Autodesk Inc Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Okay great hey guys, thanks for taking my questions here and great to see the better results well done.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Absolutely Andrew, maybe to start with you. I'd love to pick up on the theme from analyst Day, a little bit and see if you could just weigh in on sort of the seats versus consumption AI monetization debate for Autodesk, but maybe also as part of that touch, touching your broader ecosystem of partners and customers. Does that make sense?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : That's, that makes a ton of sense and super helpful. Janesh, maybe for my follow-up for you, appreciate the detailed guide for this year. I was wondering if you were able to just give us any color on fiscal '27 high level as we think about our models.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Very helpful. Thanks guys.

Question: Adam Borg - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc - Analyst : Awesome and thanks so much for taking the question just on the Autodesk construction cloud, it's great to hear the continued traction and even the cost coming over migrating 700 active projects. When you think about your existing Autodesk construction cloud install base, for those existing customers, how penetrated are you in terms of the cost the projects that already brought over to Autodesk? Any color around that and the ability to continue selling broader parts of your growing ACC portfolio, be it payments or preconstruction, etc. Be really helpful, and then I have a follow-up.

Question: Adam Borg - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc - Analyst : That's really helpful and maybe just building on the theme of convergence in design and manufacturing, we talked about this a little bit at the investor day, but if you think about convergence and the opportunities with fusion over time, how do you think about the PLM market more broadly, for all of that? Thanks so much.

Question: Adam Borg - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Inc - Analyst : Incredibly helpful, thanks again.

Question: Jay Vleeschhouwer - Griffin Securities Inc - Analyst : Thank you. Good evening. Andrew, my first question for you, is a corollary to the question I asked you a quarter ago about the pace of new technology adoption, and the question has to do with something interesting you said at AU. I think it might have been a main stage where you said, as far as your customer base is concerned, that quote, no one gets left behind which is an important general commitment, but what are the practicalities of that in terms of customer migration, packaging, promotions, all those sorts of things that you've done or we need to do, with regard to migrating your customers in the way that you implied.

Question: Jay Vleeschhouwer - Griffin Securities Inc - Analyst : Thank you for that. Janesh, for you, given the revenue upside across each of the segments, could you comment on any new or incremental trends you're seeing in, usage telemetry, either by vertical or geo or standalone product versus collections, anything of that kind, in terms of the usage component, that helped drive some of that growth, in AEC manufacturing and so forth.

Question: Jay Vleeschhouwer - Griffin Securities Inc - Analyst : Okay, thank you.

Question: Taylor McGinnis - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. Hi. Thanks so much for taking my questions and your first one for you just, you mentioned earlier about, still some elevated uncertainty out there, but it sounds like you guys are seeing some strength in areas like data centers, industrials, and whatnot. When you speak with customers regarding their spending plans across AC, manufacturing, and M&A for calendar 2026 or fiscal year 2027, I guess any early insights that you could share, with the group in terms of what you guys are expecting to see.

Question: Taylor McGinnis - UBS AG - Analyst : Perfect thank you. And then Janesh, maybe just one for you on billings growth you made several comments in the prepared remarks just about how growth has been elevated this year because the new transaction model, and also because of the larger base of multi-year billings customers and we're going to start to lap that going into next year and see some moderation and growth. So can you just help us unpack the mechanics there a little bit more? So as we look into 2027, could we start to see if we adjust for FX and the new transaction model, revenue growth and billings growth start to align with one another, or is it possible that we could actually see, some tougher comps and maybe there's a divergence between the two? Any additional color you can give there I think would be helpful. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 25, 2025 / 10:00PM, ADSK.OQ - Q3 2026 Autodesk Inc Earnings Call

Question: Taylor McGinnis - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. Thanks for all the color.

Question: Elizabeth Elliott - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Great. Thanks so much for the question. I wanted to follow-up regarding some of the new AI capabilities like auto constraints, which appear to have the high accepted rates and measurable productivity gains. So the question is, are these products and product improvements translating into observable changes in retention, multi-product adoption, or expansion activity? And just as the platform overall delivers more value with AI, how are you thinking about the pricing power? Any sort of larger, more periodic price increases or a steadier cadence tied to just incremental AI driven capabilities? Is that an opportunity that you look forward to? Thank you. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 25, 2025 / 10:00PM, ADSK.OQ - Q3 2026 Autodesk Inc Earnings Call

Question: Elizabeth Elliott - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Great. And then just as a follow-up I wanted to ask on the margins where it was really impressive to see the underlying margin expansion kind of move up in the full year guide. So the question is, where are you seeing the most outside success that's driving up the full year view, and what are the levers that are having more of an impact in near term versus what can be more of a driver next year for the underlying margin trajectory?

