SoundHound AI Inc (SOUN) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to SoundHound Q1 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，感謝您的支持，歡迎參加 SoundHound 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。（操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Scott Smith, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我想將會議交給今天的發言人、投資者關係主管史考特史密斯。請繼續。

Good afternoon and thank you for joining our first-quarter 2024 conference call. With me today is our CEO, Keyvan Mohajer, and our CFO, Nitesh Sharan. We will begin with some short remarks before moving to Q&A.

下午好，感謝您參加我們的 2024 年第一季電話會議。今天與我在一起的是我們的執行長 Keyvan Mohajer 和財務長 Nitesh Sharan。在進行問答之前，我們將首先進行一些簡短的評論。

We'd like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call. Actual results could differ materially from those suggested by our forward-looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could affect our business and for discussion statements that qualify as forward-looking statements.

我們想提醒大家，我們將在這次電話會議上做出前瞻性聲明。實際結果可能與我們的前瞻性陳述所暗示的結果有重大差異。請參閱我們向 SEC 提交的文件，以了解可能影響我們業務的風險和不確定性的詳細討論以及符合前瞻性聲明的討論聲明。

In addition, we may discuss certain non-GAAP measures. Please refer to today's press release for more detailed financial results and further details on the definitions, limitations, and uses of those measures and reconciliations from GAAP to non-GAAP.

此外，我們可能會討論某些非公認會計準則措施。請參閱今天的新聞稿，以了解更詳細的財務業績以及有關這些措施的定義、限制和用途以及從 GAAP 到非 GAAP 的調整的更多詳細資訊。

Also note that the forward-looking statements on this call are based on information available to us as of today's date. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law.

另請注意，本次電話會議的前瞻性陳述是基於截至今天為止我們所掌握的資訊。除法律要求外，我們不承擔更新任何前瞻性聲明的義務。

Finally, this call is being audio webcast in its entirety on our Investor Relations website. An audio replay will be available following today's call.

最後，本次電話會議將在我們的投資者關係網站上進行完整的音訊網路直播。今天的電話會議後將提供音訊重播。

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Keyvan Mohajer. Please go ahead, Keyvan.

說到這裡，我想將電話轉給我們的執行長 Keyvan Mohajer。請繼續，基萬。

Thank you, Scott, and thank you to everyone for joining the call today. Once again, we are reporting very strong growth. First-quarter revenue was up 73%. Just a few days ago, we reached the milestone of being a public company for two years.

謝謝斯科特，也謝謝大家今天加入電話會議。我們再次報告非常強勁的成長。第一季營收成長 73%。就在幾天前，我們迎來了上市公司兩年的里程碑。

While the tough external conditions of the last two to three years have weakened or eliminated many organizations, we have become stronger. We have nearly tripled our first-quarter revenue in just two years, while better leveraging our expenses, and we have more than doubled our cash position to its record high of approximately $225 million on the balance sheet. Our three-pillar strategy is working.

儘管過去兩三年嚴峻的外部條件削弱或淘汰了許多組織，但我們卻變得更強大。在短短兩年內，我們第一季的收入幾乎增加了兩倍，同時更好地利用了我們的支出，我們的現金頭寸增加了一倍多，達到資產負債表上約2.25 億美元的歷史新高。我們的三大支柱策略正在發揮作用。

This quarter was a special quarter for our pillar two, where we offer AI customer service solutions for businesses. About 30% of our revenue was from pillar two with over 10,000 locations laid in production and over 100,000 in our pipeline. Just a year ago, these numbers were negligible.

本季對我們的第二支柱來說是一個特別的季度，我們為企業提供人工智慧客戶服務解決方案。我們約 30% 的收入來自第二支柱，已投入生產的地點超過 10,000 個，籌備中的地點超過 100,000 個。就在一年前，這些數字還可以忽略不計。

And for the first time, our next-generation drive-thru AI service dynamic interaction is now live with one of the top global QSR brands, and the results are incredible beyond expectation. The main challenge our customers face on the first day of being live with dynamic interaction was that our AI was so fast at taking orders that their kitchen could not keep up with the pace.

我們的下一代得來速人工智慧服務動態互動現已首次與全球頂級快餐品牌之一合作，其結果令人難以置信，超乎預期。我們的客戶在進行動態互動的第一天面臨的主要挑戰是，我們的人工智慧接受訂單的速度太快，以至於他們的廚房無法跟上節奏。

Of course, they're addressing that on their side and are pleased with the results and immediately decided to expand to more locations. As we've said before, our AI solutions save cost for our customers, improves the experience of their users, and also increases revenue by adding throughputs and proactively offering upsells.

當然，他們正在解決這個問題，並對結果感到滿意，並立即決定擴展到更多地點。正如我們之前所說，我們的人工智慧解決方案可以為客戶節省成本，改善用戶體驗，並透過增加吞吐量和主動提供追加銷售來增加收入。

Dynamic interaction is a SoundHound technological breakthrough like no other. We believe its impact on voice and conversational interfaces will be as meaningful as the Apple multi-touch technology on touch interfaces. If you have not seen it in action, check out the videos on our website. We have built a competitive moat with our proprietary technology that is creating a massive opportunity in customer service.

動態互動是 SoundHound 獨一無二的技術突破。我們相信它對語音和對話式介面的影響將與蘋果多點觸控技術對觸控介面的影響一樣有意義。如果您還沒有看到它的實際效果，請查看我們網站上的影片。我們利用專有技術建立了一條競爭護城河，為客戶服務創造了巨大的機會。

We have agreements executed with several other large QSR brands that will be deploying dynamic interaction in the next few months, for example, Church's Chicken. The earlier version of our drive-thru AI experience has been live for several years and continues to thrive.

我們與其他幾個大型快餐品牌簽署了協議，這些品牌將在未來幾個月內部署動態互動，例如 Church's Chicken。我們的得來速人工智慧體驗的早期版本已經上線多年，並且仍在繼續蓬勃發展。

White Castle continues to expand its footprint with more locations opening, including one of their busiest locations next to Disney World. Another major QSR with over 2000 locations uses our AI for drive-thru and continues to expand our offering to more locations as they add more drive-through capabilities to their existing in-store and takeout services.

白色城堡繼續擴大其足跡，開設了更多地點，其中包括迪士尼世界旁邊最繁忙的地點之一。另一家擁有2000 多家門市的大型QSR 使用我們的人工智慧進行得來速服務，並繼續將我們的產品擴展到更多地點，因為他們在現有的店內和外帶服務中添加了更多得來速功能。

Next, our Smart Ordering offering continues its strong adoption. Smart Ordering uses our voice AI for answering all inbound phone calls to take customer food orders and to answer numerous questions, allowing restaurants to free up their staff to focus on making food and engaging with customers in-store. We handle millions of calls per month, and we power national brands such as Chipotle, Casey's, Firehouse, Noodles, and Five Guys.

接下來，我們的智慧訂購產品繼續受到廣泛採用。智慧訂購使用我們的語音人工智慧來接聽所有來電，接受客戶的食品訂單並回答眾多問題，使餐廳能夠騰出員工的時間來專注於製作食物並與店內的客戶互動。我們每月處理數百萬個電話，並為 Chipotle、Casey's、Firehouse、Noodles 和 Five Guys 等全國性品牌提供支援。

Last quarter, we announced the pilot with Jersey Mike's. The pilot was successful, and they're adding more locations. We also expanded with Applebee's and now have our voice AI offering across multiple franchisees, resulting in an additional 500 locations this quarter alone.

上個季度，我們宣布與 Jersey Mike's 進行試點。試點取得了成功，他們正在增加更多地點。我們還透過 Applebee's 進行了擴展，現在我們的語音 AI 服務已覆蓋多個特許經營商，僅本季度就增加了 500 個門市。

We introduced a product called SoundHound Employee Assist, which uses our conversational voice AI technology to support employees like a copilot across a variety of task via their headset. We already have several customers benefiting from this new service, and we will have more to share soon.

我們推出了一款名為 SoundHound Employee Assist 的產品，它使用我們的對話式語音 AI 技術，透過耳機像副駕駛一樣支援員工完成各種任務。我們已經有一些客戶從這項新服務中受益，我們很快就會分享更多。

Last year, we expanded our AI customer service offering beyond restaurants with Smart Answering, a product that handles multiple calls at once 24/7, conveniently filtering out spam calls, providing verbal and SMS responses, taking configurable actions, capturing leads with intelligent messaging and answering questions about policies, hours, products, services, pricing and more. Smart Answering is showing rapid growth within pillar two and already has hundreds of locations signed up from single-location small businesses to brands such as Planet Fitness.

