LivePerson Aktie

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to LivePerson's Town Hall. My name is Dean, and I will be your conference operator today.

[Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Jon Perachio, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Hello, and thank you all for joining us. I'm Jon Perachio, LivePerson's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Joining me today is John Sabino, LivePerson's Chief Executive Officer. We'll be discussing our previously announced transaction with Downtown AI and addressing questions submitted by stockholders.

I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's presentation may constitute forward-looking information.

These statements reflect the current expectations of management and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

I encourage all participants to refer to the full disclaimer and forward-looking statements disclosure contained within the press releases issued on July 10, July 23 and June 28, all of which are available at voteliveperson.com and on the SEC's website at sec. gov.

Nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell, buy or exchange or solicitation of an offer to sell, buy or exchange any securities.

A transcript of this webcast will be filed with the SEC and made available on the Investor Relations section of LivePerson's website as well as on our transaction website, voteliperson.com.

With that, I'll turn it over to John.

Thanks so much, Jon, and thank you, everybody, for joining today. Look, we wanted to hold this town hall because we know there's a lot of information out there about this transaction.

There are press releases, SEC filings, letters, voting materials, and we know that all this can be difficult to sort through. So today, I want to speak plainly about what's at stake and why the Board is recommending this transaction and why your vote matters.

We'll spend a few minutes today to walk through some key points, and then we'll answer some questions submitted by stockholders, as Jon just said. So let's kick this off. And let me start with the vote itself.

The special meeting for the vote is going to be on the 20th of August, and approval requires the support of a majority of the outstanding LivePerson shares. So this is not simply about letting your votes sit there.

We need a majority of the shares to be voted. And that means that a share not voted is the same as effectively voting against the transaction.

So however many shares you own, your participation is really important. And this vote will help determine both the future of LivePerson and the value that stockholders have the opportunity to receive from their investment.

Now before we get into the details, let me summarize why the Board is recommending that stockholders vote for this transaction.

This transaction will bring together the complementary capabilities across voice, digital engagement, Agentic AI and AI assurance. Most LivePerson stockholders would become stockholders of the combined company with SoundHound, with a strong balance sheet, no debt, greater scale, broader strategic capabilities and an accelerated path to profitability.

And after a comprehensive review of LivePerson's alternatives, the Board determined that the transaction with SoundHound really does represent the best alternative for maximizing stockholder value.

So with that as the background and the context, let me spend a few minutes on how the Board reached its decision and why this transaction is expected, and what this transaction is expected to mean for stockholders.

Some of the points I'm about to share cover specific transaction terms and financial details. So I'm going to stay close to my notes and make sure I describe them accurately for all of you who are listening today.

First and foremost, the LivePerson Board of Directors undertook a comprehensive review of alternatives in which 66 potential counterparties were contacted.

Following that process, the Board determined that the transaction with SoundHound represents the best alternative for maximizing stockholder value, including when compared with continuing as a stand-alone company given the business, financial, competitive industry and market risks that are facing LivePerson.

This transaction would also unite complementary capabilities across voice, digital engagement, Agentic AI and AI assurance.

The combined base of our 2 companies together includes over 25 of the Fortune 100 companies, creating one of the conversational AI sector's most comprehensive enterprise customer footprints and a significant opportunity to introduce additional capabilities across the company's existing customer base.

So that's why the Board is leaning in and wants all of us to vote for the transaction with our shares. All right. So let's talk a little bit about LivePerson's debt and the agreement we reached with noteholders.

It was an important part of the Board's assessment, and it really did revolve around LivePerson's financial position. LivePerson's outstanding debt currently exceeds the total value of the transaction.

And as part of this transaction, our secured noteholders have agreed to exchange their notes at a value reflecting a substantial discount to the notes' approximate $350 million par value.

Given LivePerson's valuation and significant debt without these substantial concessions from our noteholders, stockholders may not have had the opportunity to receive any value for their shares in any strategic transaction.

So this transaction is not occurring in isolation from our financial circumstances. The agreement with our noteholders really is a critical part of the overall transaction and the opportunity for our common stockholders to receive value.

Now let me address the consideration LivePerson stockholders are expected to receive if the transaction is approved and completed.

Based on the assumptions described in our proxy statement and prospectus, most LivePerson stockholders will receive SoundHound stock.

As of the announcement of the transaction on April 21, 2026, the SoundHound stock consideration to be received by LivePerson stockholders represented approximately $3.33 in value per LivePerson share.

That represents a premium of approximately 22% over LivePerson's 30-day volume-weighted average trading price before the announcement.

The exact number of SoundHound shares a stockholder receives will not be finalized until closing. It will be determined using the formula described in our proxy statement and prospectus and will depend in part on SoundHound's stock price near the closing.

The calculation uses a 10-day volume-weighted average price of SoundHound stock ending 3 trading days before the closing and is subject to a caller.

If the average price is above $12 per share, $12 will be used in the calculation. If a SoundHound share is below $7 per share, $7 will be used in the calculation.

The aggregate consideration is also subject to a possible downward adjustment based on LivePerson's cash balance shortly before closing as described in our public filings.

Because the final exchange ratio depends on a formula with variable factors, we encourage stockholders to visit voteliveperson.com and use the Interactive illustrated calculator to see what consideration could mean for their individual holdings on an estimated basis.

Stockholders holding LivePerson shares listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange are expected to receive an equivalent value in cash instead of SoundHound shares, subject to the terms described in our proxy statement and prospectus.

So, to pull this together, stockholders receiving SoundHound shares, the second component of the transaction is an opportunity to participate in the potential future upside of the combined companies. And I think this is a good thing.

LivePerson stockholders receiving SoundHound stock will become stockholders of the combined company with a strong balance sheet with no debt and an accelerated path to profitability.

SoundHound has stated that assuming the transaction closes in the second half of 2026, it expects to achieve a combined revenue range of a minimum of $350 million to $400 million in 2027.

And SoundHound has also stated that the combined business is expected to reach $500 million in revenue based on the existing customer base alone.

So in summary, I know there was a lot of detail and the full terms are available in the proxy statement and prospectus. But I encourage everyone to review those materials. But let me bring you back to the central point.

The Board conducted a comprehensive process, considered LivePerson's financial position and evaluated the alternatives available to the company. And based on that review, the Board unanimously determined that the SoundHound transaction is the best alternative for maximizing value for LivePerson's stockholders.

