Upwork Inc (UPWK) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Upwork's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

感謝您的支持，歡迎來到 Upwork 的 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，今天的通話正在錄音中。

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Evan Barbosa, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

我現在想把會議轉交給你的主持人，投資者關係副總裁 Evan Barbosa 先生。請繼續，先生。

Thank you. Welcome to Upwork's discussion of its first quarter 2023 financial results. Joining me today are Hayden Brown, Upwork's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Erica Gessert, Upwork's Chief Financial Officer. Following management's prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. But first, I'll review the safe harbor statement.

謝謝。歡迎來到 Upwork 對其 2023 年第一季度財務業績的討論。今天加入我的是 Upwork 的總裁兼首席執行官 Hayden Brown；和 Erica Gessert，Upwork 的首席財務官。在管理層準備好的評論之後，我們很樂意回答您的問題。但首先，我將回顧安全港聲明。

During this call, we may make statements related to our business that are forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include all statements other than statements of historical fact. These statements are not guarantees of future performance but rather are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results could differ materially from expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our SEC filings available on the SEC website and on our Investor Relations website as well as the risks and other important factors discussed in today's shareholder letter. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the 3 months ended March 31, 2023, when filed.

在此電話會議期間，我們可能會根據聯邦證券法做出與我們的業務相關的前瞻性陳述。前瞻性陳述包括歷史事實陳述以外的所有陳述。這些陳述不是對未來業績的保證，而是受到各種風險、不確定性和假設的影響。我們的實際結果可能與任何前瞻性陳述中反映的預期存在重大差異。有關可能影響我們實際結果的重大風險和其他重要因素的討論，請參閱我們在美國證券交易委員會網站和我們的投資者關係網站上提供的美國證券交易委員會文件以及今天股東信中討論的風險和其他重要因素。其他信息也將在我們提交的截至 2023 年 3 月 31 日的三個月的 10-Q 表季度報告中列出。

In addition, reference will be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures can be found in the shareholder letter that was issued this afternoon on our Investor Relations website at investors.upwork.com. As always, unless otherwise noted, reported figures are rounded, and comparisons of the first quarter of 2023 are to the first quarter of 2022. All financial measures are GAAP unless cited as non-GAAP.

此外，還將參考某些非 GAAP 財務措施。有關非 GAAP 措施與 GAAP 措施的對賬信息，請參閱今天下午在我們的投資者關係網站 investors.upwork.com 上發布的股東信。與往常一樣，除非另有說明，否則報告的數字是四捨五入的，2023 年第一季度與 2022 年第一季度的比較。所有財務指標均為 GAAP，除非被引用為非 GAAP。

Now I'll turn the call over to Hayden.

現在我把電話轉給海登。

Thanks, Evan, and thank you all for joining us today for our first quarter 2023 earnings call. Before we dive into our results, I would like to take a moment to introduce all of you to our new CFO, Erica Gessert. She started her new role last week, and I'm thrilled to welcome Erica to Upwork.

謝謝埃文，感謝大家今天加入我們的 2023 年第一季度財報電話會議。在我們深入研究結果之前，我想花點時間向大家介紹一下我們的新任首席財務官 Erica Gessert。她上週開始了她的新角色，我很高興歡迎 Erica 加入 Upwork。

Erica joins us from PayPal, where she previously served as Chief Transformation Officer, and before that, SVP of Finance and Analytics. She has had an extensive track record of driving operational and financial excellence and is a tremendous addition to our team.

Erica 從 PayPal 加入我們，她曾擔任首席轉型官，在此之前，她擔任財務和分析高級副總裁。她在推動卓越運營和財務方面有著廣泛的往績，是我們團隊的重要補充。

Thank you, Hayden, and hello, everyone. Let me start by saying I'm delighted to join Upwork at such an important time in the company's history. I'm inspired by Upwork's mission and vision, and I'm deeply compelled by the tremendous growth potential ahead of us.

謝謝你，海登，大家好。首先讓我說，我很高興在公司歷史上如此重要的時刻加入 Upwork。我被 Upwork 的使命和願景所鼓舞，也被我們面前巨大的增長潛力所深深吸引。

My first week has been busy and energizing. There's clearly a lot going on in the business, and we're not immune to the macroeconomic environment affecting so many companies right now. At just a weekend, I've been very impressed by Hayden and the team here and their commitment to making the difficult but responsible decisions for the business in this environment.