去年，我們透過智慧應答將人工智慧客戶服務範圍擴展到餐廳之外，該產品可以24/7 一次處理多個呼叫，方便地過濾掉垃圾電話，提供口頭和短信響應，採取可配置的操作，通過智慧訊息傳遞捕獲線索，以及回答有關政策、工作時間、產品、服務、定價等的問題。Smart Answering 在第二支柱領域顯示出快速成長，已經有數百個地點簽約，從單一地點的小型企業到 Planet Fitness 等品牌。

We estimate our pillar two total addressable market to be over $100 billion with over 1 million restaurants and approximately 30 million businesses in North America alone that we can offer our solutions to. And with dozens of languages we already provide to our pillar one customers, we plan to also go international in pillar two. We believe with large language models and generative AI and most importantly, the data science and machine learning behind our proprietary software, the time is now.

我們估計我們的第二支柱潛在市場總額將超過 1000 億美元，僅在北美就有超過 100 萬家餐廳和大約 3000 萬家企業，我們可以為其提供解決方案。我們已經為第一支柱客戶提供了數十種語言，我們也計劃在第二支柱領域走向國際。我們相信，有了大型語言模型和生成式人工智慧，最重要的是，我們專有軟體背後的資料科學和機器學習，現在就是時候了。

Very few companies can offer businesses of all sizes and affordable fast and easy to implement solution that addresses their growing needs. While other point solution providers and legacy call center vendors are trying to evolve their offerings to include AI, we already have a fully automated and therefore, easily scalable solution. We own our tech. We have big data from real interactions and nearly 20 years of experience. This is why we are winning.

很少有公司能夠為各種規模的企業提供經濟實惠、快速且易於實施的解決方案來滿足其不斷增長的需求。雖然其他單點解決方案供應商和傳統呼叫中心供應商正在嘗試發展其產品以包含人工智慧，但我們已經擁有完全自動化且易於擴展的解決方案。我們擁有我們的技術。我們擁有來自真實互動的大數據和近 20 年的經驗。這就是我們獲勝的原因。

Moving on to pillar one, where we power products such as cars, TVs, and IoT devices. Within this category, our customers choose us because they believe our technology is the best, and we help them protect their brand users' data and because we partner with them to differentiate and innovate. We power millions of devices in dozens of languages. And this quarter, we reached an annual run rate of over 4 billion queries and in Q1, it represents a growth of more than 60% year over year.

轉向第一支柱，我們為汽車、電視和物聯網設備等產品提供動力。在這一類別中，我們的客戶選擇我們是因為他們相信我們的技術是最好的，我們幫助他們保護其品牌用戶的數據，並且因為我們與他們合作以實現差異化和創新。我們以數十種語言為數百萬台設備提供支援。本季度，我們的年運行率超過 40 億次查詢，第一季年增超過 60%。

Last year, we announced SoundHound Chat AI, which combines the power of large language models with our AI assistant, making it more capable and powerful. This is an upsell feature that will increase royalties from existing customers, and its unmatched quality is helping us win new customers.

去年，我們發布了 SoundHound Chat AI，它將大型語言模型的強大功能與我們的 AI 助理相結合，使其功能更加強大。這是一項追加銷售功能，將增加現有客戶的版稅，其無與倫比的品質正在幫助我們贏得新客戶。

Last quarter, we talked about DS Automobiles being the first to quickly run a trial run to live production, which was unprecedented with car manufacturers. We have signed up new brands for SoundHound Chat AI, including Opel, Peugeot, and Vauxhall due to the success of their launch. And now this quarter, we are pleased to add Alfa Romeo and Lancia.

上個季度，我們談到 DS Automobiles 是第一個快速進行試運行並投入生產的公司，這對汽車製造商來說是前所未有的。由於推出的成功，我們已經為 SoundHound Chat AI 簽約了新品牌，包括歐寶、標緻和沃克斯豪爾。現在本季度，我們很高興添加阿爾法羅密歐和藍旗亞。

We also went live into production with Stellantis vehicles in Japan. With our customer, Stellantis, we have been the first company anywhere in the world to launch a voice assistant integrated with ChatGPT into vehicles. We are also pleased to have been awarded a design win for our first automobile customers in Latin America with Stellantis. This is a brand-new competitive win.

我們也在日本投入生產 Stellantis 車輛。我們與客戶 Stellantis 合作，成為世界上第一家將與 ChatGPT 整合到車輛中的語音助理推出的公司。我們也很高興憑藉 Stellantis 為我們在拉丁美洲的首批汽車客戶贏得了設計獎。這是一場全新的競爭勝利。

We also continue to gain interest and make progress with EV manufacturers. For example, a deal we won last quarter with a prominent US-based EV maker, we will voice-enable their full fleet of market-leading vehicles later this summer. This means we have gone from signing to in production in a matter of months, thanks to SoundHound's industry-leading capabilities and market-ready products.

我們也繼續引起電動車製造商的興趣並取得進展。例如，我們上季度與一家著名的美國電動車製造商達成了一項協議，我們將在今年夏天晚些時候為其全系列市場領先的車輛提供語音支援。這意味著，由於 SoundHound 業界領先的能力和市場就緒的產品，我們從簽約到投入生產僅用了幾個月的時間。

Additionally, we won a deal with a leading Asian electric car manufacturer to embed our software that aims to bring affordable and luxury electric cars with powerful engines. This is a brand-new automaker we have not announced before.

此外，我們還與一家領先的亞洲電動車製造商達成了一項協議，嵌入我們的軟體，旨在推出配備強大引擎的經濟實惠的豪華電動車。這是一家我們之前從未宣布過的全新汽車製造商。

This quarter, we announced the collaboration with NVIDIA during the GTC conference. The solution we are partnering on combines SoundHound Chat AI with large language models running in vehicle on NVIDIA DRIVE for seamless voice interaction. Together with NVIDIA, we can now deliver in-vehicle generative AI responses with no connectivity required.

本季度，我們在 GTC 大會上宣布了與 NVIDIA 的合作。我們合作的解決方案將 SoundHound Chat AI 與在 NVIDIA DRIVE 上運行的車輛中運行的大型語言模型相結合，以實現無縫語音互動。我們現在可以與 NVIDIA 合作，無需連接即可提供車載生成式 AI 回應。

We are also now partnering with Arm and have been officially added to their partner program. More to come on that later this year.

我們現在也與 Arm 合作，並已正式添加到他們的合作夥伴計劃中。今年晚些時候還會有更多內容。

Just today, we announced a partnership with Perplexity, which will bring cutting-edge online LLMs to SoundHound Chat AI. This allows us to offer a truly multifaceted, next-generation voice assistant to phones, cars and IoT devices. SoundHound Chat AI will leverage per Perplexity to provide accurate up-to-date responses to web-based queries that static offline LLMs cannot currently answer, expanding the type and complexity of the questions the assistant is able to answer.

就在今天，我們宣布與 Perplexity 建立合作夥伴關係，後者將為 SoundHound Chat AI 帶來尖端的線上法學碩士。這使我們能夠為手機、汽車和物聯網設備提供真正多方面的下一代語音助理。SoundHound Chat AI 將利用 Perplexity 為靜態離線法學碩士目前無法​​回答的基於網路的查詢提供準確的最新回應，從而擴展了助手能夠回答的問題的類型和複雜性。

The move makes SoundHound AI the most advanced voice assistant available on the market today. We believe we are the only voice AI platform to be able to quickly provide this unified integration, combining our own technology seamlessly with third-party providers.

此舉使 SoundHound AI 成為當今市場上最先進的語音助理。我們相信我們是唯一能夠快速提供這種統一整合的語音人工智慧平台，將我們自己的技術與第三方供應商無縫結合。

We have also reached an important milestone with Polaris. Our multimodal, multilingual, generative AI foundation model. Polaris now beats our latest state-of-the-art speech recognition model in terms of accuracy, speed, model size, and run costs, which already beat the other vendors we benchmarked against by a large margin, including models provided by the big tech. Polaris is now live in production with a growing percentage of our customers, and we will continue to provide updates on its progress.

我們也與 Polaris 達成了一個重要的里程碑。我們的多模式、多語言、生成式人工智慧基礎模型。Polaris 現在在準確性、速度、模型大小和運行成本方面擊敗了我們最新的最先進的語音識別模型，這些模型已經大幅擊敗了我們進行基準測試的其他供應商，包括大型科技公司提供的模型。Polaris 現已投入生產，我們的客戶比例不斷增加，我們將繼續提供其進展的最新資訊。

We believe voice AI is a bigger opportunity than just conversational AI. Our data and know-how, along with our continued investment in this level of R&D will strengthen our position as a leader in our space.

我們相信語音人工智慧比會話人工智慧有更大的機會。我們的數據和專業知識，以及我們對這一級別研發的持續投資，將鞏固我們作為該領域領導者的地位。

As I mentioned earlier, we have three pillars: royalties from voice-enabled products, subscription from voice-enabled services, and the third pillar is monetization from connecting those services to products. As we increase the notable names that we sign every quarter -- and this quarter is no different -- we get one step closer to mobilizing this third pillar, significantly increasing our addressable market while creating new, more convenient and accessible consumer experiences.