Question: Bhavin Shah - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Great. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong results. Janesh. I know you spoke about this briefly in your prepared remarks, but in terms of channel productivity, excuse me, how much time is still spent on operational elements and when do you think the channel gets back to full productivity? And is there any kind of impact also with all the M&A activity happening with your resellers?

Question: Bhavin Shah - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : That's helpful there. And as a follow-up for Andrew, maybe just for you, there's been some recent headlines about agents turning 2D sketches into 3D models via CAD software as innovation continues to evolve here. What role can Autodesk play and how are you thinking about evolving the product capabilities as agentic and co-pilots to turn sketches into the models continues to evolve?

Question: Bhavin Shah - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Makes sense to me. Thanks for taking my questions. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 25, 2025 / 10:00PM, ADSK.OQ - Q3 2026 Autodesk Inc Earnings Call

Question: Tyler Radke - Citibank Cameroon SA (Douala Branch) - Analyst : Yeah. Thank you for taking the question. So the direct revenue has grown significantly. I think it was up 85% this quarter. You called out strength in the online store, the Autodesk store. Just wondering, is this strength -- is this coming in well above your expectations? And how should we just think about the, mechanics of taking more business direct and potentially that being a tailwind to the reported revenue that we're seeing.

Question: Tyler Radke - Citibank Cameroon SA (Douala Branch) - Analyst : Great. Helpful. And then Janesh, just on the underlying growth, I know you got some questions on this, specifically as we think about FY '27 guidance, but you started off the year in sort of the high, single-digit ballpark, and I think we look at the Q4 guide, normalized growth is closer to kind of the low teens. Is that a fair characteristic of where the underlying growth of the business is today? Maybe there's some one up, or one time revenue in that Q4 number as it relates to EBA. Just help us understand like where is that underlying growth of the business in in your view now, and I assume that's maybe a few points higher than it was at the beginning of the year.

Question: Ken Wong - Oppenheimer & Co Inc - Analyst : Thank you for taking my question. Andrew, I wanted to circle back on a comment that you made about the incentive structure to partners. I realized that you guys are taking it down on renewal to incentivize some hunting. Any early feedback from partners, and I realized it doesn't take effect usually until February, but any early behavioral changes that you guys are noticing from the channel?

Question: Ken Wong - Oppenheimer & Co Inc - Analyst : Okay, perfect. And then on the [AVEVA] side, Janesh, I realize you're not expecting any tailwinds on the free cash side. Are you guys seeing any early impact on the top-line in terms of, kind of customer spending behavior or any customer project activity?

Question: Ken Wong - Oppenheimer & Co Inc - Analyst : Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.

Question: Koji Ikeda - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : Yeah. Hey guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to follow-up on a previous question on free cash flow, and Janesh, I think you mentioned there's about twomore quarters left before free cash flow and normalization. Did I hear that right? And then beyond that, what should quarterly free cash flow seasonality look like? Is there a fiscal year example from the past that we could look at that would be a good representation of what it would look like going forward?

Question: Koji Ikeda - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : Got it. Thank you. And then maybe a follow-up here question for Andrew and thinking about the AI strategy, and the data access strategy for AI through MCP and API calls. How has customer usage trends been around there and any update on how we should be thinking about any timing of the modernization opportunity with the data access strategy? Thank you.

Question: Koji Ikeda - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : Thank you.

Question: Michael Turrin - Wells Fargo Securities LLC - Analyst : Hey, thanks for squeezing me and I'll give you a chance to summarize some of the prior comments. I think high level the question is you're raising numbers across the board. For fiscal '26, it's not something we're seeing a whole lot of across software these days. So maybe just expand on your perspective around what's driving that and how much of that is beyond the scope of just macro and business model changes and then on CAD specifically, it's another quarter of standout growth, 15%. So maybe touch on that segment and if there are any specific dynamics to be mindful of there as well. Thank you.

Question: Michael Turrin - Wells Fargo Securities LLC - Analyst : Thanks very much.