It provides stockholders the opportunity to receive value from their LivePerson shares and for most stockholders to participate in the potential upside of the combined company with broader capabilities, greater scale and a strong balance sheet with no debt.

And that is why the Board is recommending that you vote for this transaction.

It brings me back to what you're hearing from us so frequently. A share that is not voted is the same as voting against the transaction. We do not want anyone to miss the opportunity to participate simply because an e-mail was overlooked or a proxy card was not sent.

Voting takes only a few minutes, and you must vote, or your vote must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on August 19, 2026, or you must attend a special meeting online and vote during that meeting if your shares are held directly in your name as a stockholder of record.

Even if you plan on attending the LivePerson special meeting, we recommend that you vote your shares today so that your vote will be counted if you later decide not to attend a special meeting.

However many shares you own, your vote matters, and we stress please vote for the transaction.

So hopefully, that gives a good overview to everybody, Jon, and we could probably start moving on to some of the questions we've received from some investors on things that we think are on the minds of stockholders today.

Yes, sure. Great. Thanks for that, John. So the first question for you is, why does the Board believe the merger consideration fairly compensates LivePerson stockholders?

Okay. So at signing, the consideration was set to deliver roughly $3.33 per share, as I've already said. And this is a premium of about 22% of the 30-day average price the day the deal was announced.

The Board considered a few things. First, the Board ran a comprehensive review contacting over 66 parties, and you can read about every detail of that in the review process in our proxy statement.

Second, LivePerson's financial adviser, Houlihan Lokey, delivered an opinion that the consideration is fair from a financial point of view to LivePerson's common stockholders, and that was based on assumptions and qualifications that are from their opinion.

Then lastly and arguably most importantly, LivePerson's debt exceeds the total value of this transaction. As we've said many times before, without the noteholders agreeing to accept substantially less than what they're owed, there would be no value available to distribute to all stockholders.

So considering these facts, the Board determined that SoundHound's offer provides the best path forward to stockholders. Offering a premium above the trading price at signing, an opportunity to participate in the future of the combined entity with a more comprehensive platform, and, as I've stated many times before, 0 debt.

And look, if you really want to take a look at this for yourself, you can refer to the calculator at voteliveperson.com, and we encourage everybody to do that.

Thanks, John. Second question for you is, why did the Board conclude that selling now was superior to continuing LivePerson's stand-alone turnaround?

That's a good question. So it's true that our turnaround was progressing. We extended our debt maturities, and we gained some flexibility to continue investing in our platform.

However, we continue to face an extremely competitive landscape, and there are a lot of headwinds, which contributed to a slower turnaround than originally planned.

So it was critical that we sought out alternatives. And after review, the Board concluded that this transaction really does offer stockholders a much better path to value and for most future upside as part of a company that has flexibility to invest in the right technologies and opportunities. 

The fact is we're just constrained as LivePerson alone right now. And the Board determined in its review that any other alternatives, including being a stand-alone company, may result in leaving no value for stockholders. And that is something we really wanted to avoid.

Thanks, John. It's a very important context. Next question is, what happens if the transaction is not approved by stockholders?

Right. So look, if this deal does not go through, we remain an independent company, but we will face substantial risks and an increasing entry of well-funded competitors in our space.

You don't need me to tell you that. You can just look at the news every day. We'll immediately face 2 problems: managing our debt obligations while also dealing with the fact that our revenue is contracted.

And this makes it tougher to invest in the future and run the company as it stands today.

That's why this vote is so important. And it's not a matter of comparing the merits of a sale versus a stand-alone path because a stand-alone path is going to be very difficult for this company, and they end up with stockholders not getting anything, and we want to avoid that.

Great. Thanks, John. Another question from a shareholder referenced that LivePerson contacted 66 counterparties in the process. Were there any other or better offers?

Yes. So we did run a highly rigorous and comprehensive strategy review process led by very capable advisers.

Out of the 66 potential counterparties contacted, only SoundHound submitted a formal bid. SoundHound's offer was the highest, most definitive, and only actionable proposal that really did preserve value for our common stockholders.

And what are the chances of a competing bid emerging before the meeting later in August?

Look, I can't predict every scenario, but this was a very expensive process, as you've seen in our filings. And so we're not currently expecting anything like that.

Another question from an investor: why are the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange holders getting cash while other stockholders get SoundHound AI stock? Which is the better deal and why the difference?

Okay. So this is really being driven by local regulatory and compliance reasons in Israel. The value that Tel Aviv Stock Exchange holders will receive in cash is designed to be substantially equivalent to the value a NASDAQ holder would receive in stock consideration.

So NASDAQ holders will receive freely tradable shares; TACE or Tel Aviv Stock Exchange members will receive the equivalent value in cash. And again, this is because of compliance and regulatory reasons, and there's not really one that's better than the other.

Thanks, John. Very clear. Next question is what percentage recovery or economic outcome is expected for creditors compared to common shareholders? And how does the Board evaluate whether that allocation was fair?

Okay. The Board considers the allocation highly favorable to stockholders because we negotiated significant financial concessions from our lenders to ensure that there's money on the table for equity holders.

To give you the specifics, creditors agreed to write off over $140 million of what they were owed, basically enabling $43 million in deal value or $3.33 per share as of signing to go directly to common stockholders instead of going entirely towards the debt repayment.

So we think that this works for our shareholders.

Great. Thanks, John. Another one here. How does the Board value LivePerson's existing customer relationships, enterprise integrations, conversational cloud platform and cross-sell potential in determining that the merger consideration was fair to common shareholders?

Okay. So our financial advisers, [ Koulihan and Lokey ], ran a standard valuation model and a number of them, including discounted cash flows.

While our technology and customer bases are valuable, our financial losses and negative equity severely damaged our stand-alone value.

So partnering with SoundHound immediately provides this financial stability we'll need to retain our customers and, most importantly, continue to invest in the platform and be able to innovate. So that's what really led us in this direction.

Okay. Great. And one last question. How does the Board evaluate newer LivePerson product initiatives such as SentriX, which you've talked about on some prior earnings calls in the valuation process?

So look, SentriX is an innovative product. There's interest in it, but it's still in its early stages, as with all new products.

And because its long-term success really does require a lot of future investment for customer adoption and improving the product.