正如我之前提到的，我們有三個支柱：語音產品的版稅、語音服務的訂閱，第三個支柱是將這些服務與產品連結起來的貨幣化。隨著我們每季簽署的知名品牌數量不斷增加（本季也不例外），我們距離調動第三個支柱又近了一步，顯著增加了我們的目標市場，同時創造了新的、更方便、更容易取得的消費者體驗。

We believe pillar three will create the voice commerce ecosystem of the future, and many customers are signing up in pillar one and pillar two in eager anticipation of us rolling out this monetization strategy. We are excited to see our portfolio of customers using voice-enabled services continue to grow, which should allow us to begin to offer this new commercial ecosystem.

我們相信第三支柱將創建未來的語音商務生態系統，許多客戶正在第一支柱和第二支柱註冊，熱切期待我們推出這項貨幣化策略。我們很高興看到我們使用語音服務的客戶組合持續成長，這將使我們能夠開始提供這個新的商業生態系統。

In closing, we continue to build a strong business and fortify our financial position, all while gaining market share. We couldn't be more pleased with the demand you're seeing and the high praise we are receiving from the customers we are serving. With another quarter of strong growth and notable customer wins, our momentum continues to grow.

最後，我們將繼續打造強大的業務並鞏固我們的財務狀況，同時贏得市場份額。我們對您所看到的需求以及我們所服務的客戶對我們的高度讚揚感到非常滿意。隨著又一個季度的強勁增長和顯著的客戶贏得，我們的勢頭繼續增長。

We remain passionate about what we do, and that has not changed in the 20 years since we founded the company. We look forward to continued strong growth and creating value for our stakeholders. We are grateful to our amazing team that makes this all possible as well as our customers, partners, investors and shareholders.

我們對所做的事情始終充滿熱情，自公司成立 20 年來這一點沒有改變。我們期待持續強勁成長並為利害關係人創造價值。我們感謝我們出色的團隊，以及我們的客戶、合作夥伴、投資者和股東，使這一切成為可能。

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Nitesh to talk about our financial performance, key growth drivers, and outlook for the remainder of the year.

現在，我將把電話轉給 Nitesh，討論我們的財務表現、主要成長動力以及今年剩餘時間的前景。

Thank you, Keyvan, and good afternoon, everyone. Q1 revenue increased by 73% year over year. The results indicate another positive mile marker on our growth journey in which we exceeded $11 million in revenue in our seasonally smallest quarter of the year. We like where we are today, and we are excited about what we are quickly becoming.

謝謝你，Keyvan，大家下午好。第一季營收年增73%。結果顯示我們的成長歷程中又一個積極的里程碑，我們在一年中季節性最小的季度實現了超過 1,100 萬美元的收入。我們喜歡今天的處境，並且對即將成為的樣子感到興奮。

Our AI solutions attractively reside at a critical intersection. Macro factors like persistent inflation and wage pressures drive many of our customers towards automation for productivity. Concurrently, consumer demand for increased speed and convenience drive our customers towards automation to accelerate throughput and increase revenue.

我們的人工智慧解決方案位於一個關鍵的十字路口，極具吸引力。持續的通貨膨脹和工資壓力等宏觀因素促使我們的許多客戶轉向自動化以提高生產力。同時，消費者對提高速度和便利性的需求促使我們的客戶走向自動化，以加快吞吐量並增加收入。

AI connects this intersection seamlessly, and generative AI massively extend the value proposition further. The penultimate result is high consumer interest in SoundHound.

人工智慧無縫地連接了這個交叉點，而生成式人工智慧則進一步大幅擴展了價值主張。倒數第二個結果是消費者對 SoundHound 的高度興趣。

With our recent acquisitions, SYNQ3, now fully in the mix, the benefits of integrating this pioneering restaurant tech organization with our years of voice AI innovations are clear. And the breadth of coverage we now have in the restaurant sector is so exciting and showing up in overflowing customer activity. One of the measures we use to gauge that traction is backlog.

隨著我們最近收購的 SYNQ3 現已完全融入其中，將這家開創性的餐廳技術組織與我們多年的語音人工智慧創新相結合的好處是顯而易見的。我們現在在餐飲業的覆蓋範圍非常令人興奮，並體現在大量的客戶活動中。我們用來衡量牽引力的措施之一是積壓。

Last quarter, I introduced a combined pillar one and pillar two customer demand metric called cumulative subscriptions and bookings backlog. In Q1, we saw approximately 80% year-over-year growth to $682 million with an average duration of about seven years. As a reminder, this measure includes new subscription revenue streams and our traditional royalty contract.

上個季度，我引入了第一支柱和第二支柱客戶需求組合指標，稱為累積訂閱和預訂積壓。第一季度，我們看到年增約 80%，達到 6.82 億美元，平均持續時間約為七年。提醒一下，這項措施包括新的訂閱收入來源和我們傳統的特許權使用費合約。

The methodology for our pillar one contracts has not changed. We include only committed customer contracts for exactly the duration of the contract period and capture various facets of the deal and total contract value like construct. These facets include minimum commitment, target volumes, professional services, and other arrangements. We do not include renewals until the renewal takes place even if contracts include auto renewal provisions.

我們的第一支柱合約的方法沒有改變。我們僅包含合約期間內的承諾客戶合同，並捕獲交易的各個方面和總合約價值（例如構建）。這些方麵包括最低承諾、目標數量、專業服務和其他安排。即使合約包含自動續約條款，我們也不會在續約發生之前包含續約。

For subscriptions, cumulative subscriptions and bookings backlog takes into account customers where we are the leading or exclusive provider and assumes a four-year ramp to fully scale with the total 5-year duration. We have incorporated reasonable assumptions about adoption percentages with lower percentages applying to pilot and proof-of-concept customers.

對於訂閱，累積訂閱和預訂積壓考慮了我們作為領先或獨家提供者的客戶，並假設四年的斜坡在總的 5 年持續時間內完全擴展。我們對採用百分比進行了合理的假設，其中較低的百分比適用於試點和概念驗證客戶。

Furthermore, this metric does not include pipeline opportunities for which we have well over a 100,000-location opportunity for pillar two alone. This metric is intended to directionally convey our medium-term revenue growth prospects.

此外，該指標不包括管道機會，而僅第二支柱我們就有超過 100,000 個地點的機會。此指標旨在定向傳達我們的中期收入成長前景。

Before I walk through the financial results for the first quarter, given the impact of the acquisition to various aspects of the GAAP financials, we are introducing two new non-GAAP financial measures for gross margins and EPS to help investors better track how we manage the business operationally. I'll share more context in the relevant sections below.

在我介紹第一季的財務表現之前，考慮到收購對GAAP 財務各個方面的影響，我們將引入兩項新的毛利率和每股收益非GAAP 財務指標，以幫助投資者更好地追蹤我們如何管理業務運作上。我將在下面的相關部分中分享更多背景資訊。

Q1 revenue was $11.6 million, up 73% year over year. We saw growth in Q1 across all major industry categories. Pillar two represented approximately 30% of revenue in the quarter, combining organic growth with positive contributions of roughly $3 million from the acquisition of SYNQ3.

第一季營收為 1,160 萬美元，年增 73%。我們在第一季看到所有主要行業類別的成長。第二支柱約佔本季營收的 30%，將有機成長與收購 SYNQ3 帶來的約 300 萬美元的正面貢獻相結合。

We also had a strong quarter in pillar one as automotive royalties went up with volume increases year over year. Auto units and cloud users both expanded strong double digits in the quarter. Additionally, we continue to see growing demand in our generative AI solutions, and we are seeing meaningful opportunities starting to be realized for accelerated unit price expansion. We also signed a multiyear commitment in the TVs and devices category, and that led to strong double-digit growth from devices in the quarter.

我們在第一支柱領域也取得了強勁的季度表現，因為汽車特許權使用費隨著銷售量的逐年增加而增加。汽車單位和雲端用戶在本季均實現了兩位數的強勁成長。此外，我們繼續看到對我們的生成式人工智慧解決方案的需求不斷增長，並且我們看到開始實現加速單價擴張的有意義的機會。我們還簽署了電視和設備類別的多年承諾，這導致本季設備實現了兩位數的強勁成長。

In Q1, our gross margins were 60%, down year over year, largely resulting from the acquisition, including the mix of lower margin call center agent business. On a stand-alone basis, gross margins were up year over year. Adjusted for acquisition impacts, notably the non-cash amortization of purchased intangibles, gross margins would have been 65.5%. This is the non-GAAP gross margin metric I introduced above.

第一季度，我們的毛利率為 60%，年減，主要是由於收購，包括利潤率較低的呼叫中心代理業務的組合。單獨來看，毛利率年增。根據收購影響（尤其是購買的無形資產的非現金攤銷）進行調整後，毛利率將為 65.5%。這是我上面介紹的非公認會計準則毛利率指標。

While the call center business does pressure margins in the near term, we are excited about what this new capacity can do for broader business opportunities and equally so, for the valuable training data it provides our AI models. That said, our goal over time is to automate and modernize. So we expect gross margin improvements through the year and ultimately back to pre-merger levels.

