AudioEye (AEYE) 2026财年第三季度业绩电话会议：EBITDA创历史新高，上调业绩指引lg...

核心要点

• AudioEye公布2026财年第三季度创纪录营收约1100万美元，同比增长7%，标志着其连续第43个季度实现创纪录营收。
• GAAP净利润从上年同期的净亏损60万美元（即每股亏损0.04美元）改善至100万美元（即摊薄后每股收益0.08美元）。
• 调整后EBITDA增长58%，达到创纪录的390万美元。在毛利润增加和AI驱动效率提升的支撑下，调整后EBITDA利润率从24%扩大至35%。
• 年经常性收入（ARR）达到4330万美元，同比增长12%，环比增加100万美元。企业ARR增长10%，而合作伙伴与市场ARR增长14%。
• 管理层将2026财年全年调整后EBITDA指引上调至1340万至1360万美元，意味着年增长率约为50%。预计第四季度调整后EBITDA将达到420万至440万美元。
• 公司于10月推出了Agentic Audits和SDK MCP。管理层将这两款产品视为追加销售机会，但表示目前量化其营收贡献尚为时过早。

核心财务数据

业务与运营表现

尽管营收增长7%，但AI驱动的效率提升使营收成本降低了19%。管理层表示，收益主要来自工程与服务交付环节。总研发支出下降17%至约130万美元，其中包括约40万美元的资本化软件开发成本。

合作伙伴与市场渠道仍是ARR的主要贡献者，约占ARR总额的59%。受州和地方政府合作伙伴拓展的推动，其营收与ARR均同比增长14%。

企业ARR约占ARR总额的41%，增长10%。企业营收保持相对平稳，原因是非经常性收入的减少抵消了经常性收入的增长，这与AudioEye优先发展ARR的战略一致。

AudioEye于10月8日推出了Agentic Audits和SDK MCP。两者均使用了AudioEye Intelligence，这是基于10年间针对10万多个网站进行的逾100万次人工无障碍评估所构建的专有数据集。据管理层介绍，Agentic Audits识别高严重性问题的数量可比仅靠自动化多出高达50%，且大部分结果可在1小时内交付。

管理层还表示，网站无障碍性对AI Agent（智能体）正变得至关重要，因为它们是通过无障碍树进行导航的。在一项涵盖6个网站的AudioEye研究中，应用AudioEye修复制案后，无障碍程度最低的网站上的任务完成率从31%提高到了96%。

管理层业绩指引

按第四季度营收指引中点计算，管理层预计环比增加约55万美元，相当于年化环比增长约20%。

更新后的全年调整后EBITDA区间代表约50%的同比增长率。管理层预计第四季度指引中点将带来超过1700万美元的年化调整后EBITDA运行率，以及约1.30美元的调整后每股收益运行率。

管理层还预计，继第三季度诉讼费用环比下降约50%后，第四季度诉讼费用将进一步下降。按指引中点计算，预计第四季度调整后EBITDA为430万美元，扣除约40万美元的软件开发成本后，意味着调整后自由现金流约390万美元。

风险与关注领域

• Agentic Audits和SDK MCP在业绩电话会召开前几周才推出。管理层表示，仍需对客户进行教育，目前尚无法量化营收的提升空间。
• AudioEye继续认为人工审核是必要的。Agentic工具可以识别出额外的问题，但并不能完全消除无障碍审计中的人工环节。
• 由于公司减少了对非经常性收入的重视，企业营收同比持平。因此，持续增长将更加依赖于经常性销售、拓展活动以及合作伙伴的表现。
• 监管执法可能会支持需求，但时间点仍存在不确定性。夏威夷州的第257号法案在实施细则敲定后有24至36个月的合规期限。
• 管理层预计欧洲的执法、新产品以及AI就绪需求将成为潜在的增长加速器，但未提供具体的量化贡献。

分析师问答环节亮点

管理层表示，在近乎创纪录的新业务与拓展业务以及持续的合作伙伴势头支撑下，第四季度ARR增长应保持在目前低两位数的水平。预计2027年将保持类似的潜在环境，新产品、AI Agent应用以及欧洲无障碍执法的普及可能带来上行空间。

在利润率方面，首席财务官Matthew Domeyer表示，AudioEye预计在继续寻求额外扩张的同时，将保持改善后的毛利润率水平。首席执行官Kelly Georgevich补充道，营收规模在扩大，但费用并未出现相应的增长，随着营收的增长，不需要大幅增加支出。

