CXM - NYSE

Greetings. Welcome to Sprinklr's Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Eric Scro, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, Eric. You may now begin.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to Sprinklr's Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Results Call. Joining us today are Rory Read, Sprinklr's President and CEO; and Anthony Coletta, Sprinklr's Chief Financial Officer. We issued our earnings release a short time ago, filed the related Form 8-K with the SEC, and we've made them available on the Investor Relations section of our website along with the supplementary investor presentation. Please note that on today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. You are directed to our press release and supplementary investor presentation for a reconciliation of such measures to GAAP. In addition, during today's call, we'll be making some forward-looking statements about the business and about the financial results of Sprinklr that involve many assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including our guidance for the first fiscal quarter and full fiscal year of FY '27, the impact of our corporate strategies, the benefits of our platform and our market opportunity. Our actual results might differ materially from such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on our beliefs and assumptions as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update them. For more details on the risks associated with these forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings with the SEC also posted on our website. With that, I'll now turn it over to Rory.

Thank you, Eric, and hello, everyone. It's great to be with you today. In the fourth quarter, total revenue grew 9% year-over-year to $220.6 million, and subscription revenue grew 6% to $193.4 million. We delivered $37.7 million in non-GAAP operating income, representing a 17% non-GAAP operating margin. I wanted to thank our global teams, customers and partners for their trust and ongoing support. FY '26 was a year of meaningful operational progress. While churn was higher than we would have preferred, particularly in the first half, we achieved key transformational objectives we set out at the start of the year. We optimized our cost structure, revamped our go-to-market model, streamline processes and strengthen our leadership team. The combination of these improvements along with Project Bear Hug is driving a cultural shift towards greater accountability, customer centricity and operational discipline. We are now in the second phase of our transformation, transition and execution, which will continue through FY '27. This stays is about embedding last year's changes to build a stronger foundation for scale and efficiency. As we complete this transition, we'll move into the third phase, acceleration as we head into FY '28. Key indicators are moving in the right direction. Fourth quarter delivered our best renewal rates over the past 4 quarters, and we expect continued improvement here in Q1 and Q2. Demand remains healthy considering recent macro events, our pipeline remains solid, and we're seeing more multiyear commitments from our customers. FY '27 marks the pivotal year for Sprinklr as customer experience is at an inflection point. Consumers now expect brands to recognize them instantly and maintain context across every interaction. Sprinklr is uniquely positioned to lead in this shift. We are defining Unified Customer Experience Management, one platform that connects insights, predictions and actions across the entire customer journey. Our enterprise-grade metadata and business application layers gives us the structural advantage as workflows, contacts and AI agents come together. There has been a lot of discussion about whether AI will pressure enterprise software budget. From what we're seeing, customers aren't cutting core software spend to fund AI. Instead, they expect it to be built onto the platform they already trust with security and compliance protocols, and where their key data already resides. In FY '26, ARR from our generative AI-native Sprinklr Service SKUs grew 50% year-over-year, driven by strong demand for AI agents, contact center intelligence and agent copilot. And because AI is native to our platform, our omnichannel portfolio continues to drive robust enterprise-wide AI adoption among our customers. In FY '27, we're executing against 4 core innovation priorities: one, unified customer intelligence. This includes integrating surveys, social, messaging, videos and reviews into a single actionable insight engine. Two, enterprise-wide automation, including scaling AI agents, no-code AI studio and over 100 connectors to automate workflows at scale. Three, AI-driven marketing and commerce, we're powering engagement with AI Copilots, conversational interfaces and real-time content generation. And four, next-generation AI and insights, advancing LLM-based listening, generative engine optimization and agentic commerce to meet customers wherever they are. We're building this on a powerful foundation. More than 180 billion customer conversations a year and over a decade of language and intent modeling across 30-plus channels and more than 400 million websites. That scale lets us tie predictive and generative AI directly to action, providing faster results to customers. We're not building a set of tools, we're building an operating system for modern customer experience. We're also benefiting from constructive industry trends. Marketing budgets appear to stabilizing, and spending is shifting toward return on investment, automation and measurable impact. According to the CMO survey, AI adoption and marketing is expected to grow significantly over the next several years. We believe this environment favors unified platforms. Sprinklr helps brand activate first-party data, automate engagement and drive better outcomes. More broadly, AI is accelerating usage of enterprise systems of record and platforms built for enterprise workflows are proving they can grow profitably in this new era. Let me share a couple of examples of why we're winning and how iconic brands are using Sprinklr today. This past quarter, Sprinklr landed a flagship partnership with a leading global payments company operating in over 200 markets. 4 major teams: corporate communications, global brand, social care and MarTech, will standardize on Sprinklr's unified AI native platform. By consolidating multiple legacy tools into one governed real-time environment, this customer gains a single source of proof for global marketing data, unified measurement across channels and markets, stronger brand governance and instant ROI visibility. Most importantly, by working with Sprinklr, this customer will be able to convert vast social signals into actionable intelligence that sharpens global strategy, enhances creative effectiveness and enables cultural, relevant engagement at scale, ultimately accelerating this customer sustainable global growth. Our second story highlights a major U.S. telecommunication provider that recently deepened its partnership with Sprinklr. As a result, ARR has doubled year-over-year, and increased sixfold over the past 2 years with marketing, communication and customer insights already unified on Sprinklr, the latest investment brings the customers' care organization onto the same platform. This expansion equips more than 600 social care specialists with advanced AI-powered listening, conversational analytics and dedicated strategic and technical support. This will help manage inbound social volume more efficiently and improve customer sentiment. Earlier in the year, when this customer abruptly lost access to a critical social channel through its previous vendor, Sprinklr stepped in. We were able to immediately restore business continuity and strengthen our role as a trusted partner across business operations and IT. These are just a couple of recent examples of how customers are increasingly turning to Sprinklr as a strategic partner, recognizing that our AI native platform can unify marketing, customer insights and care to power their long-term customer experience strategy. So in closing, we've made meaningful progress this past year in transforming Sprinklr, into a stronger, more customer-centric company. We're encouraged by the improvements in renewal rates in the fourth quarter, and we expect that momentum to continue into the first half of this new year. Customer sentiment is improving, and we have a solid pipeline to build on. Our full year guidance reflects that we are now passing the midpoint of the second phase of our 3-phase: transformation, transition, and execution. And as I have covered in previous calls, we saw elevated churn in FY '26. The broader macro environment has also become fluid, particularly with the events in the Middle East, where we have a meaningful business and good pipeline. With that in mind, we're staying diligent and approaching FY '27 with discipline and focus, positioning Sprinklr for the third phase of our transformation acceleration as we move towards FY '28. There is more work to do, but we remain confident in our strategy and are committed to delivering durable growth and long-term shareholder value. With that, I'll turn it over to Anthony for the financials. Anthony?