雖然呼叫中心業務在短期內確實會給利潤帶來壓力，但我們對這種新功能可以為更廣泛的商業機會帶來的作用感到興奮，同樣，它為我們的人工智慧模型提供的寶貴的培訓數據也同樣令人興奮。也就是說，隨著時間的推移，我們的目標是實現自動化和現代化。因此，我們預計全年毛利率將有所改善，並最終回到合併前的水平。

R&D expenses were $14.9 million in Q1, an increase of 5% year over year. We have streamlined our R&D cost, increased efficiencies, and are prioritizing investments in disruptive innovation to expand our suite of products to address a wider array of customer needs.

第一季研發費用為 1,490 萬美元，年增 5%。我們精簡了研發成本，提高了效率，並優先投資顛覆性創新，以擴展我們的產品系列，以滿足更廣泛的客戶需求。

We are accelerating the training and deployment of large language models to provide even more value to customers, enabling us to open many doors and a wide variety of new conversational AI use cases. That said, we will continue to be thoughtful and opportunistic with greater emphasis on bringing unique value through best-of-breed large language models, including multilingual ASR foundation model, generative AI solutions, and voice AI capabilities that intermediate and arbitrate between our own models and partner LLMs.

我們正在加速大型語言模型的訓練和部署，以便為客戶提供更多價值，使我們能夠打開許多大門和各種新的對話式人工智慧用例。也就是說，我們將繼續深思熟慮和機會主義，更加重視透過同類最佳的大型語言模型帶來獨特的價值，包括多語言ASR 基礎模型、生成式AI 解決方案以及在我們自己的模型之間進行中介和仲裁的語音AI 功能和合作夥伴法學碩士。

Sales and marketing expenses were $5.5 million in Q1, an increase of 14% year over year. We continue to invest in go-to-market and customer engagement to capture the strong momentum and heightened demand, and we are expanding reach through brand and industry marketing, demand generation and high ROI lead-gen strategy.

第一季銷售和行銷費用為 550 萬美元，年增 14%。我們繼續投資於市場進入和客戶參與，以抓住強勁的勢頭和不斷增長的需求，並且我們正在透過品牌和行業行銷、需求產生和高投資回報率的潛在客戶開發策略來擴大影響力。

Our sales reach continues to expand with both direct sales and through an amazing ecosystem of strategic channel partners. We know the best go-to-market ROI comes from customers loving us. And this quarter, with one of the largest QSRs, we were introduced to their executive management team as the best partners their team has ever worked with.

我們的銷售範圍透過直接銷售和策略通路合作夥伴的驚人生態系統不斷擴大。我們知道最好的市場投資報酬率來自於喜愛我們的客戶。本季度，由於最大的 QSR 之一，我們被介紹給他們的執行管理團隊，作為他們團隊合作過的最佳合作夥伴。

G&A expenses were $10.3 million in Q1, an increase of 41% year over year. The increases in G&A reflect two main elements that we talked about last quarter. Our year-over-year comparison continues to be impacted by investments in financial and non-financial processes and internal controls to support requirements under stocks 404(b) as we became a large, accelerated filer last year, and this quarter also factors in acquisition related costs.

第一季的一般管理費用為 1,030 萬美元，年增 41%。一般行政費用的成長反映了我們上季討論的兩個主要因素。我們的同比比較繼續受到財務和非財務流程以及支持股票 404(b) 要求的內部控制投資的影響，因為我們去年成為了大型加速申報者，本季度還考慮了收購相關費用。

All operating expense line items were impacted by the SYNQ3 acquisition, as well as higher employer-related tax costs and increased compensation. Non-cash employee stock compensation was $7 million in Q1. As a result, our operating loss for Q1 was $28.5 million. This included non-cash acquisition impacts related to the fair value accounting that will likely introduce volatility into this line for the foreseeable future.

所有營運費用項目均受到 SYNQ3 收購以及雇主相關稅收成本上升和薪資增加的影響。第一季非現金員工股票薪酬為 700 萬美元。因此，我們第一季的營運虧損為 2,850 萬美元。這包括與公允價值會計相關的非現金收購影響，這可能會在可預見的未來為該項目帶來波動。

OI&E was $4.2 million of net expense for the quarter, and net loss was $33 million in Q1 compared to $27.4 million in the prior-year period. This led to a net loss per share in Q1 of $0.12 compared to $0.14 in the previous year.

本季 OI&E 淨支出為 420 萬美元，第一季淨虧損為 3,300 萬美元，去年同期淨虧損為 2,740 萬美元。這導致第一季每股淨虧損為 0.12 美元，而去年同期為 0.14 美元。

Adjusting for non-cash acquisition related amortization of purchased intangibles, fair value adjustments, M&A transaction costs, stock-based comp, and other non-cash items, our non-GAAP EPS loss was $0.07 in the quarter. This is a measure we will continue to report upon in future quarters given it better normalizes the ongoing operating results of the business.

調整與非現金收購相關的購買無形資產攤銷、公允價值調整、併購交易成本、股票補償和其他非現金項目後，本季我們的非 GAAP 每股收益損失為 0.07 美元。這是我們將在未來幾季繼續報告的措施，因為它可以更好地規範業務的持續經營業績。

Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $15.4 million in Q1. The year-over-year decrease was a result of the previously mentioned higher operating costs as well as the SYNQ3 acquisition impact. Net cash used in operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2024, was about $21 million.

第一季調整後 EBITDA 虧損 1,540 萬美元。年比下降的原因是先前提到的營運成本上升以及 SYNQ3 收購的影響。截至2024年3月31日的三個月經營活動所使用的淨現金約為2,100萬美元。

Our cash position at quarter end was $226 million, of which $212 million was in [cash and equivalents]. With this strong cash position, we have given ourselves some great optionality to drive the business forward and further improve our financial profile. We entered a new ATM program in the quarter to provide us with capital-raising flexibility, although our balance sheet and forward projections indicate we don't have any time-sensitive capital-raising needs.

截至季末，我們的現金部位為 2.26 億美元，其中 2.12 億美元用於[現金及等價物]。憑藉強大的現金狀況，我們為自己提供了一些很大的選擇權來推動業務發展並進一步改善我們的財務狀況。我們在本季啟動了一項新的 ATM 計劃，為我們提供融資彈性，儘管我們的資產負債表和前瞻性預測表明我們沒有任何時間敏感的融資需求。

It would only be necessitated strategically either for capital structure optimization purposes or if another attractive acquisition opportunity presented itself, where the economic value merited it. All that said, we don't take this strength for granted and are committed to being prudent stewards of capital, focusing on creating long-term sustainable growth and profitability.

只有出於資本結構優化的目的，或者在經濟價值值得的情況下出現另一個有吸引力的收購機會時，才需要進行策略性收購。儘管如此，我們並不認為這種優勢是理所當然的，並致力於成為謹慎的資本管理者，專注於創造長期永續成長和獲利能力。

With that, let me discuss our outlook for the remainder of 2024. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and pleased with our top-line performance, coupled with the demand we are seeing in pillars one and two, and we are driving new opportunities in pillar three. We are ahead of pace in having pillar two exceed 20% of total revenue mix this year, and we see that mix increasing as we go into 2025.

接下來，讓我談談我們對 2024 年剩餘時間的展望。我們對未來的機會感到興奮，並對我們的營收表現感到滿意，再加上我們在第一和第二支柱中看到的需求，並且我們正在第三支柱中推動新的機會。今年，我們領先第二支柱，佔總收入組合的 20% 以上，我們預計，隨著進入 2025 年，這一比例將繼續增加。

Given the Q1 performance, we are raising the lower end of our guidance and narrowing our initial range, which steps up our mid-point to $71 million. Therefore, our revenue guidance for the full year is now $65 million to $77 million. We continue to believe the right expectation for subsequent quarters is roughly 50% year-on-year growth. We hope to outperform, but at this stage, we believe this is the appropriate expectation.

鑑於第一季的表現，我們正在提高指導下限並縮小初始範圍，將中點提高至 7,100 萬美元。因此，我們目前的全年收入指引為 6,500 萬至 7,700 萬美元。我們仍然認為，接下來幾季的正確預期是年增約 50%。我們希望表現出色，但在現階段，我們認為這是適當的期望。

Furthermore, we still expect to cross $100 million in revenue and deliver adjusted EBITDA profitability in 2025. As I noted last quarter, the increased cost impact on gross margins and adjusted EBITDA is temporary, and we expect both to improve as we move forward.

此外，我們仍預計到 2025 年營收將突破 1 億美元，並實現調整後的 EBITDA 獲利能力。正如我上季度所指出的，成本增加對毛利率和調整後 EBITDA 的影響是暫時的，我們預計隨著我們的前進，兩者都會得到改善。

With the SYNQ3 acquisition, we are working on migrating their cloud and AI infrastructure to SoundHound so in the immediate term, we have some duplicative costs. In addition, while a portion of SYNQ3's revenue is AI-driven, they also have a legacy call center operation, which their team has been gradually upgrading with AI. We expect to further accelerate this migration, which will ultimately calibrate their gross margins to ours over time. Overall, though, based on initial conversations with customers and partners, we are making great progress, and there is strong interest to even further increase the value we create for customers.

