All right. Okay, 8:06, I think we better start. Ashim, thanks for joining us. First session for the conference, so no pressure on kind of being performing here from us. It's great to have you back. It's kind of funny, last time, we both lived in Connecticut, so why are we flying all the way over to do this conversation? But ... Maybe just to get everyone back on the same page, it's like you just had, like, very good Q3 results. Your share price reaction suggested even more, so, but, let's not discuss that part. But like, from your perspective, what were the highlights from the Q3 results?
Yeah, great question. We're very positive about our third quarter. I look at it in three lights. One, we demonstrated the ability to have a business model that can both drive profitability and growth. The balance of growth and profitability is a focus for us, has been a focus for us, and we're very pleased with that delivering. The second is just the positivity and the continued momentum on the go-to-market changes that we've made, and how it's been received by our customers. That is, engaging with C-level executives, meeting and selling the platform beyond RPA, really selling multiple elements of the platform.
Mm-hmm.
And third is just the vertical strength and the intimacy that we're seeing there. And then the third, which is no small feat, is just the power of AI and automation, and how AI is infused in our platform, I think, has resonated well.
Mm-hmm.
Just seeing that through customer stories and also seeing that through our messaging, and that's well received and much better understood. So we're very pleased with third quarter.
See, I will touch on some of those points a little bit later again, but if I start, like, big picture, like, if you look at your ARR growth, it's kind of settling down mid-20s again. Given the scale of the organization and kind of the environment that we're in, I think it's very, very impressive. Is that kind of what's driving it? Is that macro getting better, or is that, like, you guys executing with Rob now several quarters on as well as, you know, the execution is getting, getting sharper?
Yeah, our growth rate reflects really the tangible strength and technological strength of our platform, as well as the execution by the entire UiPath team, especially go-to-market.
Mm.
When you peel that back, again, our ability to take the strategy and execute, whether that's bringing the conversation to the C-level, several marquee deals in the quarter.
Mm.
Continuing to drive strong customer growth, particularly at the top end of $1 million-plus and $100,000-plus customers. And then seeing the leadership changes that we made early, especially in certain verticals like public sector, seeing those take root, that really is there. So execution is really a large part of our quarter. When you look at the macroeconomic environment, we continue to see it as variable. It's been consistently variable-
Mm-hmm
... as much of an oxymoron as that may sound. So, you know, it's definitely had a disproportionate impact on the lower end of the market, meaning small and mid-sized companies-
Mm-hmm
in our emerging enterprise segment. But we have seen strength in enterprise, and that strength is also where there is ROI.
Mm-hmm.
Feedback from our customers is they're willing to invest where there's an ROI, and we've demonstrated that as a company.
Then, talking about execution a little bit, like, it's a big word. Like, if you think about the software investor, he's like, "Yeah, we're working on execution." What exactly, you know, what, how do you have to think about?
Yeah, I think at the core of it, it's say-do ratio. What we say, we put into practice, and we also are monitoring the results of it such that we can make minor adjustments where needed or pivot where ... For me, that's like the hallmark of execution.
Mm.
What goes into that is really starting, when you have 4,000 people and with greater than 10,000 customers, is making sure your position, what you're trying to do, is understood by every employee. You train them, you give them the tools to be able to execute-
Mm-hmm
... and you go out and make sure that that's, you're resonating, that's resonating, and it's impacting the customers in a positive way. That's that's how we think about execution.
And then what's, from that perspective, like, you know, with Chris Weber and Paul Benson, you're gonna have, like, some people that were in much larger organizations that are very focused on process, et cetera. Like, what did you get from them, like, that's extra power?
I think what's the power of UiPath is we have a diversity of experience, and I think what people who've seen scaled organizations have brought to us and the experience of growing them is a couple of things. One is, what does a mature process look like-
Mm
To build a foundation to scale? That credibility is something that you embrace, not by five people. To scale, you need a broad foundation.
Mm.
You can't build a mile high if your foundation is a toothpick.
Yeah.
You need a wide foundation. So they're very good at being able to ... the teams to be able to get there. The second piece is also relationships. I think they continue to elevate the company with our customers.
Mm.
As they elevate customer conversations, it's amazing how the company also elevates and how employees respond.
Yes, I can imagine. And, I mean, those kind of, those changes that you talk about, usually it's a journey for an organization, that kind of takes time. Like, I want to say, should we talk innings? Should we talk cricket? I don't know the cricket. The, where are we in terms of innings, like, in terms of that kind of-
There's only-
-organization?
There's only one inning in cricket.
Oh, is it?
Yeah.
Okay, okay.
Yeah.
Let's not do that.
