To help them accelerate the adoption of AI. For that, they will realize the value that this era can bring to them, reduce complexity, accelerate the time that it takes them to launch new products and new offering, reimagine all their workflows end-to-end, which is a key and important parameter for our customers. Last but not least, of course, reduce significantly in their cost structure.
I can tell you one thing, because I sat down the hall, I saw Verizon this morning.
They talked about AI really impacting the business two ways. One is in customer retention, customer interaction, but also internally taking cost out. Maybe let's talk about agentic AI. You're excited about this opportunity. You talked about how you can help customers. Can we drill down a little bit on how exactly your systems are doing this? What are you bringing to the table?
The main offering of Amdocs for this era is what we call aOS, the Amdocs Agentic Operating System. In our view, our customers have right now an amazing opportunity to fundamentally change the way Verizons and other customers are operating today. We are running and supporting our customers with ecosystems of systems that were built over the years, evolution of systems that were built layer on layer on layer, and eventually, you end up with a spaghetti of systems that are running today, the entire ecosystem of any telecommunication today all over the world. Again, it's a natural evolution of an industry. But now there's an opportunity to replace all of it, all of it with a platform that, in our vision, should be fully autonomous, fully agentic, business-to-machine, that will change fundamentally the way customers are operating today.
This is the vision that we are bringing today to our customers under the umbrella of aOS, the Agentic Operating System.
Can we talk, because it sounds amazing. Is this a new system? Is this taking the existing system and migrate? How actually take a carrier in-
Yes
Latin America, what do they have to do to integrate aOS?
Yeah. So aOS, think about it as a technological framework, is a set of products, tools, services, migration tools, the entire portfolio that is needed in order to help a customer to embark on any journey.
Yeah.
Because we know that today customers are starting from different starting point. They have different ecosystems that they are operating today. Once they subscribe on the vision that we just described, on the future fully automated, fully agentic operating system for the telco, there is still going to be a journey. How to take them from here to this future. Some customers have more appetite to go faster. Some customers will want to transform the entire systems, and they can use our latest and greatest platform that can replace all of it. Some of them will try to do it in steps.
Our job, and this has been Amdocs' job for years in this industry, is to help them to define the right roadmap and the right path and the right journey to take it from where they are today to this future agentic journey, and the pace and the time and the risk level that they are willing to take during this journey. When I said Amdocs has been doing it for years, think about other major technological shifts that happened in the industry. Think about everyone going digital. Amdocs was there to help our customers several years ago. It was the big wave of going all digital. Amdocs was there to help them realize and become all digital. Think about the cloud, moving to the cloud. Everyone was working on-prem, and then the new technology emerged, and everyone wanted to start to move to the cloud.
This was our job, to help our customers to move from on-prem to the cloud. Now we have even a bigger opportunity because the technology and the promise is huge, but to bring this new technology and help them to become fully agentic, fully autonomous, and to change the way they operate.
Can you talk about, because you signed a large deal with Liberty Latin America.
Correct.
Can you talk about, let's go even back to the beginning. How did that conversation start? What was the deal, and how does that roll out?
Yes. Going back to this topic of journey, each one of our customers have different appetite, and therefore, we are going to tailor a different journey for each one of them. Liberty Latin America, it's a case of good customers that decided that they want to see all the benefits and enjoy all the benefits that GenAI can bring them. Got very excited from our Amdocs Agentic Operating System, from aOS, from the technology, from what it could bring, and also decided that the best way to achieve it is by basically outsourcing and giving Amdocs the keys to transform their entire organization.
They handed over to us their entire IT and asked us to take the responsibility on implementing aOS and generating the same value that we are committed to doing, and they wanted to get and achieve it quickly, improve time to market, accelerate their digital transformation, and generate a lot of savings from their business. The journey that we tailor together with Liberty Latin America is one that they basically rely on us completely to be the one that will transform them. And for that, we got into a 10-year agreement, which will allow us to complete it. We took the entire responsibility. We are committed to these outcomes. So that in this journey, the customer, Liberty Latin America, is relying on us to deliver the value.
Now, other customers will probably define a different path and a partnership or a different approach, or will take the same path that Liberty Latin America took. But I think, and our goal right now, is that over the next few years all our customers. We have 400 customers all over the world. All the 400 customers will embark on a journey, partner with us, each one of them, again, in a different path, to get them to this realization of the value that this technology can bring.
Okay. This could be a model for how things are done, but it's not necessary. Maybe that could also be a one-off. I guess as you're more successful with them, it brings a testimonial to take to other customers, "Look, this is how we're doing." Okay. Can we talk a little bit about what are the risks, and I guess the opportunities, for Amdocs specifically, as customers start to do this? Because there's things that are going to take cost out, so there's part of the business you could lose, but there are other things you can gain. How does it wash out?