透過收購 SYNQ3，我們正在努力將他們的雲端和人工智慧基礎設施遷移到 SoundHound，因此在短期內，我們會產生一些重複成本。此外，雖然 SYNQ3 的部分收入是人工智慧驅動的，但他們也有傳統的呼叫中心業務，他們的團隊一直在逐步利用人工智慧進行升級。我們預計將進一步加速這一遷移，最終將隨著時間的推移將他們的毛利率調整到我們的水平。但總體而言，根據與客戶和合作夥伴的初步對話，我們正在取得巨大進展，人們對進一步增加我們為客戶創造的價值抱有濃厚的興趣。

I'll close with another note of conviction in the business we are building. As I've said before, the path forward isn't always linear. In particular, creating disruptive transformational innovation is not for everyone, but it's a strong part of SoundHound's DNA.

最後，我將再次對我們正在建立的業務充滿信心。正如我之前所說，前進的道路並不總是線性的。特別是，創造顛覆性轉型創新並不適合所有人，但它是 SoundHound DNA 的重要組成部分。

When the pieces start falling together, though there's a gravitational force at play. With our proven track record of progress, as each quarter passes, we get closer to our escape velocity. Despite our achievements so far, we don't take our success for granted, and we fight for it every day to aim higher and push the boundaries further measurably and persistently.

當碎片開始落在一起時，儘管有引力在起作用。憑藉我們經過驗證的進度記錄，隨著每個季度的過去，我們越來越接近我們的逃逸速度。儘管我們迄今為止取得了一些成就，但我們並不認為我們的成功是理所當然的，我們每天都在為實現更高的目標而奮鬥，並以可衡量和持久的方式進一步突破界限。

Thank you. We will now move to Q&A.

謝謝。我們現在進入問答環節。

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝。（操作員說明）

Gil Luria, D.A. Davidson.

吉爾·盧裡亞，D.A.戴維森。

Yes, good afternoon. A lot of product announcement and advances. Let me focus on a couple of the ones that seem most intriguing. The first one around the NVIDIA in vehicle. It would be a big step forward for the whole technology around AI to do the inferencing without connectivity. What's the timeline do you think that you can deliver this to one of your automotive customers? So that's one.

是的，下午好。許多產品公告和進展。讓我重點放在幾個看起來最有趣的問題。第一個圍繞 NVIDIA 的車輛。對於整個人工智慧技術來說，在沒有連接的情況下進行推理將是一大進步。您認為可以在什麼時間內交付給您的汽車客戶？這就是其中之一。

I'll bundle the second one on product, which is on the Perplexity, it sounds like you're going to be leveraging Perplexity AI in the SoundHound Chat AI app. Is there a potential down the road for SoundHound technology to be the front-end for the Perplexity app.

我將把第二個產品捆綁在 Perplexity 上，聽起來您將在 SoundHound Chat AI 應用程式中利用 Perplexity AI。SoundHound 技術是否有可能成為 Perplexity 應用程式的前端？

Thanks for the great questions. So the NVIDIA announcement, as you noted, very big milestone because these generative AI large language models are very large. Typically, they don't fit on the edge, but with this partnership, we are able to run them on the edge, and a lot of the functionality will not need cloud. You still need cloud, like if you want real-time weather information or sports scores, you need cloud connectivity. But for a lot of the functionalities, whether it's from general knowledge to getting things done inside a car or a device, you actually don't need the cloud connectivity.

感謝您提出的好問題。因此，正如您所指出的，NVIDIA 的聲明是非常重要的里程碑，因為這些生成式 AI 大型語言模型非常龐大。通常，它們不適合邊緣，但透過這種合作關係，我們能夠在邊緣運行它們，並且許多功能不需要雲端。您仍然需要雲，例如如果您想要即時天氣資訊或體育比分，則需要雲端連線。但對於許多功能，無論是從常識到在汽車或設備內完成工作，您實際上不需要雲端連線。

We think that the use cases are beyond automotive. In automotive, things take longer, especially when you're talking about hardware change. For software, as I mentioned in my comments earlier, we are actually -- we had one case when we went from signing the deal to going to production in a matter of just a few months. But when you talk about the hardware change, that takes longer.

我們認為用例超出了汽車領域。在汽車領域，事情需要更長的時間，特別是當你談論硬體變化時。對於軟體，正如我之前在評論中提到的，我們實際上——我們有一個案例，我們在短短幾個月內從簽署協議到投入生產。但當你談論硬體變化時，這需要更長的時間。

But we think it's not just about automotive, even for QSR, dynamic interaction, drive-thru automation, you could actually bring some of that to the edge. So we are excited about things that can happen faster with that partnership.

但我們認為這不僅僅與汽車有關，即使對於 QSR、動態互動、得來速自動化，您實際上也可以將其中一些帶到邊緣。因此，我們對透過這種夥伴關係可以更快發生的事情感到興奮。

For Perplexity, it is not just about our Chat AI app. Our Chat AI is also a platform we offer to our customers, like automotive customers and beyond. We will offer it to them as well, and it will be for additional -- it's an upgrade feature, right?

對 Perplexity 來說，這不僅僅是我們的聊天 AI 應用程式。我們的聊天人工智慧也是我們為汽車客戶等客戶提供的平台。我們也會向他們提供它，而且是額外的——這是一個升級功能，對吧？

So they have already upgraded -- a lot of them have already upgraded from our pre-LLM versions to add the Chat AI feature. And as I mentioned again earlier on the call, that's an upsell. So our royalty, we expect, will go up. Now to access to the online LLM, it will be another upgrade moment for us. So it is very much beyond the Chat AI application that's on the phone.

所以他們已經升級了——其中許多已經從我們的預法學碩士版本升級到添加聊天人工智慧功能。正如我之前在電話會議中再次提到的，這是追加銷售。因此，我們預計我們的版稅將會上漲。現在進入線上LLM，對我們來說將是另一個升級時刻。所以它遠遠超出了手機上的聊天人工智慧應用程式的範圍。

Now you also asked if we would power Perplexity properties. We haven't announced anything yet, but it's a beginning of a partnership we're excited about. We are both NVIDIA portfolio companies -- like NVIDIA invested in us, and then we are very complementary. So we think there's a lot more we can do with them.

現在您也問我們是否會為 Perplexity 屬性提供動力。我們還沒有宣布任何消息，但這是我們興奮的合作夥伴關係的開始。我們都是 NVIDIA 的投資組合公司——就像 NVIDIA 投資了我們一樣，我們之間是非常互補的。所以我們認為我們可以用它們做更多的事情。

Thank you, Nitesh, one for you. A little big picture. Last year, you were very effective at changing your overall cost structure to fit, frankly, what the capital markets needed you to do, which is to show a clear path to profitability. You did that very effectively. You reached that point.

謝謝你，Nitesh，給你一份。一個小大圖。去年，你們非常有效地改變了整體成本結構，坦白說，適應了資本市場需要你們做的事情，即展示一條清晰的獲利之路。你做得非常有效。你達到了那個點。

But as you sit here today, with significant cash on your balance sheet, much lower burn rate, and the long series of opportunities, a couple of which we just discussed, is there a potential or an opportunity for you to move the lever a little bit the other way and say, hey, we have so many opportunities on the technology front that maybe we need to fund more of those and relax a little bit of that shift to profitability?

但當你今天坐在這裡，你的資產負債表上有大量現金，燒錢率低得多，還有一系列的機會（我們剛剛討論過其中的幾個），你是否有潛力或機會稍微移動一下槓桿反過來說，嘿，我們在技術方面有很多機會，也許我們需要為這些機會提供更多資金，並放鬆一點向盈利能力的轉變？

Yeah. Thanks, Gil. I'll start by saying principally, we're trying to drive and create long-term value for customers, and we're seeding and hearing the demand. And we're seeing how the technology opportunity is intersecting with that consumer demand real-time and expanding, frankly, every conversation we have with customers. So I think the opportunity in front of us is tremendous.

是的。謝謝，吉爾。首先我主要說的是，我們正在努力為客戶推動和創造長期價值，我們正在播種和傾聽需求。我們正在看到技術機會如何與消費者需求即時交叉，並坦率地擴大我們與客戶的每一次對話。所以我認為我們面前的機會是巨大的。

And so I don't think that gives us a carte blanche to just go spend, spend, spend. We do need to be thoughtful about the pathway and have conveyed our directionality towards getting to a breakeven profile next year. But to your point, I think there is more opportunity that we're seeing every day in terms of active conversations with customers to really go faster, to invest in the solutions.

所以我不認為這讓我們可以全權花錢、花錢、花錢。我們確實需要深思熟慮，並傳達了我們明年實現收支平衡的方向。但就你的觀點而言，我認為我們每天都在與客戶積極對話方面看到更多機會，以真正更快地投資解決方案。

I think, certainly, your first question on the opportunities in the auto is certainly there, and we're seeing that, especially with the speed that we're able to move with some of the EV players. But more broadly, on the restaurant side in particular, in customer service, there is just so much demand. We highlighted in our prepared remarks a bit around the traction that we're getting with larger and larger QSRs. The larger and larger QSRs for us could be -- at scale with them hundreds of millions of annual revenue -- recurring revenue.