我的第一周忙碌而充滿活力。業務中顯然發生了很多事情，我們也不能倖免於目前影響如此多公司的宏觀經濟環境。僅僅一個週末，海登和這裡的團隊以及他們在這種環境下為企業做出艱難但負責任的決定的承諾給我留下了深刻的印象。

I spent a lot of time over the past week diving into the details of our business and engaging with the organization on key growth and profitability initiatives. There's a lot of important work ahead of us, but the long-term opportunity is significant, and Upwork is well positioned and committed to delivering sustainable and profitable growth. I look forward to partnering with Hayden and the rest of the leadership team as well as continuing our transparent relationship with our investors, analysts and other key stakeholders.

在過去的一周裡，我花了很多時間深入研究我們的業務細節，並與組織就關鍵的增長和盈利計劃進行了接觸。我們面前有很多重要的工作，但長期的機會是巨大的，Upwork 處於有利地位並致力於實現可持續和盈利的增長。我期待與海登和領導團隊的其他成員合作，並繼續與我們的投資者、分析師和其他主要利益相關者保持透明的關係。

Now I'll hand it back over to Hayden.

現在我會把它交還給海登。

Thanks, Erica. I'm looking forward to partnering with you as we continue to innovate, evangelize and scale our work marketplace.

謝謝，艾麗卡。我期待著與您合作，因為我們將繼續創新、傳播和擴展我們的工作市場。

We spent the first quarter of 2023 moving swiftly to adapt to new realities as we saw the economy further impact our customers and our business. We delivered a better-than-expected first quarter with GSV exceeding $1 billion for the fifth straight quarter and first quarter revenue growth of 14% year-over-year to $160.9 million. We had adjusted EBITDA of negative $2.9 million in the first quarter. We also surpassed an exciting milestone in the first quarter, $20 billion in lifetime freelancer earnings on Upwork, which doubled from $10 billion in only 3 years.

我們在 2023 年第一季度迅速採取行動以適應新的現實，因為我們看到經濟進一步影響了我們的客戶和我們的業務。我們第一季度的業績好於預期，GSV 連續第五個季度超過 10 億美元，第一季度收入同比增長 14% 至 1.609 億美元。我們在第一季度調整後的 EBITDA 為負 290 萬美元。我們還在第一季度超越了一個激動人心的里程碑，即 Upwork 的終身自由職業者收入 200 億美元，僅在 3 年內就從 100 億美元翻了一番。

This milestone is a testament to the incredibly diverse, high-value work happening on our platform every day as well as the abundance of highly skilled talent with which hundreds of thousands of clients build long-term trusted relationships on Upwork. We're building this business to achieve the next milestone of $40 billion in freelancer earnings and beyond.

這一里程碑證明了每天在我們平台上發生的極其多樣化、高價值的工作，以及大量高技能人才，數十萬客戶與這些人才在 Upwork 上建立了長期信任的關係。我們正在建設這項業務，以實現自由職業者收入 400 億美元及以上的下一個里程碑。

At the same time, we saw some unanticipated deterioration in certain client metrics due to macroeconomic uncertainty, which was most pronounced with our Enterprise customers and large businesses in the self-service marketplace. This caused us to lower our top line revenue growth expectations and proactively take cost reduction measures to increase our profitability outlook for the remainder of the year and significantly accelerate our progress towards long-term profitability. The opportunity ahead of Upwork continues to be significant, and we are moving aggressively and intentionally to advance both our profitability and growth goals via a 3-part framework.

與此同時，由於宏觀經濟的不確定性，我們發現某些客戶指標出現意外惡化，這在我們的企業客戶和自助服務市場中的大型企業中最為明顯。這導致我們降低了收入增長預期，並積極採取成本削減措施，以提高我們今年剩餘時間的盈利前景，並顯著加快我們實現長期盈利的進程。 Upwork 之前的機會仍然很重要，我們正在積極和有意識地採取行動，通過一個由三部分組成的框架來推進我們的盈利能力和增長目標。

First, running a lean and efficient organization. We remain unwavering in our commitment to building an efficient, profitable business. Steps we have taken to streamline our operations include a workforce reduction, a pause on our second half brand media investment, considerable revisions to our hiring plans and reduction of vendor-related expenses. We reduced our workforce by 137 roles or approximately 15% of full-time employees and have also reduced positions of independent team members.

首先，運行一個精簡高效的組織。我們堅定不移地致力於打造高效、盈利的企業。我們為簡化運營而採取的措施包括裁員、暫停下半年品牌媒體投資、大幅修改招聘計劃以及減少與供應商相關的費用。我們減少了 137 個職位或約 15% 的全職員工，並且還減少了獨立團隊成員的職位。

We're also pausing our brand media investment indefinitely and reducing our brand working media spend by more than $22 million in the second half of 2023, representing a reduction of 94% versus the prior plan for the second half of 2023. Our team has done a phenomenal job increasing our unaided brand awareness, and our brand campaign is resonating with customers. However, in the current macroeconomic environment, we do not have enough visibility into exactly when we will see brand awareness translate into client conversion to continue prioritizing the investment at this time.