Yeah. I think the formula, and this is exactly what we did with Liberty Latin America and with other customers that we're in discussions right now, is to look for the win-win-
Right.
Commercial model that will work for both companies. In order to achieve that, you need to look at the entire BSS/OSS domain. Everyone realized today that the real benefit in implementing agentic solutions is if you look at the processes end- to- end. In each of our customers on the BSS and OSS, this spaghetti of systems, part of it is Amdocs. We are part of these ecosystems. Usually, our portion is, give or take, a third of the entire footprint of our customers.
What we're trying to do is the following. We're telling our customers, "Let's partner. Let's look at the holistic, the entire domain, and try to revolutionize and change completely and transform completely the entire domain. You will get all the savings, and you will get," again, to your point that trying to reduce costs, "let's look at ways to reduce the total TCO. On the other hand, Amdocs will play a bigger role and help you doing that, so our business can grow, they can get the TCO reduction that they're looking for, and there's a win-win that we can achieve." This is exactly the formula that worked very well with Liberty Latin America, and it's exactly the type of discussions that we are doing right now.
There is definitely a win-win here, in which each of the parties is getting exactly what they are looking for in terms of cost savings.
There's an opportunity to take a big, there's a bigger pie.
It just reminds me, years ago, I remember there was an ultrasound company who decided to start offering services where they were going to service all the ultrasounds, including their competitors, and they ultimately were able to take market share. It's a similar dynamic.
I know.
Before I go on, next question I was going to ask you about your partnerships with hyperscalers. Before, can we just talk about the competition? Clearly you are way ahead. You would not sign a big deal with Liberty Latin America if you did not have something leading it. So what is the competition? Historically, the competition has been very in-house or piecemeal, but now you add AI.
Yeah.
How do you see the competitive landscape evolving?
Yeah. In terms of competition, our approach, and this is what we are discussing with our customers, we believe that in order to achieve the ultimate goals and what AI can really bring you need to look for major transformation of the entire domain. Competition is coming to our customers saying, "Oh, there is a second. There is no need to do that. Leave all these spaghetti of systems, whatever you have right now as is, and just put a layer on top of it." This is a valid alternative approach. Again, we do not believe that this is going to bring our customers the value that they need. Yes, it is going to add some value.
You put some agents on top of the legacy system, but still, you are going to be constrained by the underlying systems, and you will never be able to enjoy a real, fully autonomous, fully agentic ecosystem that will transform significantly the way you operate. But a valid alternative option that definitely for short term, accomplishment and some small gains here and there, you can look at this option of putting some layer on top of it. This is one type of competition that we are facing these days. The other competition is internal IT, which was always a competitor of Amdocs, because some of the things they are doing internally, some of the things we are doing. This opportunity right now to leverage AI is giving more appetite for the internal IT maybe to do things by themselves.
But I think when it comes to mission critical systems, the heart of their operations, it's probably going to be the last area that they will try to do internally. They'll probably try to maybe look at other applications that are more on the fringe and less critical for running their business. But in terms of competition, I think these are the two alternatives that we see today.
It's funny, I remember talking to a CIO executive earlier this year, and he said a year and a half ago, when AI first really became apparent, he thought, "Oh, I can just get rid of all my systems, like Workday or whoever. I can just do all this on my own." And he goes, "A year later, my thinking evolved to, 'Why am I replacing these?'
Yeah.
Maybe I can work with them, and maybe I use the internal to build functionality on top of it." Can we talk about your partnerships with NVIDIA, with the hyperscalers? What do they bring to the party? And I guess related to that, do you need partnerships with the frontier models also as you bring AI in, or is that something you have internally?
Yeah. So we have good partnership with all the hyperscalers. It started mainly on the journey to the cloud.
Right.
This was the beginning of this partnership. We were trying to move applications to AWS and to Azure. We have been going on in this journey, continue to go on this journey these days. Today, we are shifting and moving more to partnering around the large language models and partnering with them. They are providing us a variety of options. Again, everyone is trying right now to optimize the cost and to make sure that you are using some open source and some more expensive frontier models and so on and so forth. This is also some kind of the support that you get today from all the hyperscalers, including NVIDIA. We are evolving right now in our partnership with them to the agentic era.