The Board views this as an asset whose value will actually be unlocked much better when combined with SoundHound's omnichannel platform and their financial stability.

So we see SentriX as still being valuable, but it's going to need more investment to move it forward as any product would, and we think we can do this best with SoundHound.

All right. Great. Thanks, John. Thanks for clarifying that. Well, that is all the time today that we have for questions.

John, again, thank you for providing this additional context of the transaction. So it will be very helpful to the shareholders and clarifies why it's important for all LivePerson stockholders to vote. And thank you to everyone who joined in today. 

Additional transaction materials and voting information are available on voteliveperson.com. For assistance voting your shares, please contact Mackenzie Partners toll-free at 1 (800) 322-2885.

As a reminder, votes submitted in advance of the special meeting must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on August 19, 2026. Please vote for the transaction today. Thank you.

Thank you, John, and thank you, everyone, for attending.

That concludes our call today. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to LivePerson's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Joe, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jon Perachio, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joe. Joining me on today's call is John Sabino, CEO; and John Collins, CFO and COO.

Please note that during today's call, we'll make forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections and other statements about future results. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions as of today, March 12, 2026, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various factors, including those described in today's earnings press release and in the comments made during this conference call as well as in 10-Ks, 10-Qs and other reports we file with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Also during this call, we'll discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings press release. Both the press release and the supplemental slides, which include highlights for the quarter, are available on the Investor Relations section of LivePerson's website, ir.liveperson.com.

With that, I'll turn the call over to LivePerson's CEO, John Sabino.

Thank you so much, Jon, and thank you all for joining us today. 2026 marks a clear transition for LivePerson from rebuilding to execution. Over the past year, we've strengthened our foundation by improving our balance sheet, optimizing our cost base and sharpening our operations across the company. We are now carrying this discipline into 3 primary areas of focus that we believe can drive LivePerson towards a return to growth.

First, we are continuing to prioritize customer growth and retention by leveraging our leading technology and improved balance sheet to solidify customer confidence in LivePerson's a stable long-term strategic partner. Second, we're continuing to innovate our core Conversational Cloud platform while scaling our recently launched Syntrix platform to offer best-in-class AI-led engagement and assurance. And third, we continue to expand our technology partnerships to broaden our platform's reach and unlock new commercial opportunities. We believe that our disciplined execution across these 3 areas of focus can drive LivePerson towards a return to growth in the future.

Turning to our results. We outperformed our Q4 guidance on both the top and bottom lines. Revenue was $59.3 million, above the high end of our range, driven by higher variable revenue. Adjusted EBITDA was $10.8 million, also above the high end of our guidance range, driven by our improved cost structure and disciplined operational execution in the quarter.

Now let me provide an update on our product strategy. Last week, we reached a significant milestone with the launch of Syntrix. Syntrix is our simulation and evaluation platform that allows brands to launch customer-facing AI agents with confidence and validate human agent readiness at scale. It provides the critical assurance brands need to unlock the value of AI across their customer journey. This emphasis on assurance addresses a clear gap we see in the market. Many brands are not limited by AI capability, but by trust. They struggle to move high potential AI initiatives to production because they lack the confidence in performance, governance and compliance. They also lack a structured way to evaluate AI agent outputs and continually verify adherence to their governance guardrails. As a result, innovation stalls and business impact remains unrealized. Syntrix is our direct response to this challenge. It provides the orchestration and assurance layer enterprises need to confidently deploy AI at scale.

Originally introduced in November, Conversation Simulator is now the first capability within the Syntrix platform. It enables enterprises to safely and continuously test, evaluate and validate AI behavior by identifying drift and failures before they reach real customers. With the formal launch of Syntrix earlier last week, we are expanding beyond simulation into a broader assurance vision. Over the coming quarters, we plan to add additional capabilities across simulation, analytics, governance and auditability to support compliance. As the road map unfolds, we expect that Syntrix will become a comprehensive assurance layer that makes AI more predictable at the enterprise scale.

Importantly, Syntrix was built to integrate seamlessly into existing enterprise ecosystems. Syntrix is designed to work in concert with our core Conversational Cloud platform, but it is also model and platform agnostic. Our Conversational Cloud remains the system of engagement where customers' interactions occur. Syntrix provides an assurance layer for a safer, more predictable and compliant interactions as AI usage scales. Together, they form a unified platform that allows enterprises to deploy Conversational AI with confidence. Syntrix does not replace Conversational Cloud, it supercharges it. Additionally, Syntrix is designed to deliver the same level of assurance whether customers are using Conversational Cloud or other CX or CCaaS platforms, including those we compete with. This allows enterprises to apply a consistent governance standard across increasingly complex technology and CX stacks. We plan to continue expanding our out-of-the-box integrations throughout the year while also enabling partners and customers to integrate Syntrix with their preferred platforms and AI technologies.

Commercially, Syntrix is already gaining traction. We have successfully moved from early access to general availability with paying enterprise customers across banking, telecommunications and technology. This early response, combined with a significant addressable market, positions us to accelerate commercial execution. At this time, we continue to see deeper AI adoption across our core Conversational Cloud platform. In Q4, over 20% of all conversations leveraged our generative AI suite. We're also seeing strong traction with Copilot Translate, the newest addition to our Agent Assist portfolio. It enables brands to eliminate language barriers by embedding real-time AI native translation directly into the agent workflow.

We also remain on track to complete our multiyear platform modernization in the first half of this year. This milestone is foundational to our long-term scalability. We are transitioning to a unified architecture designed to support significantly higher generative AI traffic with improved resiliency. Completing this work positions us to reallocate resources towards accelerating product innovation in 2026.

Moving to our go-to-market performance. We are seeing continued confidence from our largest enterprise customers. This is reflected in several significant renewals this quarter, including 7 major financial services institutions, 2 major airline carriers, 3 leading telecom and internet service providers and a major health care provider. These renewals underscore the durability of our platform, the strength of our enterprise relationships and our ability to deliver measurable value across highly regulated and customer-centric industries.