But what I would say, Look, there's two parts of it. I think the foundation, the major changes like segmentation of our customers, bringing in the right talent, like Mark Gibbs, Europe, Mark Daniels, our public sector. You know, employing the strategy of selling the platform. Those are. We're well on our way. We feel really good about that. There are other areas that we are in the early innings of: pricing and packaging. That's, you know, we feel very good about the progress we've made on simplification there. There is. We just see a lot of power in being able to go out and see what other advancements can we make, and continuing to figure out and continuing to package our value for our customers. The second is AI.
Mm.
I think we've been investing in AI all along. The integration of AI, the messaging of AI, the monetization, we're in some areas, like Document Understanding, we're doing that today, but there is even more scope to do that, and those are, those are things that are still in its early innings.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And AI will be a big topic in a second, but, like, I wanted to stay on go-to-market a little bit. What are you seeing in terms of, like, new customer logo, like, getting new clients in versus, like, getting deeper into the installed base at the moment?
Yeah, I, I think it's very important to first re-articulate what our strategy has been.
Yeah.
We've been very deliberate in saying we want to focus on growing and acquiring customers with a high propensity to buy. And that means focusing on the upper end of the value equation, and that's what we've done. In areas like that, enterprise, we're really pleased with the progress, in terms of what we're seeing. Quality logos, we announced New Relic as just an example. It's a smaller company, but a really powerful opportunity. Go back to third quarter, companies like Aprio. So smaller companies-
Mm.
But higher propensity to buy. In addition to marquee deals, you know, we have, we continue to drive, like, major insurance companies, major healthcare companies, major manufacturing companies in oil and gas. We're seeing very good progress there. The lower end of the market, that's where we really see more attrition, and that's, again, deliberate with our strategy and also understandable given the macroeconomic variability is impacting those types of customers.
Yeah.
Very small customers, that have low ARR and a lower propensity to buy and invest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And then the, on that note, what I, if you think about it, as you kind of play in this field at the moment, like, what are you seeing on the competitive dynamic as you kind of focus more on enterprise? Like, you talked about the issues on the low end. Like, and, and I wanted to split it a little bit into the, the classic, let's talk about those ones, like the, you know, the, the private company, well, now they're all private ... companies, like, what are you seeing from that side? And then, kind of, kind of talk about the public ones instead.
Yeah, I think we've. If you divide our competitors between the legacy RPA competitors and the more, what I would say, contemporarily viewed competitors-
Yeah, yeah.
The Automation Anywheres and the Blue Prisms, I feel with confidence and still with a lot of respect, we've leapfrogged. Our capabilities range far beyond RPA.
Mm.
Our ability to reach their customers, the conversation levels we're having, just the size of our installed base. I think we're far away, we're well-moated against those competitors. And while we'll always have a level of paranoia to-- especially in those areas-
Yeah
... I think, you know, we feel very good about where we are and how the market's responding to us. When you look at the newer competitors like Microsoft, et cetera, we also feel good about where we are. And we can double-click on Microsoft.
Yeah
... if that's of interest. But really, Microsoft has been focusing on personal productivity. We are seen by our customers as enterprise-grade productivity, right? So downloading a few documents from your email versus running claims processing.
Mm.
Value, and then therefore revenue-
Mm
... is really geared towards those higher enterprise-grade automations. And we, you know, that co-
Like, you know what? And I get from our end, like, every time someone mentions Microsoft, it's like: "Oh, my God, Microsoft's coming!" Like, where do you see that, that... Or what's the conversation that you have with the Microsoft guys in terms of how they think about your partnership? Because you're working very closely with them.
Yeah. I think, first of all, that's a great question, and I'm, I'm gonna slow it down just to reinforce it. Microsoft has named us their preferred automation partner.
Mm.
Our relationships between Daniel and Rob and their executive team are very strong, and they see our growth positive in lieu of their growth because our cloud and ours is partnered with Azure.
Yeah
... in a major way. What I think is misunderstood about Microsoft versus UiPath is really two things. The first is really their focus on personal productivity. We are focused on enterprise productivity. So if you sit down and you think about your corporation or customers or companies that you've seen, you don't hear Microsoft talking about automating claims processing, automating customs forms applications, automating invoice to cash.
Yeah, I can't see that.
You don't see that in with them. And that is where we shine, and they know we shine.
Uh.
So personal productivity versus enterprise-grade productivity. The second area is Autopilot and Copilot. Copilot and AI has been seen as a strength for Microsoft, and historically, I would say, I think that has significantly changed, viewed as: What does that mean for UiPath? AI is a tailwind for us, and Copilot is not really a source of direct competition against our platform. In fact, we have partnerships. We're talking about how to further partner with that.
Mm.
