versus 18% in Q4 2024. For the full year, R&D spend was 16% of 2025 revenue versus 19% in 2024 and 29% for 2023, demonstrating our continued progress in operating leverage. Net loss in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $1.1 million or $0.08 per share compared to a net loss of $1.5 million or $0.12 per share in the same year ago period. On a full year basis, net loss for 2025 was $3.1 million or $0.25 per share compared to a net loss of $4.3 million or $0.36 per share in 2024, an improvement of $1.2 million. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we achieved adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.8 million or $0.22 per share compared to an adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 million or $0.18 per share in the same year ago period. On a full year basis, we produced adjusted EBITDA of approximately $9.1 million or $0.72 per share compared to $6.7 million or $0.55 per share in 2024. This 35% increase in adjusted EBITDA was driven by $5.1 million of revenue growth, a $3.9 million increase in adjusted gross profit and approximately $1 million in savings in adjusted R&D and G&A expenses, partially offset by additional investments in sales and marketing. In the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately $1 million worth of shares. During the full year 2025, we repurchased approximately $4.6 million worth of shares. The successful refinancing of our debt facility with Western Alliance Bank in Q1 2025 strengthened our balance sheet and reduce our interest expense, positioning us for continued growth with greater financial flexibility. Our balance sheet remains well capitalized with $5.3 million in cash as of December 31, 2025, and an additional $6.6 million in debt facilities available. As of December 31, 2025, our net debt, defined as total debt less cash was $8.1 million, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was approximately 0.7x. In the fourth quarter, we generated $2.3 million of free cash flow, calculated as adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 million less $500,000 of software development costs, an improvement of $400,000 from the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year 2025, adjusted free cash flow was $7.2 million versus $4.9 million in 2024. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Joshua Reilly from Needham & Company.

All right. Great. Maybe just starting off, just kind of on the platform updates here. A big piece of what you've done historically is the custom human fixes combined with the automated fixes. And I guess I'm just curious, how much human involvement do you see going forward in the custom fixes relative to what AI can do and how that might drive greater automation in the platform and efficiencies for you.

Yes, the tools aren't really that good at accessible content because the internet wasn't coded with accessibility in mind. And as you know, the amount of sites and content are exploding on the Internet. We're seeing an all-time high in litigation. We think lawyers are using AI to the tech issues and draft all these complaints with more websites even to choose from. So I'm not sure when it's going to get there. It's very far away from that now. It's actually getting worse. And the problem hasn't been solved in 25 years. The issue is when you push code, even if the code was coded with accessibility, someone else touches it and it's not accessible anymore. And this is especially true for sites like e-com that are constantly changing. So it's very far off to answer your question in my opinion.

Got it. And then -- so along with that, how does the changes you made to the platform along with that concept that you do need to keep the human involvement going, maybe further your differentiation versus some of the competitors.

No one has it right in the platform for the custom fixes. So that's the difference and we're using more and more agents with that as well to streamline it further.

Got you. Okay. That's helpful. And then if we look at the initial revenue guidance for 2026, maybe you can just kind of help us understand what are the puts and takes investors should be considering including visibility to that revenue guidance relative to the ARR exit rate of about $40 million for Q4 and kind of the growth trends that you saw in 2025 relative to what you're assuming in 2026.

Yes. We're being pretty conservative. The major factor is we expect less nonrecurring revenue as we focus more on ARR and some of the acquired customers initially have nonrecurring revenue that we phased out. Kelly can get into this, what this means from a financial standpoint, but we're very bullish about the opportunities in front of us more than ever. We're in a unique position with massive amounts of data from 10 years of these custom and automated fixes and seen all these edge cases over the years. It's a treasure trove of information to drive the agents in the future. But I'll let Kelly answer the rest of that question.