我認為，當然，你關於汽車領域機會的第一個問題肯定是存在的，我們已經看到了這一點，特別是考慮到我們能夠與一些電動車廠商合作的速度。但更廣泛地說，特別是在餐廳方面，在顧客服務方面，需求非常大。我們在準備好的評論中強調了我們對越來越大的 QSR 的吸引力。對我們來說，規模越來越大的 QSR 可能會帶來經常性收入（年收入達數億美元）。

So we see the size of the prize in the short term. And we also know given the ecosystem is so very dynamic, a lot of new players, lot of new technologies that are advancing very quickly, tremendous pace of innovation going on, we need to stay agile. And so that's why the balance sheet is super important for us to have this real arsenal in our back pocket to be thoughtful.

所以我們看到了短期內獎勵的大小。我們也知道，鑑於生態系統非常活躍，有許多新參與者，許多新技術正在快速發展，創新步伐巨大，我們需要保持敏捷。因此，這就是為什麼資產負債表對我們來說非常重要，因為我們要在我們的後袋裡擁有這個真正的武器庫，以便深思熟慮。

We will do it very judiciously and prudently with capital mindfulness around driving strong returns. But there's a balance in all of that. So I can't give a sort of unidirectional statement. I know ultimately the principle that we govern our choices on investments around is it really creating value for customers, and are we hearing that? And as the echoes get louder and louder for that, we're going to go and serve those consumer interests. So I hope that's not too opaque of an answer for you, but that's how we think about it.

我們將非常明智和謹慎地進行這件事，並以資本意識圍繞推動強勁回報。但所有這些之間都有一個平衡。所以我不能給出一種單向的陳述。我最終知道，我們管理投資選擇的原則是真正為客戶創造價值，我們聽到了嗎？隨著對此的回應越來越響亮，我們將去服務那些消費者的利益。所以我希望這對你來說不是一個太不透明的答案，但這就是我們的想法。

Mike Latimore, Northland Capital Markets.

麥克‧拉蒂摩爾 (Mike Latimore)，北國資本市場。

Thanks, yeah. Congrats on all the developments here. Maybe can you just talk a little bit about the synergies you're seeing with SYNQ3 so far. What kind of cross-sells, opportunities are you seeing and have had? Are you able to leverage some of their data to train your models? And then are you able to use some of their resources to help with deployments?

謝謝，是的。祝賀這裡的所有發展。也許您可以談談到目前為止您與 SYNQ3 所看到的協同效應。您看到並擁有什麼樣的交叉銷售和機會？您能夠利用他們的一些數據來訓練您的模型嗎？然後您可以使用他們的一些資源來幫助部署嗎？

Yeah, I'll start and maybe Nitesh can add more about. But absolutely, we see the synergy. We are -- it was a fantastic acquisition. We couldn't be more proud of it. Every day, we feel it. They have a ton of data, and we are already using that to make our models better.

是的，我會開始，也許 Nitesh 可以添加更多內容。但絕對的是，我們看到了協同作用。我們——這是一次非常棒的收購。我們對此感到非常自豪。每一天，我們都能感受到。他們擁有大量數據，我們已經在使用這些數據來改進我們的模型。

They have a lot of integration, and it's not just about offering a magical AI model that does everything. You have to go and integrate with POS systems. And a lot of these enterprise customers have their own in-house systems that you have to integrate with. They have to -- analytics and menu management and so on. They have a lot of that we are using to accelerate our scale with are organic customers as well -- so on the technology and data side.

它們有很多集成，而不僅僅是提供一個萬能的神奇人工智慧模型。您必須與 POS 系統整合。許多企業客戶都有自己的內部系統，您必須與之整合。他們必須——分析和菜單管理等等。他們擁有很多我們正在使用的東西來加速我們的規模，以及自然客戶——所以在技術和數據方面。

But the synergy between the two companies are in terms of experience -- we started as an AI company; we identified restaurant as a very right a business to go into. They started as -- they were restaurant operators, and they identified automation as a good business to get into. And we started nearly 20 years ago each, and then they became more AI. We came into restaurants, but they understand that industry really well. And that's experience is what we needed to improve our scale as we go forward.

但兩家公司之間的協同作用是在經驗方面——我們最初是一家人工智慧公司；我們認為餐廳是一個非常適合進入的行業。他們一開始是餐廳經營者，他們認為自動化是一個值得進入的好產業。我們各自在近 20 年前開始，然後他們變得更加人工智慧。我們進入餐館，但他們非常了解這個行業。這些經驗正是我們在前進過程中擴大規模所需要的。

Yeah, and I'll just add a couple of points on that. I think, I kind of break it up into three categories. Revenue, there's a lot of opportunities in terms of the cross-sell, upsell, Keyvan alluded to. I'd say, on top of that, just the relationships they bring and some of the extended conversations were happening much faster than what we would have been able to do alone. That's happening at accelerated pace.

是的，我只想補充幾點。我想，我將其分為三類。Keyvan 提到，在收入方面，交叉銷售、追加銷售方面有很多機會。我想說，最重要的是，他們帶來的關係和一些擴展的對話發生得比我們單獨做的要快得多。這種情況正在加速發生。

And then just the ability to bring our core engines along with what they've already built, I think is an accelerant with their own customers but also with new customer relationships. So from a revenue standpoint, this is the multi -- sort of medium longer-term opportunities. We just get even more excited several months into the acquisition from the thesis we had going into it.

然後，將我們的核心引擎與他們已經建立的引擎結合起來的能力，我認為是對他們自己的客戶以及新客戶關係的促進劑。因此，從收入的角度來看，這是多種中長期機會。收購幾個月後，我們對我們的論文感到更加興奮。

On the cost side, we've talked about a couple of these, Mike, and I'd say these are -- we're in the midst of this journey, but there are some back-end costs in terms of cloud migration that we're in the middle of driving. There are architectural things in the software stack that we can bring our own again, capabilities in. Go faster than what we were doing, learn from learnings on both sides.

在成本方面，麥克，我們已經討論了其中的一些問題，我想說的是，我們正處於這一旅程的中間，但在雲端遷移方面存在一些後端成本，我們正在開車。軟體堆疊中有一些架構性的東西，我們可以再次引入我們自己的功能。比我們做得更快，從雙方的經驗中學習。

So there's cost elements that you'd certainly didn't see in the Q1 numbers because the Q1 numbers sort of reflect a lot of both acquisition transactional stuff but also just the, call it, unsynergized cost structure -- that's not even a word -- but that's what we're doing on the cost side. And so I think over the next quarters, you'll see more of that efficiency drive through.

因此，您在第一季的數據中肯定看不到一些成本要素，因為第一季的數據反映了許多收購交易的內容，但也反映了非協同成本結構——這甚至不是一個詞—— -但這就是我們在成本方面所做的事情。因此，我認為在接下來的幾個季度中，您將看到更多的效率提升。

One specific thing is the gross margin, and I commented about this in the prepared remarks. But gross margins were depressed in the quarter, but this is okay. This is on plan. We know that they have a call center business and we, over time, will be migrating that to automation. Being able to leverage the real-time production data is gold, to be able to improve our models. And so we're in process of driving that on our own.

一個具體的事情是毛利率，我在準備好的評論中對此進行了評論。但本季毛利率低迷，但這沒關係。這是計劃中的。我們知道他們有呼叫中心業務，隨著時間的推移，我們會將其遷移到自動化。能夠利用即時生產數據是黃金，能夠改進我們的模型。因此，我們正在自行推動這項進程。

And just to put some data points out there -- you didn't ask it -- but SoundHound's gross margin year over year on a standalone basis was up over 300 basis points. So we're still driving the great margin profile, but we're going to have this transition with SYNQ3.

就拿一些數據來說——你沒有問過——但 SoundHound 的毛利率在獨立基礎上比去年同期增長了 300 個基點以上。因此，我們仍在推動巨大的利潤率，但我們將透過 SYNQ3 實現這一轉變。

And then lastly, I'll just say the innovation opportunity in terms of synergies and notably, again, data. Data is so important here, real-time, improving our models. And just again, being able to come together and go, boy, this really matters to customers, to be able to talk to their operators in 10,000 locations to say this is what matters to the restaurant ecosystem and to make our products more attuned to what they need, those types of things we're very excited about. So we could go much longer on this, but I know it's a short call, so I'll stop there, but there's a lot more excited about it.

最後，我只想說綜效方面的創新機會，特別是數據方面的創新機會。數據在這裡非常重要，即時數據可以改進我們的模型。再說一遍，能夠走到一起，天哪，這對顧客來說真的很重要，能夠與 10,000 個地點的經營者交談，告訴他們這對餐廳生態系統很重要，並使我們的產品更適合什麼他們需要這些類型的東西，我們對此感到非常興奮。所以我們可以在這個問題上講得更久，但我知道這是一個簡短的電話，所以我就到此為止，但還有更多令人興奮的事情。

Sounds like great progress out of the gate. And then just real quick on the restaurant vertical, is there a clear leader here between phone ordering versus drive-thrus in terms of just like what's in the pipeline? Is it skewed to one or to the other very much here? Or is it kind of balanced between phone ordering and driver thrus?