Autopilot brings the power of our platform to our customers to make it easier. Copilot cannot do that. Copilot doesn't create a workflow using UiPath Platform. And the AI conversation has been a benefit for us. One, because we didn't react when the news of ChatGPT came out, we've been investing in AI for five years.
Yeah
... plus. We've been talking about Semantic Automation for 2 years plus. Our technology roadmap has already had a lot of that in, and it actually has allowed C-level leaders to recognize that strength in UiPath.
Before I go to AI, like, one last question, like, the other name that comes up a lot is ServiceNow, where actually at the moment, there's not that much of a product there, but everyone feels like, maybe. How do you like, how do you see it, and what do you see in customer conversation? Does it even come up?
Yeah, I'll give two data points on it. One is, ServiceNow is in less than 1% of our deals. We see them in less than 1% of our deals.
Yeah.
So it really doesn't, it doesn't manifest itself as direct competition. The second piece is, there's really... So if you look at our most downloaded of our platform-
Mm.
and used by our customer, not just downloaded, that is the ServiceNow UiPath connector. And so they don't really come up. They're focused on, you know, areas and problems like ITSM, et cetera. They can increase their range of solutions, but we are really focused on broad end-to-end automation across enterprise processes.
Mm. Okay, makes sense. And then, now going towards AI, like, if you think about it, you guys have been trying to automate things for a long, long time, and so you must have worked on AI. So now, generative AI comes out kind of earlier this year, and everyone is like, "Oh, my gosh, you know, UiPath, where should they end up?" Like, how do you see this playing out in terms of, like, classic AI, what generative AI could bring extra, and where you are going to play in this?
The first is, I think the AI wave has elevated the conversation.
Mm.
I think that's really important to note. People are getting more knowledgeable about it, which is a benefit to us.
Mm.
Where it directly impacts our platform is AI can think, but automation provides that force of action. That's what UiPath's platform brings.
Mm.
So you can have a chat, and you can have a generative AI chat, but actually going and processing that invoice or retrieving that customer data requires action. That's, you know, that's where this is very complementary, just at the highest level between AI-
Mm
... and automation, and why us at the center of automation. This is a very positive thing for us.
Mm.
The second piece is, there's general AI, and then there is specialized domain-specific AI. If I just took an example, when you're dealing with an invoice, to be able to read that document and understand what is on that document, that requires a specialized model.
Mm.
Because 70% throughput isn't enough. 70% accuracy isn't enough. You need 95%, 99% accuracy to meet customer value. So in that standpoint, we actually can build upon, build upon foundation models and create specialized AI models, which is one of the things that we are working on, that directly impacts the value of automation for our customers. We are already selling that in products like Document Understanding. We have a ton of opportunity in products like Re:infer, which is Communications Mining, looking at emails and being able to create models to understand what actions can be taken based on that data.
So do you, do you think customers are a lot more further advanced in their understanding of where AI plays in for you versus investors at the moment? Like, because, like, on the investor side, I still get a lot of, "Oh, what's AI going to do this?
I think the wave is so large that it varies. I mean, every day there's something new.
Yeah.
I don't think anybody can say, "I finally understand it.
Yeah.
I don't think a customer can, an investor can, and I know that we sit at the center of that, and we are constantly learning ourselves. What I can tell you is, customers who spend time with us when we're, when we're brought into their boardrooms, they always leave with an understanding and the feedback that says, "Now we get it. We need both. We understand what you're doing and what this is not doing.
Mm.
We understand how to integrate this better." Where you see the proof point, so it's not just a discussion, is in the marquee deals that we talked about for the quarter. In our $1 million-plus customers that continue to grow at a rapid pace and our $100,000-plus customers. Those customers are investing not in our older products alone, they're investing in our entire platform, and they're also investing because they know the roadmap is very synergistic and helpful in their AI ambitions.
And then, you mentioned Copilot or versus Autopilot, et cetera. So what - so if I think about, like, if I come to you guys, what do I get on the Autopilot, for example?
So Autopilot brings the power of automation closer and faster to business users and developers. And so when you look at what we demonstrated or we demoed, if you get to see our Forward VI demos, it brings UiPath's platform into the hands of the user. You can go and interact with an automation.
Mm.
You can develop automations faster. Business users can interact with those automations using Autopilot.
Mm.
Copilot doesn't create the workflow. Copilot can do the things for Microsoft's platform-
Yeah
... right? In those areas. They—it really doesn't have an impact on being able to develop and build automations on UiPath's platform. So the three things that you're able to get is, one, you get a better user experience in the, in the front end, building on the large language models, being able to interact and say, "Retrieve my travel data," right? As an example of what Graham demonstrated. The second is, business users can develop their own automations faster. And then the third piece of it is, we are able to build, core developers or professional developers, are also be able to build larger and more complex automations faster and more accurate.