我們還將無限期暫停我們的品牌媒體投資，並在 2023 年下半年將我們的品牌工作媒體支出減少超過 2200 萬美元，比 2023 年下半年的先前計劃減少 94%。我們的團隊已經完成一項非凡的工作提高了我們的獨立品牌知名度，我們的品牌活動正在與客戶產生共鳴。然而，在當前的宏觀經濟環境下，我們對品牌知名度何時轉化為客戶轉化的確切時間還沒有足夠的了解，因此無法在此時繼續優先投資。

In total, the measures announced today are expected to drive over $80 million of annualized net cost savings and deliver approximately $40 million of net cost savings in 2023. Our second quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $0 to $2 million, representing a 0% to 1% adjusted EBITDA margin, includes approximately $4 million of nonrecurring severance-related costs. Excluding these nonrecurring severance-related costs, our second quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA margin would have expected to be 3% to 4%. These actions put us on a course to deliver fourth quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 15% while remaining consistent with our ongoing commitment to drive durable growth and invest for strong returns.

總的來說，今天宣布的措施預計將推動超過 8000 萬美元的年化淨成本節省，並在 2023 年實現約 4000 萬美元的淨成本節省。我們 2023 年第二季度調整後的 EBITDA 指引為 0 至 200 萬美元，相當於 0% 至 1 % 調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率，包括大約 400 萬美元的非經常性遣散費相關費用。排除這些與遣散費相關的非經常性成本，我們 2023 年第二季度調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率預計為 3% 至 4%。這些行動使我們走上了實現 2023 年第四季度調整後 EBITDA 利潤率約 15% 的道路，同時與我們推動持久增長和投資以獲得強勁回報的持續承諾保持一致。

Our cost discipline, agility and focus on cost optionality in our operations will continue under Erica Gessert, who we are thrilled to announce as our new CFO during the first quarter. We will share more about our long-term outlook and targets over the next several quarters as Erica settles into the role.

我們的成本紀律、敏捷性和對成本可選性的關注將在 Erica Gessert 的領導下繼續進行，我們很高興在第一季度宣布她為我們的新首席財務官。隨著 Erica 適應這個角色，我們將在未來幾個季度分享更多關於我們的長期前景和目標的信息。

We were also pleased to announce Sunita Solao as our new Chief People Officer shortly after quarter end and look forward to her leadership of our people team.

我們也很高興在季度結束後不久宣布 Sunita Solao 擔任我們的新首席人事官，並期待她領導我們的人事團隊。

Second, optimizing our growth portfolio. Growth continues to be a major priority, and we are focused on 2 main areas right now. Over the last few years, we bolstered our product lineup considerably with key enhancements and expansions, including integral improvements to our Enterprise Suite, the addition of new products like Project Catalog Consultations and our recently announced end-to-end solution to support full-time hiring.

第二，優化我們的增長組合。增長仍然是重中之重，我們目前專注於兩個主要領域。在過去的幾年裡，我們通過關鍵的增強和擴展極大地增強了我們的產品陣容，包括對我們的企業套件的整體改進、項目目錄諮詢等新產品的添加以及我們最近宣布的端到端解決方案以支持全職招聘。

As the category leader in our space, we know that our opportunity to offer customers a singular destination capable of serving the full breadth of their hiring and work needs is critical for client spend, lifetime value and retention. Now that we have such a robust product lineup, we are in a strong position to drive the adoption of our product portfolio and deliver even more delightful experiences to customers. This means we are going deeper rather than broader with our R&D, narrowing the scope and focus of the projects on which our team will work.

作為我們所在領域的領導者，我們知道我們有機會為客戶提供一個能夠滿足他們招聘和工作需求的單一目的地，這對於客戶支出、終生價值和保留率至關重要。現在我們擁有如此強大的產品陣容，我們有能力推動我們產品組合的採用，並為客戶提供更愉快的體驗。這意味著我們的研發將更深入而不是更廣泛，從而縮小我們團隊將從事的項目的範圍和重點。

Another major focus area for us continues to be generative AI. We are establishing Upwork as a preeminent option for finding and hiring specialized skilled talent for the full range of generative AI-related work. We have identified and are pursuing multiple dimensions of this opportunity for talent, clients and our own teams through our own product development, unique research and partnerships.