Yes. Just getting into a little bit further. If you look at the guidance for the year, it implies revenue growth of nearly 10%, and that's assuming lower nonrecurring revenue. We do anticipate higher ARR growth in this, so kind of low to mid-teens on the ARR side. Nonrecurring is a small percent of our revenue, about 5% overall, but we're aiming to reduce this even further to focus on ARR this year, and that's impacting that guidance somewhat.

Next question is from George Sutton from Craig-Hallum.

So relative to EAA. I'm just wondering if you could give us an update on the investments you're making there, some of the opportunities that you're seeing, for example, we have been seeing some hires in Netherlands as an example. But I know you've signed some nice partners. Just any update on Europe and sort of the opportunity you're seeing there?

Yes, sure. As expected, the EU tends to move a bit slower than the U.S. It's a bit bureaucratic, as you know. GDPR took a while to force and then the adoption followed over the next few years, but we are seeing pipeline building nicely, big deals in the pipeline, closed the big one in the fourth quarter and we expect to continue ramping up the EU as the year goes on. But if enforcement happens, which it will at some point, all bets are off. Demand is going to ramp very, very quickly.

Got you. And just as my follow-up on the AI side, I was intrigued by your thought that the failures are more pronounced when AI is involved relative to disability. You mentioned internet wasn't necessarily built with disability involved, and I'm going to assume AI hasn't been either. Can you just walk through what would potential partnerships be relative to AI. Could you ultimately be partnering with some of the LLMs, for example, or folks that are building out agents? Just curious your thoughts there.

No, we have very unique data. You can do a lot with that. I don't want to give away strategies on this call, but this data unlocks a lot of potential. Those with data own the gold.

Our next question is coming from

David, can you give us an update on potentially a ramp-up in enforcement on the DOJ Title II side. I mean we have the initial compliance date that's coming up here in a little over a month. So just curious, any update on that and progress you're seeing with some of your major partners on the federal side.

Yes, the DOJ's requirements are going to go into effect next month, as you said. We haven't heard anything to the contrary. We continue to see momentum on the reseller and even direct channels from states. We're seeing strong momentum from both partners, Finalsite, CivicPlus, and I think there's a huge opportunity to unlock those and really penetrate the customer bases over the next 2, 3 years.

Understood. And one follow-up question is for Kelly. How should we be thinking about gross margin on, I guess, an adjusted basis now that you're giving out that metric? I know a little bit of a headwind as you did the final migration work with some of those customers to the new platform. But how are you thinking about gross margin as we go through 2026?

Yes. The gross margin and adjusted gross margin, I think we expect to see relatively consistent to what we've seen. So on a gross margin basis, kind of mid- to high 70s as we pay for more AI compute, but we could see higher margins over the next couple of quarters and then adjusted gross margin, we did want to introduce because I think a lot of other SaaS companies use it, and it just is a little bit lucky with stock compensation and depreciation and amortization in there. But I think we expect both to kind of be at similar levels and with opportunities to see further growth in both of those different levers.

Best of luck with the rest of the quarter.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Richard Baldry from ROTH Capital Partners.

Not sure if I missed this, but the 8,000 customer adds looks to me like the strongest in about 2 years. Sort of curious what do you think the drivers were under -- underneath that, whether they look sustainable or extensible heading forward?

Yes. That was a large reseller in the EU, the deal we signed in the fourth quarter that made up a lot of that. We're still in the early innings in the EU, as you know and expect to see a lot more momentum.

And then if I look at the spending side, the G&A and R&D has been basically flattish for about 2 years, but the sales and marketing has been rising. So could you maybe talk about how you view your current level of sales productivity, how much more do you think you want to invest in that going ahead in fiscal '26 in particular?

Yes. We're always pretty strategic with investments in sales and marketing. I think we'll continue to invest in sales and marketing as long as we keep seeing that ROI, and we do expect to continue to invest in the EU as well.

And we're looking for 30% growth in cash flow this year. So tons of leverage dropping to the bottom line.

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.

I'd like to thank our employees, customers and investors for their support. We look forward to providing an update on the next quarter. Thank you.