Our partnership with Google Cloud is also delivering significant early results. In the fourth quarter, we secured a multimillion dollar renewal with an upsell, the major European telecommunications provider through the Google Cloud Marketplace. Based on conversations with several customers, we now expect a material amount of revenue to flow through marketplace by the end of 2026, delivering measurable improvements in churn. This validates our strategy to simplify procurement, leverage existing cloud commitments and expand LivePerson's adoption through partner-led channels. Our momentum with Google continues to deepen across both products and go-to-market. We've standardized on Google Gemini as a default LLM across our platforms and launched LivePerson's RCS channel. Together, these efforts strengthen LivePerson's position within Google's ecosystem and expand the joint opportunities that we can pursue.

We're also scaling our Google marketplace motion to enable enterprise customers to seamlessly procure our solutions using their existing cloud commitments. Our teams are now aligned with Google's field organizations to streamline procurement and accelerate sales cycles. While still a phased rollout, we are already seeing tangible traction with multiple marketplace transactions in process and a growing pipeline of joint opportunities.

Today, this motion is performing as a high-impact retention lever. By enabling our customers to tap into their existing Google Cloud commitments, we're moving LivePerson directly into the heart of the CTO's strategic spend. This is a fundamentally different relationship that elevates our strategic conversations with current and future customers. As we continue to scale these transactions and strengthen our position within Google's own ecosystem, we are creating a direct incentive for their field organizations to move beyond renewals and begin transacting net new business with us. Complementing this is our strategic collaboration with IT solutions, which has been a significant win for our mid-market segment. By reallocating resources in 2025, we have created immediate value and efficiency in this channel, reflected in improved renewal rates and expansion.

As we move into 2026, we intend to deepen this relationship further. We've also launched LivePerson Sync in partnership with Coral Active, a leader in enterprise contact center integrations. This solution enables seamless integrations with systems like Salesforce, Microsoft and ServiceNow, bringing CRM data and workflows directly into the conversation and creating a single unified workspace for agents. By eliminating the swivel chair effect, we've embedded LivePerson deeper into our customer service operations, improving productivity and overall agent experience. As brands streamline their technology stacks and demand tighter integrations between engagement and execution, LivePerson Sync expands our strategic footprint within the enterprise by differentiating our platform, deepening customer relationships and creating new long-term growth opportunities. We're already seeing strong interest with a healthy pipeline of opportunities. While there is still work to be done with retention and growth, we're beginning to see the benefits of more focused and disciplined approach. We are encouraged by the traction with our partnerships and an ecosystem as these alliances are already expanding our market reach and simplifying how customers do business with us.

As we move further into 2026, we remain focused on rigorous execution to convert this early traction into long-term stabilization and growth.

In conclusion, 2025 was a defining year for LivePerson. I am incredibly proud of the resilience and discipline our team demonstrated throughout this period. We successfully stabilized our foundation, improved our balance sheet and delivered a strong finish to the year. We launched the first phase of Syntrix with Conversation Simulator and opened a critical new growth channel with Google's Marketplace. We also made significant progress in our platform modernization, which is on track for completion in the first half of 2026. This unified architecture is designed to support significantly higher generative AI traffic with improved resiliency. Building on this, we are now focused on scaling Syntrix and accelerating high-velocity partnerships that expand our market reach. While there is still work to be done to further improve our capital structure, we are better positioned today to execute our strategy.

For the full year of 2026, we're providing the following guidance. We expect revenue to be in the range of $195 million to $207 million, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between a loss of $4 million and positive $7 million. While this guidance implies a year-over-year decline in revenue, we expect to achieve positive net new ARR in the second half of the year. With disciplined focus on executing our strategy, we're positioning LivePerson as the foundational layer for governable AI at scale and building the path for long-term sustainable growth and shareholder value.

With that, I'll turn the call over to John Collins. John?

Thanks, John. The fourth quarter marked a strategic and financial inflection point for LivePerson. We have rationalized the cost structure and improved the balance sheet, transitioning us from a period of rebuilding to one focused on innovation and commercial execution. Our fourth quarter results were driven by increased commercial traction within our enterprise customer base, including usage overages and high-value renewals and expansions. This traction reflects customer plans to move beyond AI experimentation to secure high-volume production applications. It also evidences growing customer confidence that our platform can enable that transition now and support evolving demands in the long run. While the fourth quarter's results and the guidance I'll discuss shortly are anchored by customer demand for our core platform, we believe the launch of Syntrix is an important innovation in the market today and represents a meaningful strategic growth opportunity. Syntrix is increasingly central to customer discussions on AI deployment across many use cases, creating the potential to capture broader AI spend across the enterprise.

In terms of deals, we signed 40 in the quarter, including 4 new logos and 36 expansions, which translated to a slight sequential increase in total deal value. We also continue to see strong adoption within the banking, telecommunications and airline sectors. These regulated industries rely on our leading technology for centralized AI-agnostic orchestration layers that ensure AI deployments are secure and effective.

Improving customer retention, including renewals with 7 financial services institutions, 2 major airlines and several leading telecom and health care providers underscores the strength of our platform amid a rapidly evolving market. These brands continue to commit to us because of our enterprise-ready platform and our improved financial foundation. Notably, over 40% of these renewals included expanding commitments.

Complementing our direct sales motion, we are seeing clear validation of our partnership strategy through Google Cloud. A multimillion dollar renewal and expansion we closed this quarter via the Google Cloud Marketplace is early proof of the potential opportunities. This partnership simplifies the customer procurement process and allows customers to optimize the return on pre-existing Google commitments. While this partnership is still early, customer reception has been strong, and we now expect that a material fraction of total revenue will flow through this channel by the end of 2026.

Beyond Google, our partnerships with IT Solutions and Core Active are contributing meaningfully to our commercial motion. These collaborations allow us to embed our technology more deeply into enterprise CRM workflows and deliver a high level of support down market, leading to improved renewal rates, especially within our SMB and MMB customer segments, all while incurring minimal additional overhead. This commercial strategy also helps us avoid the opportunity costs associated with the direct sales team taking time away from enterprise accounts.