我們的另一個主要關注領域仍然是生成人工智能。我們正在將 Upwork 打造為一個卓越的選擇，用於尋找和僱用專業技能人才來從事與人工智能相關的所有工作。通過我們自己的產品開發、獨特的研究和合作夥伴關係，我們已經確定並正在為人才、客戶和我們自己的團隊尋求這個機會的多個方面。

Both supply and demand for work and talent related to generative AI tools and technology implementations continue to climb. The average weekly number of search queries related to generative AI in the first quarter increased over 1,000% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and the average number of weekly job posts related to generative AI increased more than 600% over the same time period. To serve this explosive demand, we have continued updating our Talent Marketplace to reflect exciting new skills and roles like prompt engineers and added new project catalog categories of work, bringing the total number of categories on Upwork to over 125.

與生成 AI 工具和技術實施相關的工作和人才的供求都在持續攀升。與 2022 年第四季度相比，與 2022 年第四季度相比，第一季度每周平均每週與生成 AI 相關的搜索查詢數量增加了 1,000% 以上，與同期的第四季度平均每週與生成 AI 相關的職位發布數量增加了 600% 以上。為了滿足這一爆炸性需求，我們繼續更新我們的人才市場，以反映令人興奮的新技能和角色，如提示工程師，並添加了新的項目目錄工作類別，使 Upwork 上的類別總數超過 125 個。

Our own development teams have also been innovating and testing new interfaces and experiences made possible for our customers by generative AI technology and large language models. We are testing generative AI-powered solutions for transforming core customer experiences like getting started, posting jobs, receiving support and having questions answered. We are working around the clock to bring the benefits of these new technologies to talent on Upwork in every category we serve.

我們自己的開發團隊也一直在創新和測試新的界面和體驗，通過生成人工智能技術和大型語言模型為我們的客戶提供可能。我們正在測試生成式 AI 驅動的解決方案，以轉變核心客戶體驗，例如入門、發布工作、獲得支持和回答問題。我們全天候工作，將這些新技術的好處帶給我們服務的每個類別的 Upwork 人才。

Generative AI's emergence into the mainstream has us excited. We know that it is going to be a force multiplying tool for talent and a cost-saving advantage for clients, and we are committed to fully exploring and harnessing its power and efficiency.

生成式 AI 成為主流讓我們興奮不已。我們知道它將成為人才的力量倍增工具和客戶的成本節約優勢，我們致力於充分探索和利用它的力量和效率。

And third, tuning our sales approach to where we win in this macro environment. In the fourth quarter of 2022, trends in Enterprise suggested we could achieve our quarter-over-quarter growth goals in land productivity and expand client spend for 2023. These indicators included expected strength or stability in key metrics like sales cycle length, new deal close rates, client retention and spend levels from some of our largest customers.

第三，調整我們的銷售方式，以在這個宏觀環境中取得成功。 2022 年第四季度，企業趨勢表明我們可以實現土地生產率的環比增長目標，並擴大 2023 年的客戶支出。這些指標包括銷售週期長度、新交易完成等關鍵指標的預期強度或穩定性我們一些最大客戶的費率、客戶保留率和支出水平。

Those expectations did not materialize, and headwinds in these metrics in the first quarter and early in the second quarter shifted our expectations. So we've acted accordingly in announcing personnel changes today that put our sales team back on sound economic footing. As part of today's changes, Eric Gilpin, our Chief Sales Officer and current GM Enterprise, will be stepping down. He has contributed so much building our business and team to this point and is leaving a strong legacy. He will stay on in an advisory role through the end of the second quarter.

這些預期沒有實現，第一季度和第二季度初這些指標的逆風改變了我們的預期。因此，我們在今天宣佈人事變動時採取了相應行動，使我們的銷售團隊恢復了良好的經濟基礎。作為今天變化的一部分，我們的首席銷售官兼現任 GM Enterprise 的 Eric Gilpin 將辭職。到目前為止，他為我們的業務和團隊建設做出了巨大貢獻，並留下了寶貴的遺產。他將在第二季度末繼續擔任顧問職務。

We also spent time in the first quarter analyzing our data and testing to identify key insights about where our products and our sales reps are performing best. We're using those insights to refine our sales strategy, focus on the most productive areas of opportunity in this environment and drive stronger results with the leaner team we will have, bringing our productivity back in line with our ROI targets.

我們還在第一季度花時間分析我們的數據和測試，以確定關於我們的產品和我們的銷售代表表現最佳的關鍵見解。我們正在利用這些見解來完善我們的銷售策略，專注於這種環境中最有生產力的機會領域，並通過我們將擁有的更精簡的團隊取得更好的成果，使我們的生產力重新與我們的投資回報率目標保持一致。

To support our objectives, as underscored in the 3-part framework, we continue to focus on capital structure and allocation. In the first quarter, we repurchased at a discount over $200 million in principal amount of our outstanding convertible senior notes.

