The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Kash Rangan - Goldman Sachs - Analyst
: A great hire with Abhey, great guy, known them for a long time. It looks like you have a pension for hiring former sell-side people
starting in Mitesh. So great job. On the business itself, I wanted to just get a better understanding as to how you would evaluate
your own AI strategy. So we have a bunch of hypotheses we develop and we develop these products, we test it out of the market.
What are the things that you have learned from the introduction of your AI products into the marketplace? And what is your best
prediction as to when we hit an inflection point where the good is good enough, that is AI and growing parts of the portfolio,
including RingCX, et cetera, that you could get a reacceleration in top line growth rate, which is something I know that is very near
and dear to you and you've sort of intimated that that's your plan ultimately. But how is it all playing out near term with respect to
AI and how that could be a positive for your business? .
Question: Siti Panigrahi - Mizuho Securities USA - Analyst
: Great to see Abhey joining us as new CFO. Now Vlad, looks like a lot of emphasis on CCaaS and you talked about RingCX and this
partner Verint. A few questions. What kind of trends are you seeing on the CCaaS SMB versus enterprise? And now that you have
RingCX with Verint partnership, how are you going to position the solution against -- versus nice?
How are you going to position in the market?
Question: Siti Panigrahi - Mizuho Securities USA - Analyst
: Vlad, thanks for that color. And a quick follow-up. We see gross margin downtick in the last two quarters. I'm wondering how should
we think about that going forward? What drive that?
Question: Michael Turrin - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC - Analyst
: I appreciate all the color this far. Vlad, you had a comment on ARPU expansion that I wanted to spend some time on, Can you just
speak to the drivers of that? How much of that is cross-sell from some of the newer products you're focusing in on? Or are you seeing
base price improvements as well? And as you continue to focus in on selling the newer products -- can you continue to also drive
leverage on the sales and marketing line?
Question: Samad Samana - Jefferies - Analyst
: This is (inaudible) on for Samad. Maybe if I could double-click on some of the macro and go-to-market dynamics. If I go back to the
second quarter print, the strengths were cited as large deals and upsells at the high end with maybe some relative softness in how
do those dynamics progress in the third quarter? And what's kind of implied in the fourth quarter guide? Any material changes
positive or negative in terms of enterprise versus SMB demand?
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