As for our fourth quarter financial results, total revenue was $59.3 million, above the high end of our guidance range. Note that the upside relative to guidance was driven primarily by higher variable revenue. Adjusted EBITDA was $10.8 million, also above the high end of our guidance range, driven by the benefits of the cost restructuring executed in the third quarter and ongoing disciplined operational execution. Revenue from hosted services was $51 million, down 15% year-over-year. Recurring revenue was $52.9 million or 89% of total revenue. Professional services revenue was $8.3 million, down 36% year-over-year. Average revenue per customer was $680,000, up 9% year-over-year, driven in part by expansions with our largest customers and in part by customer retention. RPO declined to $176 million, consistent with the same factors driving declines in revenue. Net revenue retention was 78% in the fourth quarter, down from 80% in the third quarter. As a reminder, net revenue retention is a function of in-period revenue, meaning this metric will generally continue to decline until revenue begins to grow. Finally, in terms of cash, we ended the fourth quarter with $95 million of cash on the balance sheet.

Turning to revenue guidance. We expect positive net ARR in the second half of the year. While we believe this leading indicator supports the path to future growth, the corresponding positive revenue impact in 2026 will be offset by negative net ARR in recent periods. As a result, we expect revenue to decline through the year with the rate of decline flattening in the second half. For the full year 2026, we expect revenue to range from $195 million to $207 million, approximately 92% of which we expect to be recurring. Note that commercial traction with newly launched Syntrix primarily represents upside to the guide.

For the first quarter, we expect revenue to range from $53 million to $55 million, a sequential decline of approximately $5 million at the midpoint from the fourth quarter. As for adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2026, we expect a range from a loss of $4 million to a gain of $7 million. It follows that we do not expect adjusted EBITDA less CapEx to be positive in 2026. As for the first quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA to range from $2 million to $5 million. Our expectation for slightly negative free cash flow reflects our attempt to balance many competing factors in order to increase long-term value creation rather than merely optimize for the near term. Making balanced investments in our go-to-market motion and product innovation will help us achieve positive net ARR in the second half of this year and sustain it going forward.

Before taking questions, I'll briefly summarize a few key points. The fourth quarter marked a significant turning point, transitioning us from a period of stabilization to one of targeted execution. Our results confirm that the LivePerson platform is essential to our enterprise customers and their planned AI deployments. We are now effectively leveraging high-efficiency channels such as Google Marketplace to drive both customer retention and future growth. Rigorous cost management has allowed us to operate efficiently while still maintaining investment in 3 strategic priorities: retaining and expanding our customer base, continuously developing new features and capabilities for our customers, including delivering on the Syntrix road map and strengthening our partner network. Looking ahead, we remain committed to the disciplined execution of these pillars. With our cost structure now appropriately aligned to our expected revenue base and the fundamental value of our platform affirmed by our largest customers, we are confident in our trajectory to achieve positive net ARR in the second half.

With that, operator, we can move to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

And the first question comes from the line of Jeff Van Rhee with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

This is Daniel on for Jeff Van Rhee. Just on -- maybe starting off with the bottom line and the current OpEx level. Could you walk us through sort of what -- really nice decrease in the total OpEx for the quarter sequentially here in Q4. Is there anything onetime about the OpEx in Q4? And then maybe just walking us a little bit about how you expect that to -- it looks like scale back up to '26?

Daniel, I'll start there. So the results in the fourth quarter for the bottom line were primarily driven, as we said in the prepared remarks, by the large restructuring that we executed in the prior quarter. And there may be some onetime items, but it was primarily a structural change to our cost base. As we look forward and as we described in the prepared remarks, we are looking to make investments in innovation on the product side as well as our commercial presence. So those are, we view necessary investments to ensure we're on a path to positive net ARR in the second half.

Yes. And then on positive net new ARR in the second half, maybe you could walk me through -- I think you said you expected revenue to continue posting sequential declines as you're adding net new ARR. Not sure -- maybe I missed something there, not sure how that works out. Are you saying that ARR will grow sequentially in the back half, but nonrecurring elements are going to show sequential declines just that revenue would still dip? Or maybe you could just walk through that again? And then just expanding a little bit on your confidence, whether that's what you're seeing in quotas or what you're seeing in the pipeline in terms of visibility out there to the back half?

Yes. Let me reconcile the revenue comment with the positive net ARR. So in recent quarters, we've had a large negative net ARR the revenue impact we are feeling throughout 2026. That revenue impact will offset completely the positive revenue from the net ARR we expect to generate in the second half. So that's the reason for the revenue to sequentially decline. It's because historical customer losses are still playing through the P&L throughout 2026.

As it relates to our visibility and pipeline, I'll say a few words and pass it over to John Sabino. I mean our guide reflects a healthy pipeline for the first quarter, and that includes some deals for the new product launch Syntrix that we described. But importantly, most of the guide is predicated on demand for the core platform, which continues to be robust as we've described in the prepared remarks.

I'll second John Collins' comments. LP Sync and just add a little bit of additional color, LP Sync and Syntrix are new into the market. Syntrix just becoming generally available last week. So we're going to -- it's going to take a little bit of time to build that up, but we are starting to see some of the efforts improving from the marketing and outreach that we've started to do with our commercial teams. So we believe that, that will continue to improve throughout the year.

Yes. And maybe last for me, just on Syntrix. If you could expand a little bit on the marketplace, the competitive landscape, what you were seeing there in terms of the need for Syntrix? Was that customers coming inbound saying, "Hey, I need this sort of thing." Where was sort of the ideation? When did the development of that begin? And then maybe last of all, just how do you expect that to evolve from here in terms of the road map it sounded. Maybe you could expand a little bit. I think you talked about additional functionality you wanted to add to that platform.

Yes. Let me start with demand. We initially saw a request for simulation capability to train both Live reps and train AI agents. Simulations was our initial response to that. But what we started to see was that broadly just about every AI initiative, whether it's LivePerson's AI or someone else's, has had a number of challenges throughout an enterprise organization and its deployment and ability to create value for the customer. And this is due to compliance challenges and ability to enforce guardrails and just understand how a model is going to perform in the real world before it gets there. So we stepped back and took a holistic view of what the real challenge was. And essentially, what you're seeing is that it's not whether or not you can deploy AI or have a Conversational Platform that's digital for your customers. It's really your ability to look at the quality of that and assure that it's going to work the way that you expect before it ever gets in front of a customer.