為了支持我們的目標，正如在三部分框架中強調的那樣，我們繼續關注資本結構和分配。第一季度，我們以折扣價回購了超過 2 億美元的未償還可轉換優先票據本金。

Despite some of the short-term turbulence we face, we continue to operate the business in a nimble and proactive manner given our confidence that our massive long-term opportunities continue to be intact. As our financial results demonstrate, we continue to grow, albeit at a more moderate rate. Our established strategy and investments are sound, and we will continue to be prudent and disciplined with our spend in the here and now, taking actions aimed at delivering profitability as we progressively unlock durable growth and position the business to capitalize on recovery in the macroeconomic environment.

儘管我們面臨一些短期動盪，但我們有信心繼續以靈活和積極主動的方式經營業務，因為我們相信我們的大量長期機會將繼續完好無損。正如我們的財務業績所表明的那樣，我們繼續增長，儘管增長速度較為溫和。我們既定的戰略和投資是合理的，我們將繼續在此時此地的支出上保持謹慎和自律，採取旨在實現盈利的行動，因為我們將逐步實現持久增長，並使業務定位於利用宏觀經濟環境的複蘇.

Throughout 2023, we are focused on the things we can control, innovating, evangelizing and scaling a work marketplace that delivers cost-effective, unparalleled workforce solutions and an exceptionally deep and diverse pool of skilled global talent to meet our customers' work needs.

在整個 2023 年，我們將專注於我們可以控制的事情、創新、傳播和擴展工作市場，以提供具有成本效益、無與倫比的勞動力解決方案和極其豐富和多樣化的全球技能人才庫，以滿足客戶的工作需求。

Thank you. We'll now open the call to your questions.

謝謝。我們現在將打開您的問題的電話。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自高盛的 Eric Sheridan。

Maybe 2, if I could. First, in terms of the larger clients where you're still seeing very good growth, could you contrast the behavior of some of your larger clients and the growth you're seeing there versus some of the small- or medium-sized clients and why we might be seeing more of a macroeconomic impact there versus the larger clients will be one. And then on the back of the efficiency program, how should we think philosophically about allowing elements of that increased profitability to drop and stay at the bottom line in terms of margin versus eventually possibly redeploying and reinvesting it behind your growth initiatives over the medium to long term?

也許 2，如果可以的話。首先，就您仍然看到非常好的增長的大客戶而言，您能否將一些大客戶的行為和您在那裡看到的增長與一些中小型客戶進行對比，以及為什麼與大客戶相比，我們可能會看到更多的宏觀經濟影響。然後在效率計劃的背後，我們應該如何從哲學上考慮允許增加的盈利能力下降並保持在利潤率的底線，而不是最終可能在中長期內重新部署和再投資於您的增長計劃學期？

Thanks, Eric. To your first question around the spend trends that we've seen in the last couple of months emerging, we still feel really excited about the Enterprise opportunity for this business. It's clear that this is evident, unlocked for us over time with our TAM. But in this macro environment, we've definitely seen some of our larger customers really feeling under budgetary pressure. And the way that translates through is some of them are just maintaining the existing budgets that they've had with us instead of expanding that spend as they might have in a normal macro environment. And that's really clear on the Enterprise side of our offering. Others are going through budget cuts themselves or layoffs and things like that. And those customers might be reducing the size of their spend with us, whereas, again, in an ordinary environment, they would be maintaining or expanding their spend. So that has been showing through in our Enterprise business and has contributed to more than half of the reduction in our guidance outlook for this year.

謝謝，埃里克。對於您關於我們在過去幾個月中看到的支出趨勢的第一個問題，我們仍然對這項業務的企業機會感到非常興奮。很明顯，隨著時間的推移，我們的 TAM 為我們解鎖了這一點。但在這種宏觀環境下，我們確實看到一些大客戶確實感受到了預算壓力。轉化的方式是，他們中的一些人只是維持他們與我們的現有預算，而不是像在正常的宏觀環境中那樣擴大支出。這在我們產品的企業方面非常清楚。其他人正在經歷自己的預算削減或裁員之類的事情。這些客戶可能會減少他們在我們這裡的支出規模，而同樣，在普通環境中，他們會維持或擴大他們的支出。因此，這已經在我們的企業業務中體現出來，並導致我們今年的指導展望減少了一半以上。

On the marketplace side of the business, where we talked about our smaller customers, they've been incredibly resilient. And while we do see some smaller average spend per client than what we would probably normally see outside of this macro, that business is trending really well and has contributed much less to our takedown in the guidance outlook.