Closing out this-
Yeah.
aOS discussion, it just seems to me like there is an opportunity for Amdocs to move beyond within your core business to take more share in that sense.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
If you think about what is the ultimate goal for us, what will be an ultimate achievement of our strategy, is in the moment that we have all our 400 customers all over the world, all of them embarking on a journey to move from where they are right now to this future agentic. We know it is a different journey, but all of them will be in a journey. This will accelerate significantly the adoption and the transformation of our customers.
All right. The other growth factor is to go into new verticals and new opportunities.
Yeah.
Can we talk a little bit about where you see an opportunity to go beyond the traditional telecom?
Yeah. The thinking behind this growth engine is that we have done some amazing things in the telecom industry for many years. We know how to work with large customers, we know how to deal with mission-critical systems, and these are skills that we have been proven, and we believe that can be relevant for additional industry. We are not talking about industries, we are talking about one industry. We believe in the verticals. We are not going to go horizontal. This is not Amdocs. We are looking for one more vertical that we can add on top of our telecommunication, which will continue to be a top focus for the company.
Right.
We are talking about high-regulated industries with complexity, things that are similar to what we did in telecommunication, and we think that the time is now.
Okay.
Is now because of GenAI. GenAI is opening an opportunity right now for customers to think their journeys. We're investing a lot with aOS in the telecommunication domain, and we can definitely leverage this investment and bring it to additional industry, and the same ideas that we are bringing to telco will be definitely relevant for additional industry. Our plan is to get started, the sooner we can get it ready and organized and we have the right penetration point and we know how to get started, we're going to do it soon. But we look at it as a midterm, long-term additional growth engine for the company, more customers, more TAM that we did not have before in telecommunication. That's why it's a major growth pillar for us for the next five years.
Okay. But it's still being developed, what you want to go after, and then at some point you'll relay it out to people.
Correct. We will, the beginning, we start with some acquisition. We need to get in with some M&A. We need some footprint, we need to get in, we need some knowledge, we need some customers, we need technology. The idea is to get in with an acquisition, but the main play is the telco play. Whatever we have there, so we're not looking for a big acquisition or major penetration to this industry. We don't need it. We need enough, and the rest we're going to bring from what we have in telecom.
Some domain expertise and then you can build on that. Makes a lot of sense. Okay.
Exactly.
Now, since you've become CEO, you've emphasized transforming Amdocs. AI first, you've gone through this strategic assessment, four pillars of growth. Can you just maybe talk about what drove you there and-
Yeah.
The main focus is the growth of the strategy, the four pillars of the growth strategy. Pillar one, aOS for telecommunication. Pillar two that you mentioned, expanding to an additional vertical. Pillar three is new growth horizons that we believe that we have opportunity to emerge right now and with new offerings for the industry. But in order to support the growth strategy, those three pillars, it requires an internal transformation of the company.
Right.
We have to lead by example. We want Amdocs internally to be customer zero of everything that we are offering right now to our customers. So if we are selling aOS right now to our customers, the same principles and the same concept we want to apply internally in the company. Accelerating agentic SDLC processes, changing the agentic, the operations to become agentic operations, changing the way of working, changing the structure of the teams. So everything that we believe that will make Amdocs as agentic first organization and to lead by example.
How's it going?
It's a major change. It's a major transformation. We've been in this journey for a while. We are definitely accelerating. In the last five, six months, we are definitely accelerating. We are scaling it, rolling it all over the company. We spend a lot of time trying to learn and probably made some mistakes, and we knew how to fix it. Now we're ready to go at scale and do it across the entire company. But it's a transformation. When was the last time that agents and humans were working together in the same team and it's new to all of us.
I saw The Matrix. That was about the closest we got.
Exactly. We're getting very close to that. But it's a transformation. Many companies are going through this transformation right now, but it's probably key and fundamental to support the growth strategy.
If you saw, we had our CIO on stage yesterday, and he was talking about this same thing, and he said, "One of the things that's really helped is they've created these sort of thought leaders, people that kind of champions that work and work with the employees and then give feedback to IT so that if it comes iterative. I see it as an employee, it works when you have people that are saying, "Look, let me help you. How do I do it?" When it gets done, it's going to be a beautiful thing. Okay, let's talk about growth outlook. Historically, Amdocs has grown low single-digit growth. What's the potential for that to accelerate? What time frame? How much of the four pillars kind of get you there?
Yeah. We need to, in order to accelerate the growth, we need a few things to happen.
Okay.
On the first pillar, we think that we have an amazing opportunity with aOS to accelerate the growth. The main consideration, how quick it's going to happen, depends a lot on how quickly our customers will move, adapt, and embark on these journeys. We talked about other transformation that Amdocs did in the past, for example, the digital transformation that we did for our customers or the cloud transformation that we did. Digital went much faster. Customer adapted it much quicker, and we were running very quickly, and many of our customers were transforming and becoming all digital, so we saw an accelerated growth in those years for 6%-8% a year because it was moving very quickly in the industry. The cloud went slower. Even though it was a very good compelling event, it went slower, so we saw growth, but not at the same pace.