So Syntrix as a platform is a response to work with the LivePerson platform and any one of our competitors, whether they be AI providers or CCaaS providers to actually simulate, produce analytics, intelligent insights that can either self-heal or improve performance of a model. These are future things that we're working on to ultimately provide an adherence to a compliance framework. And ultimately, this would lead to overall governance for any AI or orchestrated digital customer journey across a varied tech stack. So that's the evolution of Syntrix. It's really moved from I just want to be able to simulate, train my people and/or a bot into a much broader problem set that we believe that we can solve across a LivePerson ecosystem or a broader digital CX ecosystem where analytics, intelligent identification of issues and/or compliance failures can be reported on and ultimately resolved either before a bot or a customer agent is deployed or catching it if there is something after the fact.

The next question comes from the line of Ryan MacDonald with Needham & Company.

John, maybe just to follow up on Syntrix off of that last response. Can you just talk about the pricing model for Syntrix and whether you're going to be sort of looking at token-based pricing? If so, what kind of visibility does that give you into sort of the revenue stream as sort of Syntrix adoption grows? And then from, I guess, any sort of early signs from some of the first few deals for Syntrix in terms of what sort of uplift this potentially creates within the renewals on the core customer base?

So let's start with the pricing model. The pricing model is conversation-based. So you can think of it as a consumption model. It's not necessarily seat-based as you may have seen in some places in the past. And in order to build the model for the customer, we really do look at the number of bots and/or agents they're trying to train and how many campaigns or things that they may be looking to either bring through an AI interaction and/or human interaction. And so we propose a number of different models that represent a statistically significant simulation capability. So it's really based on the consumption and what the customer is trying to achieve.

Now with the early customers that we have, we have seen that this is an upsell opportunity as well as a retention capability. So early indications are that customers are using it in line with our model so that the conversation-based pricing accurately reflects what we believe we can do with the customer and is driving improvements that we've published publicly in terms of velocity of training new customers and savings -- excuse me, velocity and training of new agents and savings for customers. So we're confident that this is going to drive bottom line value for customers. Right now, we have dozens of opportunities that we're looking at. And now that we're GA with the product, we're hoping to see some of that as upside in the pipeline going forward. And it represents millions, not hundreds of thousands.

Excellent. I appreciate all the color there. And then on Google Cloud Marketplace, obviously, continuing to see some nice progress there and sort of growth in pipeline. Can you just give us a sense in terms of the, I guess, mix of pipeline sort of heading into '26 here that GCM represents sort of relative to maybe the direct sales channel or other channels? And then what kind of incremental leverage sort of continued sort of growth and success with Google Cloud Marketplace can sort of provide on your direct sales efforts?

I'll start and then, John, if you want to add, please feel free. Right now, Google Marketplace really does represent a retention lever for us. It's simplifying procurement, and it's now elevating where the LivePerson spend is typically being allocated within a technology budget inside of some of the large enterprises that we serve. So we see this representing a significant portion of how we do renewals going forward in the future because of the simplification of purchasing and/or an already allocated portion of funding inside of our larger enterprise customers.

As far as growth goes, we're starting to see those joint opportunities with Google. We have aligned our commercial teams and theirs, and there's incentives in place for them to work with us now and drive some of the spend for LivePerson through Google Marketplace. So again, we see this as potential upside, right, to be very clear, right now, it's a renewal and expansion play for us, but we believe it to be only natural to create additional new opportunities and potentially new customers through ease of transaction and aligned incentives with Google's field as well as our own. I think it will be...

The only...

Yes, go ahead, John. I'm sorry. I didn't stop there.

The only addition I would make to that is just to emphasize that it exposes us to a new set of stakeholders. And so where we have previously been predominantly working with the head of care, we now have more access to CIOs, which could change the conversation for us by way of both renewals and potentially growth in the future.

Very helpful. I appreciate it. Maybe one more for you, John Collins. Can you just help us understand from sort of the quarterly flow on adjusted EBITDA? I mean, I know historically, you've sort of ramped as you've gone throughout the year. But can you just help us understand, obviously, you're making some incremental investments this year to try to drive that return to net new ARR growth in the second half. But how we should think about -- it seems like Q1 is sort of the high watermark based on sort of the Q1 and fiscal '26 EBITDA guidance, but how we should expect that to sort of flow throughout the year?

That is approximately correct. I expect Q1 to be the high point for the year as we emphasize that there is a need for investment on the product side and the commercial side, which we've already begun executing. So that will be additional costs relative to the Q4 run rate that's added this quarter, and we'll see that manifest per the guidance we provided throughout the year.

Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session, and this will conclude today's conference call as well. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to LivePerson's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Irene, and I'll be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Jon Perachio, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thank you, Irene. Joining me on today's call is John Sabino, CEO; and John Collins, CFO and COO.

Please note that during today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections and other statements about future results. These statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions as of today, November 10, 2025, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various factors, including those described in today's earnings press release and the comments made during this conference call, as well as in 10-Ks, 10-Qs and other reports we file with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Also during this call, we'll discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings press release. Both the press release and the supplemental slides, which include highlights for the quarter, are available on the Investor Relations section of LivePerson's website, ir.liveperson.com.

With that, I'll turn the call over to LivePerson's CEO, John Sabino.

Thank you so much, Jon, and thank you all for joining us today. I will begin by briefly reiterating the decisive actions we took to stabilize the company this quarter. Then I will cover our results and key business updates.

First, the debt refinancing agreement we discussed on our last call is now closed. This is a pivotal achievement and most importantly, resolves a concern we heard from our customers and partners. Second, we executed a cost restructuring to reduce our cash burn. This ensures we can operate efficiently and allows LivePerson to retain cash on the balance sheet. Together, these actions address a primary headwind of renewal hesitation and slower bookings and indeed, the tone of our customer conversations has started to change. They recognize that our cost and capital structures have been stabilized and are looking to us for continued strategic partnership.

Now turning to our operational performance for the third quarter. We delivered results that were above the high end of our guidance ranges for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Revenue came in at $60.2 million, exceeding the high end of our $60 million guidance. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.8 million. This significantly exceeded our high end of our guidance range, demonstrating our continued financial discipline with the cost reductions made during the quarter.

Turning to our product. We're seeing strong momentum and validation from both our customers and the market. Our customers' adoption of our generative AI suite continues to grow with nearly 20% of all conversations on our platform now using generative AI. At the same time, Gartner recently recognized LivePerson as a Niche Player in their 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms, one of only 13 -- one of only 13 vendors. We were also recognized in the 2025 Gartner report for Digital Customer Service.