在被问及AI领域的竞争时，管理层主张通用AI模型无法复制AudioEye的专有无障碍数据集。公司的内部研究发现，AI生成的网站平均每页仍存在55个无障碍问题，而AI生成的电商网站问题数量是其他电商网站的三倍。

新型AI产品可以作为附加组件销售，特定产品也可以单独购买。管理层预计它们将在两次审计之间以及软件开发过程中支持客户拓展。

AudioEye还批准了一项截至2027年10月的1500万美元股票回购计划，按公布时的股价计算，约占已发行股份的15%。管理层表示，预计第四季度和2027年产生的现金将为股票回购和其他资本用途提供灵活性。

业绩电话会完整会议纪要

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to AudioEye's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us for today's call are AudioEye's Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Kelly Georgevich; and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Matthew Domeyer. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this call will be recorded and made available for replay via a link in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.audioeye.com.

Before I turn the call over to AudioEye's CEO, 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, confidence, 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 materially differ 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 belief 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 its website at www.audioeye.com.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to AudioEye's CEO, Ms. Kelly Georgevich.

Kelly Georgevich

Thank you, operator. We had a great quarter, generating record revenue, record adjusted EBITDA, strong free cash flow and positive GAAP net income, driven by efficiencies and increased AI use across the company. We are also excited to discuss accelerating revenue growth in Q4 with continued operating leverage.

In 2025, we introduced an aspirational goal of 30% to 40% growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS per year over the following 3 years. We are pleased to report that we continue to deliver against this aspirational target and now expect approximately 50% growth in adjusted EBITDA in 2026. We also expect a Q4 adjusted EBITDA annualized run rate of over $17 million, up from previous expectations of $15 million. This translates into an annualized run rate for adjusted EPS of around $1.30 in Q4.

Gross margin improved over 550 basis points year-over-year with adjusted gross margins of 88% in Q3, driven by efficiency and increased use of AI. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 was $3.9 million, up 58% year-over-year. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 35% in Q3.

As we anticipated and as indicated last quarter, litigation expense decreased in Q3. We expect a further reduction in Q4 and believe litigation expense will continue to trend down. We expect meaningful free cash flow generation in Q4 and into 2027, and we recently announced a $15 million stock repurchase program that runs through October 2027. This represents approximately 15% of the outstanding shares at current prices.

It's worth noting that our revenue has nearly doubled over the last 5 years, while our outstanding shares have increased by approximately 10% in this time frame. We also had a strong quarter in terms of GAAP profitability. In Q3, GAAP net income was $1 million or $0.08 per share compared to a net loss of $600,000 and $0.04 per share loss last year. Revenue was approximately $11 million, representing our 43rd consecutive quarter of record revenue. ARR grew $1 million sequentially to $43.3 million at September 30, 2026, 12% over the prior year.

On October 8, we launched 2 new products: Agentic Audits and our SDK MCP. Both are built on what we call AudioEye Intelligence, our proprietary data set created from more than 1 million human accessibility reviews across more than 100,000 sites over 10 years. Our SDK MCP brings AudioEye Intelligence into AI coding tools developers already use so they can catch and fix issues while coding is being created.

Our Agentic Audits use an AI agent powered by our proprietary data set to move through a site the way a real user would, opening menus, filling out forms and going through checkout. They can find up to 50% more high severity issues than automation alone and most results come back within an hour. Our solution already delivers 3 to 4x the legal protection of others. These new products add to that protection, helping developers ship more compliant code from the start and helping companies catch high-risk issues as their sites change. These products represent exciting upsell opportunities.

In September, we released a study on how well AI coding tools build accessible websites. We asked AI agents to create 15 sites that comply with WCAG 2.2 AA standards. We found that even when explicitly instructed to make the site accessible, it could not. The AI-generated sites averaged 55 issues per page compared to 62 on a typical site. And AI-generated e-commerce sites had 3x as many issues as other e-commerce sites. Because AI models have been trained on an inaccessible web, they repeat the same accessibility failures.

Digital accessibility has become a critical part of AI readiness as well as compliance. As more agents complete tasks for humans, they increasingly rely on a web's accessibility tree to navigate the site. To illustrate how important the accessibility tree has become, we've published research on how AI agents perform on inaccessible websites. We ran AI agents through everyday tasks on 6 sites with and without AudioEye's fixes. We found that on the least accessible site, AI agents completed only 31% of their tasks.