Thank you, Rory, and good morning, everyone. First, I want to recognize the commitment and passion for customer success of our teams across the company, the driving force behind our continued progress and growth. This quarter marks another step forward and Q4 results came ahead of expectations. Now let me turn to our financial performance. Total revenue was $220.6 million, up 9% year-over-year. Subscription revenue was $193.4 million, up 6% year-over-year. Professional services revenue came in at $27.1 million as we continue working on some large CCaaS rollouts for our customers. Services revenue came in better than anticipated due to more hours led to some of these large global projects. Our subscription revenue-based net dollar expansion rate in the fourth quarter was 103%, this is a slight increase sequentially, pointing in the right direction. At the end of the fourth quarter, we had 141 customers contributing $1 million or more in subscription revenue over the past 12 months, which is 4 customers less than in Q3. These results from a few customers seeing their trailing 12 months revenue crossing below the $1 million mark for this metric. More importantly, the net dollar expansion for the $1 million customer cohort in Q4 was 115% and the average revenue per customer in that same cohort is now above $3 million. We don't intend to disclose this metric quarterly going forward, but I wanted to give you a sense of some of the underlying traction. We firmly believe that our Bear Hug focus will solidify our baseline and contribution from top-tier enterprise customer base over time. For example, our Q4 renewal rate was the highest of any quarter in full year '26. Furthermore, majority of our full year '26 renewal dollars are multiyear deals, which is driving an increase in the average contract length. Regarding gross margin for the fourth quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, our subscription gross margin was 76%, and the professional services gross margin was 1%, resulting in the total non-GAAP gross margin of 67%. As noted in previous calls, we are experiencing higher data and hosting costs in response to business opportunities, especially in Sprinklr Service and our expanded AI capabilities. Turning to profitability for the quarter. Non-GAAP operating income was $37.7 million or a 17% margin which drove non-GAAP net income of $0.13 per diluted share. We incurred $1.2 million in restructuring and nonrecurring litigation costs that are deemed to be noncore to the operations of the business. And as such, these costs are not included in our non-GAAP figures. We generated $15.9 million in free cash flow in Q4 and $142 million for the year on a reported basis. The strong improvement in free cash flow was driven by cost discipline, strong collections and improved cash conversion. Our balance sheet remains strong with $502.5 million in cash and marketable securities and no debt. As indicated in our earnings release, our Board has authorized a new $200 million share buyback program, which we expect to complete by March 15, 2027. This will include a $125 million accelerated share repurchase launching shortly, supplemented by open market repurchases. Given our confidence in the strategy and the strength of our balance sheet, we see the current share price as a compelling opportunity. We'll continue to evaluate our capital needs and allocate cash to the highest return initiatives. Even after completing the authorized repurchases, we remain well capitalized to execute our strategy and drive our growth agenda. Calculated billings for the fourth quarter were $317.4 million, up 6% year-over-year. Minor variance versus the $320 million we had anticipated was mainly due to one deal, which was expected in the quarter, and that ultimately closed in February. This pickup in billings is now reflected in Q1 outlook. As of January 31, 2026, total remaining performance obligation, or RPO, were $986.5 million stable versus Q4 last year and up 15% sequentially. And current RPO or cRPO was $618.8 million, up 1% year-over-year and up 10% quarter-on-quarter. Before moving to guidance, I'd like to provide a quick recap of the financial results for the full year '26. As we've said throughout the course of the year, FY '26 was a transition year for Sprinklr, and we've made significant operational and structural improvements to establish a better foundation for Sprinklr next phase of growth. We've seen some encouraging signs and are excited for what's ahead. For the year, total revenue was $857.2 million, up 8% year-over-year, with subscription revenue of $756.3 million, up 5% versus the prior year. Professional Services revenue was $100.9 million, up 29% as we continue to improve and build our Sprinklr Service delivery capabilities. The reported non-GAAP operating income for the full year of $146.2 million equating to a non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $0.49 and a non-GAAP operating margin of 17%. Non-GAAP operating income was up 63% year-over-year showing our