聽起來像是巨大的進步。然後，在餐廳垂直領域，電話訂餐與得來速餐廳之間是否存在明顯的領先者，就像正在開發的產品一樣？這裡是否嚴重偏向其中一個或另一方？或是電話訂購和司機通過之間是否平衡？

It's pretty -- it's balanced. Well, it is a bit of short-term, long-term answer to that question. It's balanced, and I would extend it to other opportunities, not simply the phone versus drive-thru, but we're excited about some conversations we're having on with the program we called Employee Assist, which is helping in-store employees. And there's in-app conversations going on that a lot of restaurants are excited about.

它很漂亮——很平衡。嗯，這是這個問題的短期和長期答案。這是平衡的，我會將其擴展到其他機會，而不僅僅是電話與得來速，但我們對與我們稱為「員工協助」的計劃進行的一些對話感到興奮，該計劃正在幫助店內員工。許多餐廳都對應用程式內的對話感到興奮。

Our Smart Answering capability is sort of front-end vehicle on a lot of this is something else. So there's a suite of opportunities. And part of my last answer on innovation, I mean, those are things that are sort of getting incubated here.

我們的智慧應答功能是一種前端車輛，其中許多是其他東西。所以有一系列的機會。我的最後一個關於創新的答案的一部分，我的意思是，這些都是在這裡孵化的東西。

And then as we've said before, there's sort of a timeline of deployment. So we know with drive thru, there is hardware requirement. There are hardware requirements. There are cycles we need to go through. We're building great partnerships with many hardware providers to standardize and move faster there.

正如我們之前所說，有一個部署時間表。所以我們知道，對於驅動器，有硬體要求。有硬體需求。我們需要經歷一些週期。我們正在與許多硬體供應商建立良好的合作夥伴關係，以實現標準化並加快發展速度。

But that is -- we know that as the breakthrough. Nobody else is doing -- I mean, certainly, we don't disparage competition -- we know that there are other players that could come. But right now it's greenfield. We have a unique value proposition that we're driving. And so we want to go really fast.

但我們知道這是一個突破。沒有其他人在這樣做——我的意思是，當然，我們不會貶低競爭——我們知道還有其他參與者可能會來。但現在它還是一片綠地。我們正在推動一個獨特的價值主張。所以我們想要走得非常快。

And then even on phone ordering it, they have a lot of great partners, and we're growing in that space. And some -- what we find is in certain cuisine types, you see a heavier weighting of phone volume. And so we're going to service those particular cuisine types, more so in that front. So little balanced, but excited on multiple fronts.

即使透過電話訂購，他們也有很多優秀的合作夥伴，我們正在這個領域不斷發展。我們發現，在某些美食類型中，手機音量的比重更大。因此，我們將為這些特定的美食類型提供服務，尤其是在這方面。不太平衡，但在多個方面都很興奮。

Thank you. Glenn Mattson, Ladenburg.

謝謝。格倫馬特森，拉登堡。

Hi. And I apologize if this is repetitive because I missed part of Keyvan's prepared remarks. But Nitesh, you just kind of talked about some of the gating factors in rolling out the offering in retail like some of the equipment that has to be placed in it. And I think last call you guys also kind of talked about the demand just been a little bit higher than you could handle at the given time and that some customers are kind of put on hold while you decide who best to serve and how quickly and everything.

你好。如果這是重複的，我深表歉意，因為我錯過了 Keyvan 準備好的講話的一部分。但是 Nitesh，您剛才談到了在零售中推出該產品的一些限制因素，例如必須放置在其中的一些設備。我想你們在最後一次通話中也談到了需求量比你們在給定時間可以處理的要高一點，並且當你們決定為誰提供最好的服務以及服務的速度和一切時，有些客戶會被擱置。

So I guess I'm just trying to figure out or understand if there's been some change there, if you caught up to some of that demand somewhat or if there's more investment needed to make to get to that spot and just kind of an update on where you are from that point of view.

因此，我想我只是想弄清楚或了解那裡是否發生了一些變化，您是否在某種程度上滿足了某些需求，或者是否需要更多投資才能達到該目標，並且只是更新一下從這個角度來看你現在在哪裡。

Yeah. Thanks, Glenn. We're working hard. We are making progress for sure. We don't like that -- last time -- I just want to clarify also, it's not that we're talking about months and months out. We are really trying to address some of these things where we've got a bit of a pipeline that we need to work through with those customers. So there's been a lot of progress.

是的。謝謝，格倫。我們正在努力工作。我們肯定正在取得進展。我們不喜歡這樣——上次——我也想澄清一下，我們不是在談論幾個月後的情況。我們確實正在努力解決其中一些問題，我們需要與這些客戶合作解決一些問題。所以已經取得了很大的進步。

You'll see unpacking our costs this time -- I know it will be a little complicated with the acquisition, but if I break it apart into kind of three pieces: one is just acquisition transitional things, one is the inclusion of sort of acquisition plus other one-time dynamics and seasonal things, and then there's sort of investments that we will continue to make. Again, it would go back to Gil's question like this target of getting to still profitability next year.

這次你會看到我們的成本——我知道收購會有點複雜，但如果我把它分成三個部分：一個只是收購過渡性的事情，一個是包含某種收購加上其他一次性動態和季節性因素，然後我們將繼續進行一些投資。這又回到了吉爾的問題，例如明年實現獲利的目標。

We are accelerating investment in the right pockets to serve that consumer demand and customer demand. So to Glenn to your question, we are making sure that we are hiring the right people, investing in the right capabilities so that we can quickly get and serve customers the right way. And so I'd say we are making really good progress on that.

我們正在加快對合適領域的投資，以滿足消費者和客戶的需求。對於格倫你的問題，我們正在確保僱用合適的人員，投資合適的能力，以便我們能夠以正確的方式快速獲得客戶並為客戶提供服務。所以我想說我們在這方面取得了非常好的進展。

The challenge in it -- maybe a silver lining challenge is that we're hitting a lot more demand too. Every time we have meaningful innovation and progress, the word gets around pretty quickly, particularly in the restaurant side. We're excited actually. I think it's coming up very soon, the largest restaurant conference show in Chicago, and we've got a big showcase ready to go there, to just get our word out.

其中的挑戰——也許一線希望的挑戰是我們也滿足了更多的需求。每當我們有有意義的創新和進步時，這個詞就會很快傳開，尤其是在餐廳方面。我們實際上很興奮。我認為芝加哥最大的餐廳會議展很快就會舉行，我們已經準備好一個大型展示會去那裡，只是為了傳達我們的訊息。

So while we are making progress with those existing relationships, the dynamic we're faced with as we're getting more and more demand. And that's a good problem to have but we don't -- we can't sit back, rest on our laurels, we got to invest to make sure that we're serving customer demand.

因此，當我們在現有關係方面取得進展時，隨著需求越來越多，我們面臨動態。這是一個很好的問題，但我們沒有——我們不能坐以待斃，安於現狀，我們必須進行投資，以確保我們滿足客戶的需求。

And so I mentioned in the prepared remarks, with one of the largest QSRs, hearing feedback about the technology moving really well -- in fact, the challenge in that situation was the dynamic interaction technology was taking the orders too quickly for the back ordering preparation to handle. That's -- obviously, we want to work with them together to get that situation ameliorated. But that's a good sign of the progress we can make.

因此，我在準備好的發言中提到，與最大的QSR 之一一起，聽到有關該技術發展得非常好的反饋- 事實上，這種情況下的挑戰是動態交互技術接受訂單的速度太快，無法進行延期訂購準備來處理。顯然，我們希望與他們共同努力改善這種情況。但這是我們可以取得進展的好兆頭。

And then hearing comments from our customers about the positivity of working with us, that's what we want to keep fueling. We know that's a virtuous cycle that can keep building.

然後聽到客戶對與我們合作的積極性的評論，這就是我們想要繼續推動的。我們知道這是一個可以持續建立的良性循環。

So I think we're trying really hard to keep pace with it. We're investing to make sure we're serving consumer demand -- customer demand. But I will acknowledge we're still faced with a lot of demand that we're trying to work through.

所以我認為我們正在努力跟上它的步伐。我們進行投資是為了確保我們能夠滿足消費者的需求—客戶的需求。但我承認我們仍然面臨著大量的需求，我們正在努力解決這些需求。

Great. That's very helpful and a good problem to have, of course. Second question just for me. The -- I feel like you've hinted at this in the past, maybe in this call as well. But just the outlook for what you're thinking about for future or further acquisitions beyond SYNQ3. Now I realize you have some digestion to do here for that SYNQ3 acquisitions still. But curious what your thought process is in terms of what kind of attributes you're looking for in future acquisitions? And what -- how big your appetite is, I guess? Thanks.