With AudioEye fixes, that rose to 96%. The AI agents navigate through a site's accessibility tree. So when it's broken, they can't complete tasks like making a purchase or booking. This means an accessible site now serves 2 audiences, people with disabilities and the AI agents acting on the behalf of customers.

On the regulatory side, in September, the European Standards Body published an updated accessibility standard that adopts WCAG 2.2, which raises the bar for companies covered by the European Accessibility Act. Stateside, Hawaii signed a new law in July, Act 257. Act 257 is the first state law to require all private businesses to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA through rules the state is now finalizing. This will have significant implications for the travel and hospitality industry. We believe other states may follow Hawaii's lead. The new law took effect July 14, 2026, with compliance deadlines 24 to 36 months after the rules are final.

Turning to guidance. For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect revenue between $11.4 million and $11.6 million, a sequential increase from the third quarter of 2026 of approximately $550,000 at the midpoint and approximately 20% annualized sequential revenue growth.

For the full year 2026, we are narrowing the revenue range to between $43.6 million and $43.8 million. For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect adjusted EBITDA of between $4.2 million and $4.4 million, a 56% increase over the fourth quarter of 2025 at the midpoint and an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 37%. We expect adjusted EPS of between $0.32 and $0.33 per share for the fourth quarter of 2026.

For the full year 2026, we are increasing adjusted EBITDA guidance from at least $12.7 million to between $13.4 million and $13.6 million, representing approximately 50% year-over-year growth. As mentioned earlier, Q4 adjusted EBITDA guidance represents an annualized run rate of over $17 million, and we expect cash generation to ramp significantly in Q4 and 2027.

In the fourth quarter, at the midpoint of guidance, an adjusted EBITDA of $4.3 million less around $400,000 of software development costs implies $3.9 million of adjusted free cash flow. Litigation expenses decreased in Q3, down approximately 50% from the second quarter. Further decreases in litigation expense are expected in the fourth quarter, contributing to substantial cash generation.

With that, I'll hand it over to Matt to cover our financial results in more detail.

Matthew Domeyer

Thank you, Kelly. As Kelly mentioned, revenue for the third quarter was a record $11 million, representing our 43rd consecutive period of record revenue. Annual recurring revenue was $43.3 million as of September 30, 2026, up from $42.3 million as of June 30, 2026. Year-over-year, ARR grew 12%, driven by double-digit growth in both our partner and marketplace and enterprise channels.

As of September 30, 2026, AudioEye had approximately 130,000 customers, up 7,000 or 6% from approximately 123,000 customers as of September 30, 2025, and up approximately 1,000 from June 30, 2026. The increase was driven primarily by our partner and marketplace channel with enterprise customers also increasing. Both of our 2 revenue channels continued to deliver strong results. AudioEye's enterprise channel consists of our larger customers and organizations that generally engage directly with AudioEye's sales personnel for pricing and solutions.

As we have previously discussed, in 2026, we have reduced our emphasis on nonrecurring revenue to focus on growing ARR. In the third quarter of 2026, enterprise revenue was relatively flat year-over-year with lower nonrecurring revenue being offset by increases in recurring revenue. Our focus on enterprise ARR is showing results, and it increased 10% over the comparable prior year period as we continue to deliver some of our strongest new and expansion business to date. As of September 30, 2026, enterprise ARR represented approximately 41% of total ARR.

Our partner and marketplace channel includes all revenue from our SMB-focused marketplace products as well as from partners who deploy these products for their SMB customers. In the third quarter of 2026, the partner and marketplace channel revenue increased 14% year-over-year. We again saw strong expansion from our state and local government partners in the quarter. Partner and marketplace ARR grew by 14% compared to the prior year quarter and represented approximately 59% of total ARR as of September 30, 2026.

Gross margin for the third quarter expanded over 550 basis points to 83% compared to 77% in the third quarter of 2025. Gross profit grew 15% to $9.1 million compared to $7.9 million in the prior year period. While revenue grew 7%, cost of revenue declined 19%, resulting in 160% conversion of incremental revenue to gross profit. The reduction in cost of revenue came primarily from AI-driven efficiencies in engineering and service delivery.

Adjusted gross margin was 88% in Q3 2026 compared to 83% in the prior year comparable period. The increase in adjusted gross margin is consistent with the GAAP change. In the third quarter of 2026, operating expenses decreased 5% or $400,000 to $7.8 million. The decrease in operating expenses was driven primarily by lower R&D and sales and marketing spend.