commitment to operating efficiency. And as noted above, we generated $142 million in free cash flow for the year up 140% versus the prior year and equating to a free cash flow margin of 17%. I would like to shift to our financial outlook for fiscal year 2027. As Rory said in his remarks, we are in the second phase of our transformation and mindful of the current macro and geopolitical environment. Our expectations as of today regarding these dynamics are factored into our guidance figures. For Q1, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $215.5 million to $216.5 million, representing 5% growth over year at the midpart. Within this, we expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $193 million to $194 million, also representing 5% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. The Q1 guide implies $22.5 million in professional services revenue which is up 5% year-over-year. This is a step down sequentially because of large projects performed in Q4. We expect professional services gross margin to be slightly negative to breakeven in Q1 due to continued investment in service delivery. We believe such investment is worthwhile as these implementations will yield dividends in terms of increased consumption and customer satisfaction in the future. We expect non-GAAP operating income to be in the range of $28.5 million to $29.5 million, resulting in non-GAAP net income per diluted share of approximately $0.09, assuming 245 million diluted weighted average share outstanding. This equates to an approximately 13% non-GAAP operating margin at the midpoint. This profit range will moderate sequentially from Q4 peak, considering our continued focus on innovation and customer success and some discrete items. As noted over the past few quarters, we are experiencing a solid uptake in our AI products leading to higher cloud and data costs. Secondly, we are investing to position the company for revenue growth in through hiring to AI and R&D talent, particularly in targeted regions with forward-deployed engineers to best serve key customers as well as enabling additional go-to-market capabilities. And finally, with our sales kickoff event in Q1. These factors are reflected in the guide for Q1 and the full year. For the full year FY '27, our initial guide for subscription revenue is to be in the range of $778 million to $780 million, representing 3% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. We expect total revenue to be in the range of $869 million to $871 million, representing 1% growth year-over-year at the midpoint. This total revenue guide assumes professional services revenue of $91 million. We estimate pro services revenue to be at a lower level compared to FY '26 due to a successful completion of Bear Hug initiatives over the past year. This level of pro services is approximately 10% of total revenue, which is in line with the trailing 3-year average, it's a value catalyst for our customers. For the full year FY '27, we estimate our non-GAAP operating income to be in the range of $144 million to $146 million, driving a 17% non-GAAP operating margin. This equates to a non-GAAP net income per diluted share between $0.47 and $0.48 assuming 244 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding. Deriving the net income per share for modeling purposes, our total tax provision of approximately $42 million needs to be added to the non-GAAP profit before tax line. To get to non-GAAP profit before tax, start with the non-GAAP operating income ranges provided and had an estimated $15 million in other income for the full year with $3.5 million of that to be earned here in Q1. This other income line primarily consist of interest income. We estimate a tax provision of approximately $8.5 million in Q1. This equates to approximately a 26% effective tax rate on our non-GAAP profit before tax for both the quarter and the year. Our initial estimate is to generate full year free cash flow of $150 million with $40 million to come in Q1. In summary, full year '26 was a turning point for the company, and we've laid out a solid base towards the next leg of our journey. We delivered P&L guidance for the full year. We have maintained solid fundamentals to the healthy balance sheet, no debt and strong cash flow generation with increased cash conversion. We are encouraged by the tangible progress made over the past months and the quality of our customer landscape, underpinned by improving renewals and increased commitments in the top-tier customer category. As we continue with our transition, we are building positive momentum with renewed focus and operational discipline in support of our durable growth trajectory. Full year '27 is a pivotal moment for the company, which we believe should pave the way for enhanced growth prospects and for expanded potential of our AI native platform. And with that, we will now open the line to take questions from the audience. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from the line of Arjun Bhatia with William Blair.