Building on our previously announced partnership with Google, we were honored to join them on stage at their recent RCS event. LivePerson's integration with Google's RCS platform enables brands to deliver rich, interactive and verified messaging experiences that drive higher engagement and customer trust. It also allows businesses to seamlessly transition from campaigns to 2-way messaging, combining multimedia content with LivePerson's platform to create personalized, scalable customer conversations. It is an exciting development, and we expect to share more on this in the future.

This partnership with Google extends even deeper. We just launched Copilot Translate built on Google's Gemini 2.5. This capability is embedded directly within our agent workspace, eliminating language barriers by automatically translating all inbound and outbound messages. It allows our brands to effortlessly serve customers in many languages, boosting agent productivity and delivering a truly AI-native experience. Our innovation extends beyond these powerful partner integrations. We are applying our deep conversational expertise to solve customers' most fundamental challenges.

We continue to hear consistent feedback from our customers and prospective customers about the challenges they face in deploying and scaling both AI and human agent workforces. These challenges range from the complexity of safely training and validating AI models before production to long ramp times, high training costs and quality assurance demands of their human teams. To address these needs in the market, we are leveraging our decades of conversational expertise and deep culture of innovation to introduce Conversation Simulator. This is a transformative product that enables brands to safely test, train and validate AI agents in real-world conditions while simultaneously providing in-workflow training and quality management for human agents.

Our fundamental differentiator is providing this dual capability in a single unified platform. It accelerates the time to value for AI deployments, improves human agent performance, and positions our customers to scale more efficiently, driving stronger business outcomes across the enterprise. This will be a stand-alone product with its own revenue stream, and we believe it represents a significant new opportunity for LivePerson. It has a fundamentally open architecture designed to serve as the vendor-agnostic testing and insurance hub for a business' AI and human conversational ecosystem. This means that while it integrates seamlessly with our platform, it will also work with any CCaaS platform and any third-party AI.

The core purpose of this product is to make AI agents more predictable, trainable, testable and audible. This product allows businesses to simulate, analyze and continuously improve performance across their conversational ecosystem. This is precisely where we bring AI and human training together. For AI bots, this product validates and optimizes performance against business-critical synthetic scenarios before they ever reach a live customer. This tests end-to-end conversational orchestration of care, sales and commerce use cases across live agents and virtual agent experiences.

For human agents, it provides a new style of training. We can inject synthetic scenarios and test agents directly in their workflow. This provides real-time feedback and training without ever taking them out of their day-to-day activities.

The value this provides to our customers is significant. Early data points to a 30% decrease in agent ramp time and a 50% reduction in the time to test AI bots. Beyond these efficiencies, it is giving our customers the confidence to launch AI agent at scale for high stakes customer-facing use cases. Our product provides the visibility, risk management, continuous monitoring and training necessary to bring velocity and trust and scale to AI deployments. We believe these capabilities will remove key obstacles that has prevented further generative AI adoption. This proactive continuous approach marks a shift from recent failure analysis -- excuse me, from reactive failure analysis.

Customers can now identify and preempt errors. This is how we will deliver trust, value and more predictable business outcomes, driven by a unified strategy for both AI and human agents. This capability unlocks a significant opportunity by extending LivePerson's reach beyond the traditional enterprise segment. Conversation Simulator has been designed to provide critical assurances to businesses of all sizes, allowing us to address an adjacent market for training, simulation and compliance. This market represents a $10 billion TAM today and is projected to grow to $20 billion by 2030. Best of all, this is resonating with our customers. We have several early access customers actively using the product and seeing initial results. These customers include Telstra and Open University, amongst others.

Additionally, we have a strong pipeline of customers expected to begin testing in the coming months. This early adoption is validation that Conversation Simulator provides a critical new layer of trust and predictability that the industry demands, and we are uniquely positioned to lead. We look forward to updating you on the growth and success of this new product.

Now moving to go-to-market. We are seeing encouraging early signs of improvement in our commercial performance. Nowhere is this progress more evident than our renewal discussions where the tone and confidence of our customers has shifted meaningfully. We successfully renewed several large accounts that had previously expressed hesitation, including a major U.S. telecom company and a leading amusement park and entertainment company. This renewed confidence extends beyond renewals and into new growth opportunities.

For example, a leading travel brand, which had initially raised concerns about our financial stability, recently signed a new upsell contract. In addition, a large financial services organization, which had shared similar concerns is now expected to grow with us, including an upsell this quarter. These expansions from accounts that had previously expressed concern are powerful indicators of increasing confidence in our innovation and stability. This returning customer confidence is also beginning to appear in our numbers. We delivered a slight sequential increase in bookings this quarter, even as we continue to navigate the headwinds from renewal hesitation, longer deal cycles and new AI-related approval processes across the industry. Our commercial momentum is being strengthened through our key technology partnerships as well.

Notably, we're now officially live on Google Cloud Marketplace, a major milestone that makes it significantly easier for organizations already operating in the Google ecosystem to discover and purchase our platform using their committed Google Cloud spend. This opens a powerful new frictionless channel for growth, and it deepens our reach across enterprise markets. In fact, we already have a deal flowing through this new channel, validating the strategy.

At the beginning of this call, I laid out the decisive actions we took to stabilize this company, and we're beginning to see the benefits. The tone of our customer conversations is changing, and we're seeing better momentum in key enterprise accounts. We're also seeing continued strong adoption of our generative AI capabilities, early traction on our new Conversation Simulator, and a growing partnership with Google creating additional paths to market.

With better-than-anticipated variable revenue performance in Q3 flowing through to the full year, we are raising our full year revenue guidance range to $235 million to $240 million, up $2.5 million at the midpoint and our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $7.5 million to $12.5 million, up $8 million at the midpoint. With our financial foundation stabilized and commercial traction building, we are well positioned to continue to execute our strategy.

Now let me hand our call over to John Collins. John?

Thanks, John. In the third quarter, we continued to deliver on the plan we committed to at the start of the year. We closed the previously announced debt refinancing agreement and significantly reduced our cost structure. Together, these milestones give LivePerson the financial foundation needed to succeed in the market. In addition, we began migrating customers to our public cloud infrastructure, and we launched a new product innovation, as John discussed, Conversation Simulator, for which we already have paying customers and a growing pipeline of opportunities. While it's early, we are seeing indications of meaningful demand.