Our total R&D spend in Q3 was approximately $1.3 million, including approximately $400,000 recorded as capitalized software development costs. Total R&D spend decreased 17% year-over-year and was around 12% of Q3 2026 revenue, down from 15% in Q3 2025, driven by increased AI usage.

Net income in the third quarter of 2026 was $1 million or $0.08 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $0.6 million or $0.04 per share in the same year ago period, driven by higher gross profit and lower operating expenses noted previously.

In the third quarter of 2026, we achieved record adjusted EBITDA of approximately $3.9 million or adjusted EPS of $0.30 per diluted share and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 35%. This compares to Q3 2025, which had an adjusted EBITDA of $2.5 million or adjusted EPS of $0.19 per share and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 24%. The $1.4 million or 58% increase in adjusted EBITDA over the comparable period of the prior year was primarily driven by increases in gross profit and AI efficiencies.

In the third quarter, we generated $3.5 million of free cash flow, calculated as adjusted EBITDA of $3.9 million plus $400,000 of capitalized software development costs, an improvement of $1.5 million from the third quarter of 2025.

Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $9.3 million in cash, an increase of $600,000 from June 30, 2026, and $3 million available under our revolving line of credit. As of September 30, 2026, our net debt, defined as total debt less cash, was $7.2 million. Net debt has declined approximately $1 million year-to-date and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio, using the midpoint of our updated 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance is approximately $0.5 million.

With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions. Operator?

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Josh Reilly with Needham & Company.

分析师问答

Joshua Reilly

Nice job on the quarter here. I know it's early on the 2 new AI products you released in October, but maybe you can share how much you're seeing in terms of the push-pull dynamics on AI features from customers? And are customers requesting more AI functionality? Or are you seeing that you need to build awareness of what AI can do for them?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes, it's definitely still early days. We just released the product a couple of weeks ago. So far, feedback has been very positive, especially with the customers who have been in beta. I think I'd say both, but I'd say some of it has to be education on the customer side. We think these are really powerful add-ons for customers, especially to do more in real time or between audits. But yes, we're pretty excited about what they can do, especially on the expansion side.

Joshua Reilly

Got it. And then as we think about the ARR growth going forward, how sustainable is this low double-digit growth rate for the balance of 2026? Without giving any specific guidance, what are the puts and takes investors should be considering for Q4 ARR growth that could maybe lead to outperformance? And then in 2027, once again, it seems the demand environment should be further improving given the tailwinds out there. Is there anything we should be considering in terms of the macro or otherwise that may impact demand trends?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes. We had about 12% year-over-year ARR growth, which is good to see. I think we expect that to continue into Q4. We're seeing really good momentum across the board, near record new and expansion business, really solid growth from partners. And so all of that is just a positive for Q4 and expectations there on ARR.

I think we can expect something similar for 2027 with some additional accelerators or things that could move the needle, things like our new product offerings. I think as agents take over more path, the readability of the sites and how accessibility plays into that could be really interesting. And then, of course, enforcement of the EU could move the needle further.

Operator

Up next in the queue, we have George Sutton with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

George Sutton

Logan on for George here. First one for me, I wonder if you could just unpack the step down in cost of goods sold this quarter a bit more and maybe just talk in any more detail about where the AI efficiencies are coming into play. And I guess, is there more room for margin improvement here? Should we think about this as sort of a onetime step function improvement?

Matthew Domeyer

Logan, it's Matt. Yes, so we saw a 550 basis point increase in margin, which was a really great improvement. The gross profits helped by the growing ARR, and we're able to scale. We've also -- we've got a long track record of lowering expenses and working to manage and scale. And so I think where we're at right now, we expect to be able to maintain those rates, and we'll keep looking for room to expand the margins as we can going forward.

George Sutton

Got it. And then going back to the new AI products and again, recognizing that it's early, but can you give any sense for what kind of uplift in sort of revenue per customer, those new products might have?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes, it's probably too early to quantify it, but I do think they are expansion opportunities for customers kind of like as in between their audits and additional current services that they already have.

Operator

Up next in the queue, we have Richard Baldry with ROTH Capital Partners.

Richard Baldry

I'm going to probably ask a few times going forward because people seem worried about AI sort of becoming a competitive threat in a lot of different verticals. So we've had these tools out for a little while, the large language models. Have you seen any actual new competitors enter the market in trying to leverage those tools to create new businesses and competition with yourselves?