I'm Willow on for Arjun Bhatia. Anthony, I appreciate the team's comments on supporting growth and balancing strategic investments. As we think about the full year margin guide, would you frame the outlook as conservative? In other words, is there maybe a built-in cushion to allow investing as needed as margin expansion looks flat in fiscal 2027 based on the outlook?

Thanks, Willow. Willow, I think what we've always tried to do here is to be prudent and disciplined in how we look at the future. We want to make sure that we're building a Sprinklr that's positioned for long-term future growth. We're also looking for the ability to address the tactical technical debt, the innovation that we need to do. So we're trying to run this transformation in a very balanced and focused approach. I think what we try to do always is to make sure that we have the latitude to make the appropriate investments to drive long-term innovation, the extension of our AI-agentic agents, our co-piloting, our core innovations and then obviously, the hardening of our CCaaS solution. We also want to make sure that we continue to make -- deliver the right returns to our investors. So I think we run a balanced structure here. I think we've been prudent in the way we've looked at the future to give ourselves the latitude to continue this transformation. And Willow, as I said in the prepared remarks, we're in that second phase. We're just passing that midpoint of that second phase transition and execution. This is where we're burning in these changes. That should position us for the acceleration phase as we move into FY '28. So my feedback would be, I think we've contemplated the right focus and the right balance across that to give ourselves the latitude to continue to properly deliver the innovation and changes we need to do to drive long-term durable growth, but also to deliver a healthy return in the tactical future.

Our next question is from the line of Catharine Trebnick with Rosenblatt Securities. .

Could you break out internationally versus U.S., what the percentage revenue is? I'm trying to pinpoint because you do have a large installed base in the Middle East. I'm just trying to understand how much of the geopolitical might be the conservative guide?

From the standpoint of the Middle East, this is -- if you look at -- I run 12 regions across 3 geographies, what we call DVPs, right? Those regions, there's 12 of them. The Middle East would be in the upper middle, okay? So they're not the largest, but they're definitely one of our healthy regions. They have a good pipeline. They've executed well over the past 2 years. I will call out that they've been extremely resilient. And I want to recognize that team in a very difficult environment right now. They have rallied together. All of Sprinklr is supporting them and they're intensely focused on helping our customers in a very difficult environment. So I would put them in that kind of upper middle of our geographies. It has meaningful business, and it's an important business to us. I think if we looked at worldwide, I kind of describe us as about in that 50, 55 range for Americas, that 35-plus kind of range for Europe, and then about 10 in Asia, APJI. That gives you a sense of kind of how the structure works. And again, I run 12 regions, Middle East and Africa in the upper middle, meaningful business, good pipeline.

The next question is from the line of Jackson Ader with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

So if I look at total revenue, the run rate is actually above where you're expecting to be for fiscal '27, the run rate ending fiscal '26. And I realize some of this is a little mix, meaning subscription versus services, but is there the elevated churn that you saw last year, is that expected to continue in fiscal '27? And that's why we're looking at possibly by the time we exit fiscal '27, the run rate might be flat to maybe even a little down compared to where we are today?

