- SOUN Q1 2026 revenue hit $44.2M, up 52% YoY, beating consensus of $42.84M.
- Full-year 2026 guidance held at $225M–$260M; LivePerson acquisition added no uplift.
- Stock dropped ~11% post-earnings; D.A. Davidson and Northland cut targets to $12.
GAAP Gross Margin: 31.1% (vs. 36.5% prior year)
SoundHound AI posted record Q1 2026 revenue of $44.2 million, clearing the $42.84 million Street consensus. The headline growth rate of 52% year-over-year is real. So is the 20% sequential decline from Q4 2025’s $55.1 million. Both numbers live in the same report.
The bottom line offers no relief. GAAP net loss came in at $25.0 million, or $0.06 per share — better than the $0.10 consensus, but still a loss. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $26.7 million missed estimates. Operating cash outflow was $26.3 million. The company burned cash at roughly the same rate it grew revenue. GAAP gross margin compressed to 31.1% from 36.5% a year ago, partly from non-recurring vendor true-up charges. Non-GAAP gross margin of 49.7% is cleaner but trending in the wrong direction. Management’s own carve-out — core automotive and IoT AI revenue ex-acquisitions grew 88% — is the one number bulls can hold onto without asterisks.
Both D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria and Northland’s Michael Latimore trimmed price targets from $14 to $12 post-print. Both kept Buy or Outperform ratings. The message is consistent: the long-term thesis holds, near-term execution risk is real. The eight-analyst consensus sits at $14.63, implying 52% upside from the $9.63 close — a wide spread that reflects genuine disagreement about when, or whether, the profitability inflection arrives.
The LivePerson acquisition — a $43 million deal for a digital messaging AI company with presence in 30-plus countries and relationships with 25 of the Fortune 100 — is the forward story management is selling. The combined entity targets 2027 revenue of $350 million to $400 million, with at least $100 million from LivePerson’s existing book. That number will not show up in 2026 guidance. Management held the full-year range at $225 million to $260 million, unchanged. Investors wanting proof of integration value will wait until the deal closes in H2 2026 at the earliest. SoundHound also launched OASIS, a model-agnostic agentic platform designed to unify its acquisition stack — Interactions, Amelia, and now LivePerson — into one enterprise offering. It is architecturally interesting. It is not yet revenue.
SOUN is a growth story with a margin problem and an integration thesis that has not been stress-tested. The balance sheet — $216 million cash, zero debt — gives management runway to execute, but runway is not a plan. Unchanged full-year guidance after a LivePerson acquisition announcement is the market’s actual complaint here; investors expected the deal to pull forward numbers, not sit in a holding pattern. Sell-side remains constructive in ratings while quietly lowering targets, which is Wall Street’s polite way of saying patience is wearing thin. The stock’s 5% gain over the past twelve months trails essentially everything that matters in this sector.
Watch Item: LivePerson deal close date (expected H2 2026) and whether management issues a formal 2027 guidance range — that is the next catalyst with teeth.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All investment decisions and their outcomes are solely the responsibility of the reader.