在業務的市場方面，我們談到了我們的小客戶，他們非常有彈性。雖然我們確實看到每個客戶的平均支出比我們通常在這個宏觀之外看到的要少，但該業務的趨勢非常好，並且對我們取消指導前景的貢獻要小得多。

To your second question around philosophically thinking about margins in the bottom line, we've always been very committed to driving profitable growth in this business. That has not changed. But in this environment, which has changed, we're really demonstrating that we can drive that profitable growth and have reordered some of our priorities so that we are investing again right now in the places where we see a good line of returns and are excited about things like R&D and where that can take us and are rightsizing our sales effort based on what we see in the environment. So exiting this year with Q4 at 15% approximate EBITDA margin, I think, is a good indicator of where we think we can take this business, but I think it's early to say what we would do in 2024 and beyond.

關於您從哲學上思考底線利潤率的第二個問題，我們一直非常致力於推動該業務的盈利增長。那沒有改變。但在這種已經發生變化的環境中，我們確實在證明我們可以推動盈利增長，並重新安排了我們的一些優先事項，以便我們現在再次投資於我們看到良好回報線並感到興奮的地方關於研發之類的事情以及研發可以帶我們去哪裡，並根據我們在環境中看到的情況調整我們的銷售工作。因此，我認為今年第四季度以 15% 的 EBITDA 利潤率退出是一個很好的指標，表明我們認為我們可以在哪裡開展這項業務，但我認為現在說我們將在 2024 年及以後做什麼還為時過早。

Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thill of Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Brent Thill。

This is John Byun for Brent Thill. I wanted to get maybe a little bit more color on the macro side, what you were seeing different maybe by industry or by geography. I mean you mentioned tech was weak, but just wondering about some of the other industries. And then maybe as a follow-up, if you could talk about how April trends were different in any way versus what you saw in Q1, that would be great.

我是 Brent Thill 的 John Byun。我想在宏觀方面獲得更多顏色，你看到的可能因行業或地理而異。我的意思是你提到技術薄弱，但只是想知道其他一些行業。然後也許作為後續行動，如果你能談談 4 月份的趨勢與你在第一季度看到的有何不同，那就太好了。

John, in terms of industry and geo trends, we did see towards the end of Q1, I'd say, more of a show through in terms of tech -- from an industry sector, we've seen the layoffs. We've seen the impact of the tech industry at large, and I think that goes through with some of our customers more prominently than what we've seen earlier in Q1 or even in 2022. So that was a bit more evident, although we still see tech companies as some of our strongest vendors and great adopters of Upwork. So by no means has that opportunity gone away, but I think they are feeling the pain of this environment, and that was more evident with our larger customers this quarter than in the past. And we have factored that into our outlook.

約翰，就行業和地理趨勢而言，我們確實看到了第一季度末，我想說，更多的是在技術方面的展示——從工業部門來看，我們已經看到了裁員。我們已經看到了整個科技行業的影響，我認為與我們在第一季度甚至 2022 年早些時候看到的相比，我們的一些客戶所受到的影響更為顯著。所以這更加明顯，儘管我們仍然將科技公司視為我們最強大的供應商和 Upwork 的重要採用者。因此，這個機會絕不會消失，但我認為他們正在感受到這種環境的痛苦，而且本季度我們的大客戶比過去更明顯。我們已將其納入我們的展望。

At the same time, we did see a lot of positive activity in terms of technical categories on our site with huge growth in job post and demand for gen AI. And so I think, again, we serve tech buyers across the landscape regardless of the industry of those client companies. And that's something that we saw with the increase in 10x of searches for talent in those categories and a 600% quarter-to-quarter increase in job posts for that type of talent. So we continue to serve both technical talent and technical customers in a variety of ways, which I think is going to be very enduring.

與此同時，我們確實在我們網站的技術類別方面看到了很多積極的活動，職位發布和對 gen AI 的需求大幅增長。因此，我再次認為，無論這些客戶公司的行業如何，我們都會為整個領域的技術買家提供服務。這就是我們看到的，因為這些類別的人才搜索量增加了 10 倍，而且這類人才的職位發布數量環比增長了 600%。因此，我們將繼續以各種方式為技術人才和技術客戶提供服務，我認為這將是非常持久的。

From a geo perspective, I think the trend that we started to see in Q3 of last year kind of late Q2, Q3, where the European customer base on the client side has felt, I think, more of an economic slowdown than customers in the U.S. has continued to be true. So our clients in the U.S. have continued to be a bit stronger than European-based clients. But I wouldn't say that there was new noticeable separation more recently than currently.