Yes. No. That's not what we expect at all. So I think what we saw, as I said in the prepared remarks, Jackson, that we saw elevated churn in FY '26. I mentioned that in every earnings call, I told you in 3Q that I began to see a more predictable environment around renewal rates, and that was a good sign. Here in 4Q in the prepared remarks, I called that we had our best renewal rates that we've seen over a year. And I also shared that I expect 1Q and 2Q to be again, another step up. So I'm starting to see a bend in that renewal rate that I began to see in 4Q. I expect to see in the first half. I'll also tell you that we're intensely focused on Bear Hugging our top 900 customers now. So that represents about 90% of our revenue. We are working on renewals in 3Q, 4Q and even 1Q of FY '28. So we're getting a much deeper view of that. I saw a better predictability in 3Q. I saw at the beginning of the bend in 4Q. And then 1Q, 2Q, I expect that to continue, and indications and all my data is pointing in that direction. What I think you're seeing is I think based on that, that's a lagging indicator. And I think you've got some of that macro environment kind of outlook. And as I said, I'm at the midpoint of the second phase. I have work to continue to do here as a team, I feel very good about the progress we made. And I want to make sure that we're diligent in what we guide and how we produce it so that we're making sure that we continue to do the things we say we're going to do.

Okay. All right. Fair enough. And then a quick follow-up maybe for you, Rory, maybe for Anthony, on the -- just on the margin, I mean, outside of the restructuring that you did, I think, at the start of -- at the start of the year, what can you do just regularly running the business, not -- again, outside of restructuring, just incrementally, what are your plans for increasing margin just as you run the business day to day?

Jackson, so there are a couple of things. So first off, there is this element of revenue mix. So as you know, we have now a different mix of products, and we have invested also in some CCaaS business which is picking up. So there is this element also in the margin mix. There is also underlying so -- overall at the surface, if you look at the revenue mix, we expect also services to play into this and you have -- so we have highlighted the services margin that we are projecting. So you see that there is also that element. Now to your question on what we're doing. First, at the macro level, you've seen that we have kind of a flat headcount decreasing over the past 2 years. So we continue to monitor that -- and monitoring our investment into the right buckets and make sure we invest in innovation and go-to-market capabilities, but diligently and -- so that's one element of -- or one lever for the margin. And then on the other side, so obviously, we're investing in AI solutions, in AI products, but also for our customers. So you have still some significant hosting costs and, let's say, running costs on the innovation side that we have to factor into the margin profile here. But underlying, we have really some very strong discipline on the expense side and strong initiatives on every area across the company. So operationally, I think we are leaning towards a more agile and more effective organization. But at the macro level, obviously, you have other factors in terms of revenue mix, in terms of product mix, et cetera, that are playing in. And as we pick up on the AI wave, I think you will see that productivity gains. But obviously, the main opportunity for ahead of us is really the sales productivity, and we see that now with the renewals heading the right direction. I think this should support the margin profile in the years ahead. But you can be ensured that we are doing everything to build that foundation that will expand on the margin profile for the following years as we deliver on this second wave of transformation.

Yes. And I'd add just a little bit of color, Jackson on Bear Hug. One of the things that we've done during this phase of transition and execution and as we see renewal rates improve in 4Q and expect it to improve again in 1Q and 2Q, I think that reflects a lot of the work we're doing. I think some of these accounts over the past 3 years were a bit neglected. I think what we've done is making sure that we're investing the time and effort, the services work to support them through Bear Hug to make sure those renewal rates increase and we position ourselves for expansion. I think that work will finish up as we go through this year. We'll get to -- people ask when is this renewal cycle. I think as we move through this year and finish this phase, I think we become a more standard kind of execution engine, and we clean up a lot of that debt and customer focus from the past.

Our next questions are from the line of Patrick Walravens with Citizens JMP.

Okay. Great. And congratulations on getting the renewal rate to get better. So Rory, I feel like previously, we thought the acceleration phase would happen in the second half of fiscal '27 and now we're talking about fiscal '28. Is that fair?