偉大的。當然，這非常有幫助，也是一個好問題。第二個問題只針對我。我覺得你過去已經暗示過這一點，也許在這次電話會議中也是如此。但這只是您對 SYNQ3 之外的未來或進一步收購的展望。現在我意識到您仍然需要消化 SYNQ3 的收購事宜。但想知道您在未來收購中尋找什麼樣的屬性的思考過程是什麼？我猜你的胃口有多大？謝謝。

Sure. So I'll start with, our opportunity organically is tremendous. Just -- we're excited about what SYNQ3 is bringing. We're excited about what we're able to address. But just with the capabilities we have right now, we know we can do a lot of great things. So 100%, the organization is focused on driving that, and it could fuel great long-term growth and build an amazing business.

當然。所以我首先要說的是，我們的機會是巨大的。只是——我們對 SYNQ3 帶來的東西感到興奮。我們對我們能夠解決的問題感到興奮。但憑藉我們現在擁有的能力，我們知道我們可以做很多偉大的事情。因此，該組織百分之百致力於推動這一目標，這可以推動巨大的長期成長並建立令人驚嘆的業務。

The ecosystem around us and the macro landscape and what we're seeing from other players, there's multiple things happening. First, I think the recent shift, GenAI is disrupting a lot of people. Number two, it's bringing a lot of new players into the ecosystem.

我們周圍的生態系統、宏觀景觀以及我們從其他參與者看到的情況，正在發生多種事情。首先，我認為 GenAI 最近的轉變正在擾亂很多人。第二，它為生態系統帶來了許多新參與者。

So we are certainly not going to sit with our head in the sand and kind of just drive our own agenda. We're going to be very mindful because number one, it's not just an acquisition story; it's about partnerships. It's about learning from others. And so we're going to take a very holistic view of being very thoughtful of who are the new players. And we have a team dedicated to being on top of this all the time.

因此，我們當然不會袖手旁觀，只是推動自己的議程。我們會非常小心，因為第一，這不只是一個收購故事；這是一個收購故事。這是關於夥伴關係的。這是關於向他人學習。因此，我們將從一個非常全面的角度來考慮誰是新玩家。我們有一個團隊致力於始終掌控這一切。

And so the architecture, we think about any organic investment or inorganic opportunity is through our three-pillar framework. We are aggressively going out and driving voice-enabled products: autos, IoT, other devices. We're aggressively starting the journey through customer service leading with restaurants, but our Smart Answering is scaling across others Keyvan mentioned in prepared remarks around fitness centers, beauty salons, real estate industry and so forth -- many, many different types of businesses that we are now servicing.

因此，我們認為任何有機投資或無機機會的架構都是透過我們的三支柱框架來實現的。我們正在積極走出去並推動支援語音的產品：汽車、物聯網和其他設備。我們正在積極地透過以餐廳為首的客戶服務開始這一旅程，但我們的智慧回應正在擴展到其他Keyvan 在準備好的評論中提到的健身中心、美容院、房地產行業等——許多不同類型的企業，我們現在正在維修。

And we are now, because of the scale, seeing great opportunities in generating momentum with monetization, which is when we're integrating the voice-enabled services with voice-enabled products. And frankly, we see opportunity to drive that organically. And then when we find companies who are doing a great -- they're doing some great things in a particular pocket, we're going to talk to them. And if there is -- 12 things need to line up for M&A to ever make sense, but certainly partnerships makes sense a lot, and we're expanding those. We mentioned a few of those on the call today.

由於規模的原因，我們現在看到了透過貨幣化產生動力的巨大機會，也就是我們將語音服務與語音產品整合的時候。坦白說，我們看到了有機推動這一目標的機會。然後，當我們發現那些做得很好的公司——他們在某個特定領域做了一些很棒的事情時，我們就會與他們交談。如果有的話，併購需要滿足 12 件事才有意義，但合作夥伴關係肯定很有意義，而且我們正在擴大這些範圍。我們在今天的電話會議上提到了其中的一些人。

So we're going to be open-minded. Having a strong balance sheet gives us and affords us the opportunity to be thoughtful. And yet again, we're going to be prudent stewards. So everything needs to be on strategy, needs to be on where the world is moving, what the tech is allowing, what customers want.

因此，我們將持開放態度。擁有強大的資產負債表給我們提供了深思熟慮的機會。再說一次，我們將成為謹慎的管家。因此，一切都需要基於策略，需要基於世界的發展方向、技術允許的內容以及客戶的需求。

And in terms of -- I guess you also asked, like appetite, it's all about -- to me, return on capital above your cost of capital, risk adjusted. And as long as that math works out, then we'll be open to it. But we are a small disruptive company, so it's not always a dollar sign; it's also a speed sign.

就我而言，我想您也問過，就像胃口一樣，對我來說，資本回報率高於資本成本（風險調整後）。只要這個數學結果成立，我們就會對此持開放態度。但我們是一家小型顛覆性公司，因此它並不總是一個美元符號；這也是一個速度標誌。

We want to go fast and continue to disrupt aggressively. So if there's sort of an opportunity that seems like that would slow us down, that's not the right thing. If things that will make us go faster, that's the right thing. So that's the frame we use.

我們想要快速前進並繼續積極顛覆。因此，如果有某種機會看起來會讓我們放慢腳步，那就不是正確的事。如果事情能讓我們走得更快，那就是正確的事。這就是我們使用的框架。

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝。（操作員說明）

Brett Knoblauch, Cantor Fitzgerald.

布雷特·諾布勞赫，坎托·菲茨杰拉德。

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. On the restaurant side of the business, it's nice to see kind of demand continue to increase there. Can you talk maybe about where that demand is coming from, from a lead gen perspective? Is it your outbound sales motion? Are they coming to you, for example, like with Applebee's -- it seems like that got deployed very quickly or is it the POS partnerships that you have with Square and Olo? Just to be curious more on that front about the go-to-market strategy on the restaurant side.

嗨，大家好。感謝您回答我的問題。在餐廳業務方面，很高興看到那裡的需求持續增加。您能否從潛在客戶的角度談談這種需求來自哪裡？這是你的對外銷售動議嗎？例如，他們是否會像 Applebee 一樣向您尋求幫助——看起來部署得非常快，或者是您與 Square 和 Olo 的 POS 合作夥伴關係？只是為了更好地了解餐廳方面的進入市場策略。

Yeah. Thanks for the question. So it's a combination. We have events that we participate in that increases awareness, like the one that's coming up, National Restaurant Association. We have now a good-sized sales team. The SYNQ3 acquisition augmented that.

是的。謝謝你的提問。所以這是一個組合。我們參加一些活動來提高人們的意識，例如即將舉辦的全國餐廳協會活動。我們現在擁有一支規模較大的銷售團隊。SYNQ3 的收購增強了這一點。

But we have seen a big shift that maybe 18 months ago, we had to knock on these doors and educate them about the value of voice AI automation. But now we see them knock on our door. Like, a lot of these brands that we used to dream about talking to, now they are coming to us knocking on our door, and they want to move fast. So there has been a very big change in the dynamic of the market.

但我們看到了一個巨大的轉變，也許在 18 個月前，我們不得不敲開這些門並教育他們了解語音 AI 自動化的價值。但現在我們看到他們來敲我們的門。就像，我們曾經夢想與之交談的許多品牌，現在他們正在來敲我們的門，並且他們希望快速採取行動。所以市場的動態發生了非常大的變化。

Perfect. Thank you. And then on the partnership side, I guess what partnership are you most excited about from a monetization opportunity over the near term? Would it be in NVIDIA? Would it be Arm? Perplexity? Any insights into how we should be thinking about those translating into financials?

完美的。謝謝。然後在合作夥伴方面，我想您對短期內的貨幣化機會最感興趣的是哪種合作關係？它會在 NVIDIA 中嗎？會是阿姆嗎？困惑？我們該如何思考那些轉化為財務的見解？

Yeah, I think channel partnerships are very impactful when there is a complementary business that has the same customers offering them something else than our service on top of it, can be very complementary. And they can bring us those opportunities or take our stuff and take it to their customers. Like Olo, for example, is a partnership we are really excited about.

是的，我認為當存在互補性業務時，通路合作夥伴關係非常有影響力，並且相同的客戶向他們提供除我們服務之外的其他東西，可以非常互補。他們可以為我們帶來這些機會，或是把我們的東西帶給他們的客戶。例如，像 Olo 這樣的合作關係讓我們感到非常興奮。

Those channel partnerships are a very key. But if we can improve our product, we know that it's going to translate to more adoption and more revenue. So the Perplexity partnership that we announced today was along those lines.

這些通路合作夥伴關係非常關鍵。但如果我們能夠改進我們的產品，我們知道它將轉化為更多的採用率和更多的收入。因此，我們今天宣布的 Perplexity 合作夥伴關係就是沿著這些想法進行的。

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝。（操作員說明）

At this time, I'm showing no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

目前，我沒有再提出任何問題。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。