In terms of deals and significant wins in the quarter, we signed a total of 28 deals, including 2 new logos and 26 expansions and renewals, translating to a sequential increase in total deal value of 14%. Key themes for the quarter included continued traction in regulated industries, namely banking, healthcare and telecommunications, where there is demand for compliant, centralized and AI-agnostic orchestration to securely deploy and manage a variety of AI agents. Significant renewals and expansions included a 7-figure deal with a leading U.S. health plan provider, a leading amusement park and entertainment company and Sanlam, a leading South African financial services group. We also added a global industrial company as a new logo.

In addition, with the debt transaction behind us, we began proactively educating customers on our improved financial foundation, which has already resulted in the renewal status of certain customers changing from cancellation or short-term extension to full renewal.

As for our third quarter financial results, total revenue was $60.2 million, above the high end of our guidance range. Note that the upside relative to guidance, which resulted in a slight sequential increase in revenue was driven by variable [ overhead revenue ] and the timing of revenue recognition for certain deals.

Adjusted EBITDA was $4.8 million, also above the high end of our guidance range, driven by strong cost discipline and the immediate benefits of the cost restructuring executed during the quarter. Revenue from hosted services was $51.2 million, down 18% year-over-year. Recurring revenue was $55.1 million or 92% of total revenue.

Further segmenting revenue, professional services revenue was $9 million, down 23% year-over-year. From a geographic perspective, U.S. revenue was $37 million and international revenue was $23.2 million or 61% and 39% of total revenue, respectively. Average revenue per customer was $665,000, up 6% year-over-year, driven in part by expansions with our largest customers and in part by customer retention.

RPO declined to $182 million, consistent with the same factors driving declines in revenue. Net revenue retention was 80.4%, up [ from ] 78.2% from the second quarter. This sequential increase was driven by the same factors that caused the sequential increase in revenue. In general, we expect net revenue retention to track with in-period revenue and experience slight sequential declines going forward. Finally, in terms of cash, we ended the third quarter with $107 million of cash on the balance sheet.

Turning to guidance. Considering the revenue upside in the third quarter, which we are flowing through, and our improved outlook on renewals, we are raising guidance for the full year. For revenue, we now expect a range of $235 million to $240 million, an increase of $2.5 million at the midpoint. For adjusted EBITDA, we expect a range of $7.5 million to $12.5 million, an increase of $8 million at the midpoint. We also expect adjusted EBITDA to exceed capital expenditures for the full year.

The implication for revenue in the fourth quarter is a range of $50.5 million to $55.5 million. Note that the sequential decline is driven in part by the timing of revenue recognition that benefited the third quarter. We expect recurring revenue to be approximately 93% of total revenue in the fourth quarter. As for adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter, we expect a range of $0 million to $5 million.

Before taking questions, I'll briefly summarize by emphasizing that the third quarter demonstrated strong execution against our strategic plan. We strengthened the capital structure and rationalized costs, setting us on a path toward producing sustainable free cash flow. Simultaneously, we continue to deliver value for customers with on-schedule DCP migrations and product innovation in the form of Conversation Simulator. Collectively, we believe these milestones have positioned LivePerson to continue building commercial traction going forward.

And with that, we can move to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question we have is from Jeff Van Rhee of Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

This is Daniel Hibshman on for Jeff Van Rhee. Maybe just you could open with giving a little bit of color on the upside to the quarter and what drove that? I mean it sounds like a few factors, perhaps customers gaining some additional confidence in the finances and a few other factors. But maybe 80/20, you could point us to sort of what drove the upside this quarter.

John, do you want to talk about revenue, and I'll talk to bookings afterwards?

Yes. No problem. Good to hear from you, Daniel. In terms of the upside, we characterize it as timing, which means there's some deals that would have otherwise taken place in the fourth quarter that are now in the third. And there's variable revenue that we recognized in the third that drove the balance of the upside in the quarter. The timing is the larger factor there for your 80-20.

And then on bookings is, Daniel, as you can imagine, the conversations around financial stability and other things, not only impeded renewals, but it also had to do with our ability to expand in some of those accounts, and we're starting to see those conversations have some forward progress -- positive progress.

Okay. And then on the competitive landscape for conversational simulator, maybe just walk us through -- I'm not familiar with the landscape there. What are some of the key peer products that are out there for this already? What's the differentiation that LivePerson is looking to bring to the market? What's the right to win? Just anything about the tiers there.

Yes, there's a few things with that. There are quite a few folks that are in the space, but no one that really addresses both sides of the equation, which is both human and bot. We're one of the few that we can find that do that in the market. Additionally, our experience around the verticals and the businesses we play in give us the data set and the unique knowledge in which to train certain scenarios, personas for our customers that separates us quite a bit from some of our competition. But the interesting thing around this is that the approach that we're taking, the ability to actually inject a training scenario or evaluation of a human agent's performance right into their daily work stream or messaging queue is something that's pretty unique to us. So we're not -- you're not training in an outside environment. You're there doing your job and the ROI is still there in place. And when it comes to bots, we're able to do this in a way that really does allow you to simulate at scale how that full orchestration is going to perform. And so because we have both sides of the equation, our product is pretty unique in that regard.

Additionally, it's an open product, meaning that we can test any LLM that's out there, any CCaaS platform in addition to activity on our own. So what I think really does separate LivePerson here is that we're not looking at one side of this in isolation. We're looking at it from a complete CX perspective, and we can do a continuous improvement in training loop compliance and governance in a way that is pretty unique in the market. So those are the things that we think differentiate it, and we haven't really seen someone else doing exactly the same thing as us or being in a position to because we are both human and AI in how we address an agent and a CX experience for a brand.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just one last one for me on the modeling. Just -- I think, John, you mentioned a little bit on restructuring and some additional costs coming out. Just anything -- is that something that happened here in Q3? Is that in reference to something that's layering in more so in Q4? And then just anything on the scale of that? I see the EBITDA here guide is a few million ahead of the Street for Q4. Should we take something in that scale is what the few million maybe sequential change in OpEx is what's driving that beat in Q4? Just any thoughts on that.

Yes, that's correct, Daniel. That's what's driving the beat in Q4. And to answer your earlier question, the timing was Q3, so we should begin to experience the full effects of the cost restructuring during Q4 and for full year '26.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no further questions. And with that, this concludes today's teleconference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.