I think what I've always said that the first phase is generally somewhere between 6 and 9 months, that's business where we do the business optimization, the go-to-market restructuring, that's where we did the cost takeouts last year. We always talked about the second being in that 12- to 18-month range. I think that kind of puts us in the second half. I'm looking for a better Sprinklr toward late summer, beginning of fall, but there's no question that I think that, that phase as we move toward the end of this year and beginning of next year is kind of in that range. Best case, it was 12 months longer, it's at 18 months, it's kind of tracking where we expected to be. And having done this several times, I like the progress we made last year. I think if we do that again this year, I think we're in a very good position as we move through the end of this year and in FY '28. Renewal rates, Pat, that's like having a hole in your boat, you have to fix that. And that drags you and that issue sticks around for a while. We have seen that begin to bend. I was very clear in 3Q that I saw us be more predictable with the data and analytics. 4Q now I see it bend. I see the best results in over a year, and I'm calling again that I'm seeing the opportunity for us to improve again in 1Q, 2Q. And I can promise you we're working on renewals and expansions in 3Q -- I mean, 4Q of this year and 1Q of next year. That's so different than when I got here. We talked about renewals within the month. So I think when we get that, we should start to see ARR continue to build throughout the year. We should see -- CPR, whatever that thing. We see that continue to improve. Those are the key longer-term items. I think that's how I look at it.

Okay. Great. And if I could ask a follow-up. You previously said when we get to the acceleration phase, then you'll try putting more logs on the fire. What will be putting more logs on the fire look like?

So that we're already starting to do because each phase overlaps a little bit. What you're trying to do is you're trying -- as you move through each of these 3 phases, you're trying to do the work that prepares you for the next phase. Here is some good information. We're beginning this year with more ramped AEs, more in-seat ramped AEs than we have had in over 3 years, okay? That says we're getting better retention. We're at the highest level that we've been in more than 3-plus years. That means we have people in seat, and they're definitely working the client and building that Bear Hug 24/7, 365 relationship. We're investing in innovation. We're making sure that not only are we cleaning up the technical debt, but we're investing in our agentic work, our forward-deployed engineers. You have to do that all throughout this year, and it should accelerate as you go into the second half to position you for that acceleration phase. You don't wait to the end or it's not like a hard line. You're doing that work as you go through. So you're kind of doing it in parallel. And I'm excited about that work. I think we're seeing real kinds of progress in terms of better feedback from our customers. Our customers are noticing a different Sprinklr. We're putting Sprinklr support on Sprinklr. And each of these items moves us. I've met with, what, more than 600 customers now and many over and over again. The things I heard when I first got here 15 months ago, that's much less. Now they're talking about we noticed that this is much different. We appreciate it. Now take us to the next generation of capability and finish up this work that you're doing in this phase. That's how I kind of see a path.

Our next questions are from the line of Raimo Lenschow with Barclays.

Perfect. Great update guys and congrats as well on a solid Q4. Can you talk about services next year? If I look -- you talked a little bit about the projects you're doing for clients, there's still some cleaning up, but like it does seem to decelerate quite a lot, which kind of seems odd. Can you talk a little bit about that role that services has played so far and going forward?

Yes, Raimo, 2 thoughts on that one. One, we want to build an ecosystem with partners. By the way, we've got the analytics and the data. When we partner with a trusted adviser, one of these great global system integrators or great regional integrators that really understand Sprinklr, we see a win rate about a 75% higher win rate than if we don't. So it makes sense to do that. And we don't want to dilute the margin long term. Remember last year, as I went through FY '26, I told you the acceleration in services, our core -- our own services was driven by a very large Global 50 implementation, that's going to finish up and move into regular execution and software work that subscription revenue. That will talk about at the end of this quarter because that deal actually closed recently. I'm excited about that because all of that work positioned us for that key win. What I want to do is I want to keep growing that ecosystem and have a balanced piece of that for our own because we have some real experts, we have great team there. That team is doing some phenomenal work but I don't want to become a service business. This is a software AI platform that's going to create a unified platform for customer experience. Service is a key adder but it can't be the core of the business. And we need that ecosystem so those trusted advisers, when we go together like one of the world's largest retailer in 3Q, we won a great deal. That was because of one of our amazing global system integrator partners. We have to do more of that. And we want to make sure that we're feeding both sides, but I don't need to grow the services so fast. Good news, that big project, it's kind of gotten to the place where it's moved into that win in 1Q, and that's great.

And maybe adding to that from a modeling standpoint, Raimo, essentially, what we are saying is that you should expect that the acceleration compared to current level, so more back to where we were 1 year ago in terms of the next quarters, what we expect. So we want to this to continue to be an unlock of value for our customers, and we will continue to execute on that. But now that we have less of the Bear Hug effort to do, and we have a very good level of utilization within services, we expect this to be a bit lower in the following quarters compared to what it was last year.

Our next questions are from the line of Elizabeth Porter with Morgan Stanley.