從地域的角度來看，我認為我們從去年第三季度開始看到的趨勢有點晚於第二季度、第三季度，我認為客戶端的歐洲客戶群比歐洲客戶感受到的經濟放緩更多美國一直如此。因此，我們在美國的客戶繼續比歐洲客戶強一些。但我不會說最近出現了比現在更明顯的新分離。

Our next question comes from the line of Nat Schindler of Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Nat Schindler。

The CEO of IBM recently said that they could see 30% of back-office jobs replaced by AI in the next 5 years. Obviously, we've heard all kinds of predictions like this before and from other people, but it was an interesting one that just came out. And a lot of people are thinking about AI disruption in the market in the last 2 days. On the one side, you can help companies find AI contract work. But on the other side, you have a lot of contractors who do what would be often called back-office work or short-term labor that would be in that category. What do you think happens to the entire staffing industry, online and offline competitors, as this evolves?

IBM 首席執行官最近表示，他們可能會在未來 5 年內看到 30% 的後台工作被人工智能取代。顯然，我們之前和從其他人那裡聽到過各種類似的預測，但這是一個剛剛出來的有趣的預測。在過去的兩天裡，很多人都在思考人工智能對市場的顛覆。一方面，你可以幫助公司找到 AI 合同工作。但另一方面，你有很多承包商從事通常被稱為後台工作或屬於該類別的短期勞動。隨著這種發展，您認為整個人力資源行業、線上和線下競爭對手會發生什麼變化？

Yes. Matt, thank you for the question. I think it's a really interesting sea change that's happening in the environment right now with the advent of AI and this announcement from IBM because, frankly, we all know that the old ways we're working are out the window. And this started before AI. Even I mean as we've gone through the pandemic, with the advent of remote work, companies absolutely need to be rethinking their workplace and workforce strategies, and we are a part of that.

是的。馬特，謝謝你的提問。我認為隨著 AI 的出現和 IBM 的這一聲明，現在環境正在發生非常有趣的巨變，因為坦率地說，我們都知道我們的舊工作方式已經過時了。這在 AI 之前就開始了。即使我的意思是，隨著我們經歷了大流行，隨著遠程工作的出現，公司絕對需要重新考慮他們的工作場所和勞動力戰略，而我們是其中的一部分。

The fact that IBM is rethinking their workplace and workforce strategy with AI is actually a huge opening for a company like Upwork because in the past, when they weren't thinking big about having need to redesign work and who and how work is getting done, including the technology and the tools to deliver that work, it was a lot harder for a company like us to get into that conversation and have a really strategic conversation about how they need to shift from full-time employees to fractional work, to project-based work, and a different model is just really what we deliver.

事實上，IBM 正在通過人工智能重新思考他們的工作場所和勞動力戰略，這對像 Upwork 這樣的公司來說實際上是一個巨大的機會，因為在過去，當他們沒有認真考慮是否需要重新設計工作以及由誰和如何完成工作時，包括交付這項工作的技術和工具，對於像我們這樣的公司來說，要進入對話並就他們需要如何從全職員工轉變為零工，到項目進行真正的戰略對話要困難得多。基於工作，而不同的模型正是我們提供的。

In a world where they are now really rethinking things and shifting to AI and alternative models of working and old staffing models and old full-time employee models are out the window, it is a lot easier for us to have the conversation that we should be having with the IBMs of the world about how we can help them with the flexibility, the cost savings, the on-demand model that we offer them. So I think the advent of companies really shifting their entire thinking about how work is delivered and what tools are critical for that [is an opening] for Upwork now and in the future.

在一個他們現在真正重新思考事物並轉向 AI 的世界裡，工作的替代模型、舊的人員配置模型和舊的全職員工模型已經過時了，我們更容易進行我們應該進行的對話與世界各地的 IBM 一起討論我們如何通過我們為他們提供的靈活性、成本節約和按需模型幫助他們。因此，我認為公司的出現確實改變了他們對如何交付工作以及哪些工具對此至關重要的整個思考 [是 Upwork 現在和未來的一個機會]。

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Farrell of Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題來自 Piper Sandler 的 Matt Farrell。

You made the move to cut the second half brand spending almost entirely due to the macro. I guess where does brand spending fit into the picture longer term now that we've accelerated the path to profitability? And what are you looking for in the market to potentially reinstitute the brand spend maybe at the size and the scale that you have been over the last couple of quarters?