Kelly Georgevich

We haven't seen much in the market, no. I think that study we put out kind of emphasizes what we've been talking about for some time, which is we have this proprietary data set that no one else has over 1 million human fixes over 100,000 websites over 10 years, so no one can replicate that. And what the web has been trained on and what AI is trained on has been inaccessible sites.

So the idea of a new product coming in or a new competitor coming in that can just do what we've been doing for 10 years is just not possible. And that's part of the reason we put out the study over the last 3 months or so is to prove that AI just can't do this. We found that AI eventually had no impact when you instructed it to create a site that was accessible and our AI tools are powered with our proprietary data set.

Richard Baldry

And when you think about the new tools and the automation you're able to achieve with them, is there a way to think about how much of your prior workload you're able to automate? And how much you think you could incrementally automate over time? And how much sort of either now or long term remains probably manual because of complex or other issues?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes. We definitely still find that you need the manual aspect of an audit. What we like about these new products and what they can do is they can find on the Agentic Audits significantly more issues than our automation, about 50% more of the high severity issues. So they're nice little fill-ins after a website redesign or between audits and same on the SDK MCP is while you're creating code, if you can solve a number of the issues that you would have to wait for an audit to find. I think that's pretty powerful.

Richard Baldry

Is there another way to think about sort of how much -- you've had significant improvements in OpEx and on your cost of goods line. How deep into the process of automating your own operating side of the table and your go-to-market COGS side, do you think you're at? How much incremental profitability do you think you could do even off the same revenue base with further automation?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes, we've been able to ramp revenue without ramping expenses for a number of years. And I think AI has just given us that extra kind of milestone where we've been able to implement AI and be very efficient across all departments. I think we expect to see that to continue. So as revenues increase, I don't think we'll need to ramp expenses significantly, but we're still focusing on finding further efficiencies as well.

Richard Baldry

And last for me, more sort of top of the funnel. If you look at your sales overall, sort of the pipelines, can you talk about the degree to which they're expanding either in sort of geographies where the regulatory environment is pushing it outside of those? How do you feel about those entering or heading towards fiscal '27?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes. I think we're seeing some of our best lead volume to date still. And as I mentioned, some of our best new business and expansion ARR to date. Litigation is still growing at record levels. So that's definitely a factor that we're continuing to see. And so regulation is helping, but I think demand overall is growing and that litigation -- private litigation is driving demand as well. As you ramp enforcement, we expect to see additional demand. And I do think there is a possibility for additional demand with the AI readiness and linked to accessibility.

Richard Baldry

Maybe one last one to squeeze in. Your cash hit a multiyear high in the quarter. I'm sort of curious, what do you think a comfortable level of cash for operations is now that your EBITDA is scaling the way it is sort of against the backdrop of how much you'd be willing to use the on-hand cash for buyback versus use it out of quarterly cash flow from ops?

Kelly Georgevich

Yes. Yes. I mean I think we're -- we have the $3 million line of credit. I think we're pretty comfortable at levels that we've been at over the last handful of quarters. I do think that there's a key aspect of a significant cash generation in Q4 and into 2027, which allows us to do a lot with that extra cash, but I think we feel pretty comfortable with where it's at now.

Operator

And our last question comes from the line of Scott Buck with Titan Partners.

Scott Buck

Kelly, on the new Agentic products, how are they priced? Are they stand-alone SKUs? Or are they bundled with kind of existing products?

Kelly Georgevich

You can purchase those either, so you can purchase them as stand-alone and so like an add-on to your current line items on your contract or certain products, 1 of the 2 you can buy as a stand-alone product.

Scott Buck

Okay. Perfect. And then customer accounts rose about 6%. ARR grew 12%. Is ARR growing because of mix, pricing, upsells? Help kind of bridge me there.

Kelly Georgevich

Yes, really across the board. So we saw double-digit ARR growth in both our enterprise, which is kind of new and expansion business, both kind of approaching record numbers and the partner side as well. So kind of operating and performing on all cylinders.

Scott Buck

Okay. And then last one on capital allocation and the announced buyback. How quickly do you expect to execute on the buyback? And is that constrained by the credit agreement?

Kelly Georgevich

I mean our stock is trading at 6x EBITDA adjusted EBITDA and growing 50% over year. So we do think it's an attractive time to buy and a good way to deploy excess cash for our shareholders. We don't see -- we have a good relationship with our debt provider and don't see any issues there.

Operator

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Ms. Kelly Georgevich for her closing remarks.

Kelly Georgevich

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

Operator

Before we conclude today's call, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for AudioEye's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

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