Excellent. This is Keith Weiss on for Elizabeth. Maybe just rounding that quickly to Jackson's question. You guys are right, like on a subscription revenue basis, you guys are looking for growth over the run rate exiting Q4. It's the services side of the equation that you guys are looking to come down. Can you talk to us a little bit about where does that signal? Is that just like you're saying like pushing more stuff to your partners? And given this low-margin business, you're willing to push that out? Or is there any kind of demand signal, either forward-looking or backwards looking in that services side of the equation? That's question number one. Question number 2 is on the 50% growth in the GenAI SKUs. Can you talk us a little bit about where that budget comes from? How are your customers funding these AI initiatives? And for the particular AI functionality, who are you competing with there? Is it just external vendors or in any way is like DIY initiatives and by coding starting to become more of a competitive dynamic?

Sure. So I'll take the first question and then Rory, you can comment on the second. So on your first topic, again, we said that we expect this to lower. But what does that signal on the services side is essentially the progress we've made on the Bear Hug front. So you have less effort to do going forward, and you have a more -- so we have invested in delivery and in productivity, in the services space. So you get the fruits of that in -- going forward, but you have also less effort on the services front that you had over the past 5, 6 quarters. So this is what that signals. That's also a more stable environment, a more normalized services revenue line. We continue to see that as a value enabler. So we continue to invest in that, but to a lower extent and less dilutive again to the overall mix and the margin, but obviously, from a compare perspective, from a baseline perspective, that's a bit lower than what we had last year. But I think it's a good thing that signals to progress on the journey and the transformation efforts. Maybe, Rory, you want to comment on the AI?

Yes. And again, Keith, on that point, there was that very large implementation that I mentioned throughout the previous earnings calls, that's finishing up and moving into as it completed in the 1Q time frame and moving into software at that time. So I think that's a very good thing. Now let's talk about the generative AI SKUs and AI SKUs in general. What we're doing here is a combination of generative work around deflection, using the contextual data that's in this amazing platform that we've built. AI -- real AI unlock is driven by the use of contextual data. AI is not a computational compute model. That's not what it does. What it needs is contextual data to really interpret and create generative ideas and thoughts from that contextual data. That's why we believe our platform and this huge amount of customer data, we think is so powerful. We see it in several phases. We see it where we use intelligent collaboration. You know that we're doing work around marketing insights, social insights, the work on our amazing set of contact center wins. These are using this for the agents, for the marketing teams, the revenue teams to really understand the insights. And they're linking together data across surveys, social, touch points within the contact center, digital deflection to create a holistic view of that voice of the customer, that's where intelligent collaboration. And that's why we win these CCaaS deals. And that's why we've seen a very steep acceleration in the usage of this capability and our social tools. I think it's been to -- and then I'll talk about agentic. Agentic both bots, voice, digital, full agentic, these are the next generation of SKUs that we're driving that allows those customers with forward-deployed engineers to really create those differentiated capabilities. Again, because we have this robust platform with all of this customer data and contact, you run that through the agentic AI as well as the intelligent collaboration and you create those different outcomes, that's the flywheel of change that we're driving. I think it's going well so far. Would I like to see it accelerate? Absolutely. 50% growth is good, but we want to drive that harder and faster. I'm incenting the sales team to do more of that. We're making sure that we're investing both in innovation, our engineers, where we have over 350 of these kinds of skills in the engineering team as well as forward deployed engineers. And I think this is a key area for us to focus on over the next 9, 12 months. That will definitely position us for the acceleration phase as well, kind of tying back to Pat's question.

Next question is from the line of Matt VanVliet with Cantor.

I guess, Rory, curious what you need to see? Or what sort of the action plan to move from the transmission -- or the execution phase now to the acceleration phase? Is that just a matter of seeing bookings and revenue start to accelerate? Or are there other elements that you have built in that sort of move from Phase 2 to Phase 3?