... Okay. And then, now the CFO questions, like how do you make money out of that?
So, one is we're already making money off of it. And I think this is a fact that I really want to emphasize. We've been selling Document Understanding, which is infused with AI-
Uh.
For a while now, and when you look at our larger deals, we talked about some of the large healthcare deals or the large insurance deals, Document Understanding has been front and center into those deals.
Okay.
Into many of them. So I think that's first. Second is, we already have offerings like Communications Mining as well, which are also ramping up in their monetization. The third piece of monetization for us, even in the short term, is going to be just driving efficiency and faster time to value for our customers. The faster that flywheel moves, the more value they provide, the more that they're gonna invest. In terms of direct monetization of AI, we launched Autopilot into preview. We have hundreds of customers now on that preview.
Mm.
We are excited about the feedback and the value proposition. We're gonna listen to those customers, make sure that they see how they see value, and the simplest way to package so that they will buy it, and that's something that we're gonna look at over the in the coming quarters and months.
Today, and so will that be an extra? Do you charge extra for that, or is that part of the platform fee or?
Look, I think we have multiple options. I think we wanna listen to our customers first-
We don't know yet.
And make sure. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we don't know yet. Okay. Okay. And then, last couple of minutes, since you're the CFO, we need to talk a little bit about your progression on margins and cash flow this year. Like, really impressive. Like, talk a little bit about that journey there.
I'll first quantify it for everybody. You know, if you look at our guidance we provided in the third quarter, 900 basis points expansion is what's implied.
Yeah, pretty good.
which is we're really pleased with, and we're really happy. I'll start with saying it is a complete team effort. That's number one. Number two is, it's not at the expense of, no pun intended, at the expense of starving investments. We're continuing to invest in AI. We're continuing to invest in go-to-market. We have a very powerful business model, strong gross margins, really good land and expand and stickiness from our customer base, which means we're not investing for things that are it, which is accretive to margins. And then the third piece is, we are able to find pockets of productivity just given our global base that's there, and we have a very scalable foundation.
Mm.
If you look at our G&A foundation, we're running hundreds of robots within our finance and our back office operations. That means that we can continue to scale the company without significant investments in G&A, which also falls through to the bottom line.
But the getting 900 bits is kind of a pretty big number. Like, how did you achieve—like, I mean, I know, like, you—but there must have been, like, a cultural change, a lot of projects to kind of work differently.
Yeah, I think the first piece was. Literally, we did scrutinize every line item. I think that's one. The second is a culture of ROI. We preach ROI into our customer base. We talk about ROI internally. So we're investing because we see ROI.
Mm.
Right? But that also means we can curb investments where we don't see ROI paying off. And anybody who invests knows that you never get 100%-
Mm
... payoff. So you're constantly reassessing. That's a second piece, another piece culturally, and then it just goes across the board. It's the little, little things that every single employee can impact that adds up, and that gets you to 900 basis points.
And are we now at the end of the journey on the margin side, or— Because, like, there's a lot of stuff that you do then, where you have the action today, but the benefit will come through later, like... So where are we on that journey of, like, you know, action and results?
Yeah. Look, providing longer term guidance, I think we talked about ourselves being a 20% long-term margin company. I feel like we're well on our way to that. We're very pleased with where we've executed. We'll provide updates to that long term-
Yeah
when it's the right time.
Mm. So I'm not getting that in front of you?
No answer on that one.
Yeah. And then last question from me is like, if you think about it, you're now, like, nicely cash flow positive, you're good, you know, healthy cash balance. Does that trigger rethinking about your, kind of, usage of cash or how you think about the, kind of, cash position of the company?
Yeah, I'd start by highlighting, like, I think our cash position is strong and we're generating large amounts of cash. We've already taken action, like returning, you know, returning share cash back to our shareholders-
Mm
in the form of the $500 million buyback that we've done. We already purchased 5 million shares, as we disclosed here in the last quarter.
Mm.
So you can see our say-do ratio when we talk about execution and our commitment to that, you know, manifesting in real action. We have a powerful. And so that, I think we, we have opportunities in M&A if we wish and if we see value. Nothing large scale, but there's areas that we can expand upon if needed. And then we'll constantly reassess how to redeploy cash.
Yeah.
Our focus is really just making sure we generate the right ROI for both our customers as well as our investors.
Yeah. So Ashim, look, I said we have a minute left. I think that's a good closing statement, though.
That's fantastic.
I think I'll leave you with that.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us, and thank you for being here again, huh? Thank you.
Thanks so much, Raimo.
Thank you.