Now the question is how quickly the industry, our customers, will adopt AI and will embark on these journeys. We want to believe that it's going to be similar to the digital transformation because it's been driven by the business. It's not a back office infrastructure change.
Right.
It's more of a business driven transformation, so we want to believe that it's going to happen faster. I think there's a lot of pressure right now from board, from CEOs, through the entire organization and our customer base to move faster, look for things that are more fundamental and meaningful that will help them transform their companies. So I think this will hopefully go faster, but time will tell, and we'll see how quickly the industry will move in this direction. The new vertical we need to get started. There's a huge potential to grow, but we are starting small, and it's going to take time. We believe that this is a growth engine for the mid and long term, and the new horizons, we just need to pick two or three good examples that can accelerate quickly, and we're working on that right now.
All in all, I think that each one of the growth pillars has a great potential. We just want to accelerate, as right now there's a sense of urgency to get started in all of them and to make the right investment and to push forward because we want to build the company for the next five years and beyond. Overall, we're quite optimistic on the strategy that we put in place.
I remember talking to an AI expert two years ago.
Yeah.
We talked about the difference between cloud and AI.
Yeah.
One of the things that stuck in my mind, which I never forget, they said, because I remember the cloud transition, they said in the cloud transition, part of the challenge was the incumbents were fighting it. Remember who the incumbents were 25 years ago. They're like, "Don't go to the cloud. It's not safe.
Yeah.
Afraid of saying.
They slowed the process down. They go, "Look who is driving the AI today. It's the incumbents." I mean, the biggest players in cloud are the biggest players in AI, so that has a potential to accelerate. So that hopefully provides more of a tailwind, less of a. I can't imagine a board today who's not thinking AI or
Absolutely.
What are we going to do? Let's talk about margins, because one of the things about AI is it has not only the potential to drive revenue, it also has potential to take cost out. So how does Amdocs think about the margin benefits of AI internally, but also with customers? Do you share it? Do you keep it?
Yeah.
How do you price for it? Yeah.
Yeah. The internal transformation that I'm under, the fourth pillar of the internal transformation, should drive a company that has less people, more technology. Therefore, even though technology cost is going to go up, we think that the net over time should generate better margins for the company. At the same time, we want to share it with our customers. This is going back to this, we are going to bigger piece of the pie, and we're going to share, and we're going to give them a TCO reduction. Some of it is going to be our reduction. Some of it is going to be the entire domain reduction. So we're going to share it, of course, with our customers because we are all together in this goal to try to reduce the total TCO for our customers.
Overall, a great potential for us to become more profitable and also for our customers to reduce costs significantly. I think there is a win-win for both of us here.
Okay. So last question, I'm going to actually put the two together, and that is, how do you think about capital allocation, and how do you think about M&A, especially. Again, it didn't sound like you were thinking about a huge M&A, but just how do you think about returning cash versus making investments, and how do you balance sort of the near term shareholder demands versus this longer term, bigger opportunity?
Yeah. I would say that we put right now a strategy that we strongly believe-
Can drive the company for the long term.
Okay.
These are strong growth engines that can develop and grow the company for many years to come, and we are quite determined to make the right investment in order to make it work.
Right.
If we need to think about short term considerations versus long term, this management team is thinking right now about long term. And we believe that we are building the right growth engines that will make Amdocs a great company also for the next five and 10 years. If we need an M&A right now in order to support expansion to another industry, we definitely want to go and do it. If we need to invest right now and do some growth on the new horizons and the new vertical, if we need to make sure that our aOS is the leading platform and there's no one better than us that can help our customers, we're going to make this investment. We're quite determined to make sure that we are supporting the strategy in the right way.
Some of it is organic, some of it is, of course, through M&A. But the main goal right now is to make sure that behind the strategies that we're very confident that this is the right strategy, we are supporting the right capital to make it happen.
Appreciate it. Shimie, thank you for your time.
Thank you very much.
And-
It was a pleasure.
There is a lot to follow. I mean, again, AI has created this unsettled but also much larger op-
Absolutely
You're going after bigger opportunities. I think you have an excellent strategy, just as far as the way you're thinking about layering in the growth.
Thank you.
Wish you much success.
Thank you.
Thank you all for coming.
Excellent. Thank you for the time.
Thanks for attending our conference.
Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you. All right. Keep your best.