Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Autodesk First Quarter and Full- Year Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press * 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press Star 11 again. I would now like to hand the call over to Simon Mays-Smith, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss Autodesk fiscal 2026 first quarter results. Andrew Anagnost, our CEO, and Janesh Moorjani, our CFO, are on the line with me. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, including outlook and related assumptions, and on products, go-to-market, and strategies. Actual events or results could differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-K and the Form 8-K filed with today's press release, for important risks and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements made during the call are being made as of today. If this call is replayed or reviewed after today, the information presented during the call may not contain current or accurate information. Autodesk disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
We will quote several numeric or growth changes during this call as we discuss our financial performance. Unless otherwise noted, each such reference represents a year-on-year comparison. All non-GAAP numbers referenced in today's call are reconciled in our press release or Excel financials and other supplemental materials available on our Investor Relations website. I will turn the call over to Andrew.
Thank you, Simon, and welcome everyone to the call. Autodesk delivered strong first quarter results. Revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share topped the higher end of our guidance ranges, and billings, non-GAAP margins, and free cash flow exceeded our expectations. Two things are clear against an uncertain geopolitical, macroeconomic, and policy backdrop. First, our strong momentum and performance in the first quarter of fiscal 26 set us up well for the year. Second, we continue to make the right decisions to drive long-term shareholder value. We are focusing our growth investments on our strategic priorities in cloud, platform, and AI. We are optimizing our sales and marketing and investing to enable future optimization that drives higher margins. We are allocating more capital to share repurchases as our free cash flow stack rebuilds from the transition to annual billings for most multi-year contracts.
With the appointment of John Cahill, Ram Krishnan, Jeff Epstein, and Christie Simmons, we are refreshing our board to guide the next decade of growth. In this uncertain world, Autodesk has three sources of certainty. First, the new transaction model is a proactive plan to integrate more closely with our customers and drive additional business, while also increasing automation and reducing duplicative workflows with our channel partners. It opens up new growth and margin opportunities for Autodesk. Second, rebuilding our free cash flow stack after the transition to annual billings for most multi-year contracts increases our capacity to sustainably return cash to shareholders through share repurchases. Third, as we come to the end of those two major business model transitions, Autodesk will be easier to analyze and understand. I will now turn the call over to Janesh to discuss our quarterly financial performance and guidance for fiscal 2026.
I'll then come back to update you on our strategic growth initiatives.
Thanks, Andrew. Q1 was another strong quarter. Overall, the underlying momentum of the business was similar to prior quarters. We saw strength in AECO, in upfront revenue from enterprise business agreements, or EBAs, and in the Autodesk Store, as friction from the new transaction model implementation process continued to ease. Our go-to-market optimization plan is also on track. Our new Chief Revenue Officer, Andy Elder, joined on May 12 from Microsoft. Total revenue in the first quarter grew 15% as reported and 16% in constant currency. The contribution from the new transaction model to revenue was $78 million in the first quarter. Total revenue grew 11% in constant currency, excluding the impact of the new transaction model. Please see the tables in our press release, earnings deck, and Excel financials for details by product and region.
Billings increased 29% as reported and 30% in constant currency, reflecting the shift to annual billings for most multi-year contracts and the transition to the new transaction model. The contribution from the new transaction model to billings was $105 million in the first quarter. Billings grew 22% at constant currency, excluding the impact of the new transaction model. RPO of $7.2 billion and current RPO of $4.6 billion grew 21% and 16%, respectively. Turning to margins, first quarter GAAP and non-GAAP operating margins were 14% and 37%, respectively. GAAP operating margins decreased 7 percentage points, primarily due to restructuring charges of $105 million and a one-time non-cash charge of $54 million, reflecting a cumulative adjustment in stock-based compensation since fiscal 1999 related to the company's employee stock purchase program. The financial impact of this was immaterial in any of our historical reporting periods.
For example, it was a total of $4 million in fiscal 2025. There are more details in the earnings deck. This does not affect the trajectory of stock-based compensation for future years. We remain very focused on bringing stock-based compensation as a percent of revenue to below 10%, and in part to reflect that intent, we have incorporated it into our long-term executive incentive plans. Non-GAAP operating margins were strong, increasing 3 percentage points. This reflected operating leverage from ongoing cost discipline and timing benefits from restructuring, partly offset by the margin drag from the new transaction model. First quarter free cash flow was $556 million. Moving on to capital allocation, we continue to focus organic investment on our strategic priorities. We purchased approximately 1.3 million shares for $353 million at an average price of approximately $269 per share.