Yes, Matt, that's an awesome question. There's many kind of considerations as you go through a transformation like this, you want to make sure you pay down your debt, okay? You want to make sure that some of that historical tech debt that we have, we've been paying that down in the past 15, 16 months. We're going to continue doing that in the next 9 months. I think we'll see a different Sprinklr. On the support side, putting us on Sprinklr on Sprinklr, another good example. Getting that the cohort of our AEs and our pod, our go-to-market with more ramped AEs, being at a point where we're seeing that be at the highest level in over 3 years. That's another good indicator. You want to make sure that all those components, we are developing run books, you've got to continue to see the renewal rates improve. I can see line of sight and my metrics are becoming more and more predictable. I called it in 3Q last year, I told you I was expecting to see it improve in 4Q, I did. I expect it to approve again in 1Q and 2Q. If that continues through the whole year, that's perfect. That's where you want to be. You want to make sure that the customer sentiment remains strong. We've got to continue to accelerate in the AI space. Each of these factors come into this kind of transition, and you're working this on a multidimensional kind of concept to get the organization to a better place. We're more profitable, we run more efficiently. And I think as we pay down that debt, we can yield even more of that as we go into FY '28. But you're right. It's not just one thing, yes, you want to see the renewal rates, you want to see the net NAR. You want to see the ARR. We've got a good pipeline, and we're winning some really interesting large customers. As Anthony talked about, the net dollar expansion rate at that top of the queue where we bear hug first, that 115, that's a good number. And now we have to take it through that entire stack. That's why we're bear-hugging that group I think we're on schedule. I think, yes, Pat, we could be 3, 6 months, give or take, either way. That's just how these transformations go. But we're at the midpoint of this. We're building a better Sprinklr. We have more work to do, but that's what we need to do. And when we get that and we get the underpinnings on each of these components then you're ready for durable sustained performance and predictability.

The next question is from the line of Clark Wright with D.A. Davidson.

I recognize that the $1 million-plus customer cohort is an output of multiple factors. But we have seen 2 consecutive sequential declines. And I wanted to understand if you think this metric has stabilized at these levels? And if possible, how much of this cohort is already utilizing Sprinklr services?

Yes. I look at this -- this is a kind of a lagging indicator because it's like a 12-month kind of number. We're not -- we're seeing much more where we see some variation from $1.4 million to $900,000, $800,000, some of that happens. I do want to grow that. I can tell you that this cohort now on average, is generating over $3 million a client. That's good. I think we want -- and we're seeing good progress. And we're seeing the right kinds of engagement. And we're getting much less surprises. As I entered into last year, I could see through the year, indications of significant churn issues 3, 4 quarters out. I'm a fraction of that level of issue as I enter this year. So I feel that, that's moving in the right direction.

And to clarify on that, what we like also is the quality. So you have increased rates of net dollar expansion, but you have also increased amounts and average lengths of relationships. So I think this is where you want to be also. So those qualitative elements underneath, I think, are more important than the absolute number of customers. Obviously, we don't want this to continue in terms of trajectory for the absolute number. But the quality and the traction that we see underneath is more important and more meaningful for the years ahead. So we like that in terms of the buildup of those customer relationships at the top tier of the pyramid.

Yes. And I absolutely want to grow that. And at the top, we're seeing some really big clients. I mean we continue to grow at the top. And I think that's a very good indication that this platform concept is real. Unified customer experience, I think, for enterprise customers is going to definitely happen over the next 3 to 5 years. And I think we're positioned well for it. Let's get our house in order. Let's get this transition execution phase done and dusted and then we can go prosecute that for the next 2, 3 years. It should be exciting.

Got it. And just a follow-up, if possible, here around the social insights, how do you see that product continuing to evolve, given what we're seeing in the changes in social media and other agentic means impacting that broader category?

Yes. Thanks, Clark. I think there's definitely emerging trends. I kind of alluded to it in the innovation, the 4 areas of innovation. There's going to be more LLM listening. There's going to be different channels in that space. There's going to be more video. There's going to be a number of -- each of those we're addressing. I think there's no doubt, those signals are going to continue to be relevant and important as you knit together all the social signals, the conversational commerce signals, the survey signals, which I'm excited about that product. We've now moved into full production in that area. We got recognized at the right quadrants in that. I think that's an exciting new set of tools. Our digital support and obviously, our contact center support, that pulls that whole set together and gives you that total view. I think with any scenario I see moving forward, listening and insights across all social and websites and interactions are key. Will they evolve and change? Absolutely. And we'll continue to innovate with new sources and more omnichannel capabilities to support the customer. But you've got to know what people are saying about your brand. You've got to know what they're talking about. And that's going to be -- continue to be increasingly important. And I've highlighted the areas where I think we have to invest in innovation to support that.

At this time, we've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back over to Rory for closing comments.

I appreciate everyone's interest in Sprinklr. We have more work to do. We're a work in progress, pleased with the progress that we're making. We're at the midpoint of that second phase. I think that this is an important year as we continue to build on what we did in FY '26. And I look forward to giving you a clear and concise updates as we move through this transition. Thanks again for your interest in our work, and we have more work to do. Thanks, everyone, and have a great day.