您採取行動削減下半年的品牌支出幾乎完全是由於宏觀經濟。我想既然我們已經加快了盈利之路，那麼從長遠來看，品牌支出在哪些方面更適合呢？你在市場上尋找什麼來重新建立品牌支出，也許是你在過去幾個季度的規模和規模？

Matt, our marketing team has done a phenomenal job increasing our awareness. We saw a 45% increase in unaided awareness amongst business decision-makers overall since the start of the campaign that we released at the end of last year, and I think at this moment, we don't have enough visibility into exactly when we will see the brand awareness that we've been building translate into client conversion, particularly just because in this environment, companies are really in this mode of cutting budgets, kind of cut now, ask questions later about how they're going to deal with some of the things that they're trying to deliver on.

馬特，我們的營銷團隊在提高我們的知名度方面做得非常出色。自去年年底發布的活動開始以來，我們發現業務決策者的整體獨立意識提高了 45%，我認為目前我們還沒有足夠的了解到底什麼時候會看到我們一直在建立的品牌知名度轉化為客戶轉化，特別是因為在這種環境下，公司確實處於這種削減預算的模式，現在有點削減，稍後再問他們將如何處理一些問題他們試圖實現的事情。

So I think your question is a good one. I think for us, we've got to drive some of our results around some of the more immediate-term opportunities we see where we know we can invest and deliver strong returns from a growth perspective and then come back to this question about brand over time, knowing also that in the meantime, we can execute on other more targeted ways that we can elevate our brand awareness with the right audiences as well as deliver on performance marketing and other channels that in this environment are doing really well for us.

所以我認為你的問題很好。我認為對我們來說，我們必須圍繞我們看到的一些更近期的機會來推動我們的一些結果，我們知道我們可以在這些機會上投資並從增長的角度提供豐厚的回報，然後回到這個關於品牌的問題時間，也知道與此同時，我們可以採取其他更有針對性的方式來提高我們在合適的受眾中的品牌知名度，並提供績效營銷和其他渠道，在這種環境下，我們做得非常好。

And maybe a second question. You all announced the change in the fee structure to a more simplified dynamic. I guess as we think about the marketplace take rate as we move through 2023 and 2024, how should we be thinking about the tailwinds or the uptick in marketplace take rate due to the fee structure change?

也許還有第二個問題。你們都宣布將費用結構更改為更簡化的動態。我想當我們考慮到 2023 年和 2024 年的市場採用率時，我們應該如何考慮由於費用結構變化而帶來的順風或市場採用率的上升？

Sure. I think the take rate expectations we have for this year are around something kind of similar from an expansion perspective to what we probably saw last year. And I'd underscore that the pricing changes that we're making really are founded in marketplace health and ensuring that we're both capturing value and we're creating value and we're driving the right incentives on the platform around, first and foremost, unlocking client demand because at the end of the day, we are a demand-constrained business. And so that's really the needs -- all of the changes we're making to pricing both last year and this year.

當然。我認為從擴張的角度來看，我們對今年的接受率預期與我們去年可能看到的情況有點相似。我要強調的是，我們所做的定價變化實際上是建立在市場健康的基礎上的，並確保我們既在獲取價值又在創造價值，並且我們在平台上推動正確的激勵措施，首先是最重要的是，釋放客戶需求，因為歸根結底，我們是一個需求受限的企業。所以這才是真正的需求——我們在去年和今年對定價所做的所有改變。

Our next question comes from the line of Brad Erickson of RBC Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital 的 Brad Erickson。

This is Logan on for Brad. Maybe one for Erica. Just as you've been in the business for about a month now, what are the kind of big initiatives and things you'll be working on in the next 6 to 12 months?

這是布拉德的洛根。也許是給埃里卡的。就像你現在已經在這個行業工作了大約一個月一樣，在接下來的 6 到 12 個月裡，你將開展哪些重大舉措和工作？

Yes, sure, Logan. Nice to meet you. And just to correct you, I'm actually on day 8 right now, so a little less than a month. But I do feel like I've had an opportunity to dig in, although I'm really just scratching the surface here. First and foremost, obviously, learning the business and the team. I do want to dig into the growth strategy of the road map of which I see many. I just want to emphasize in my first 8 days, as I said in my prepared remarks, we're not immune from the kind of broader macroeconomic environment in this business.

是的，當然，洛根。很高興見到你。糾正一下，我現在實際上是第 8 天，不到一個月。但我確實覺得我有機會深入挖掘，雖然我真的只是觸及表面。首先，顯然，學習業務和團隊。我確實想深入研究我看到的許多路線圖的增長戰略。正如我在準備好的發言中所說，我只想在頭 8 天強調，我們無法免受該行業更廣泛的宏觀經濟環境的影響。

But that by no means, in my mind, diminishes the opportunity ahead for this business. I think it's tremendous, and I'm going to be working together with the rest of the management team to really dig into those growth opportunities and make sure that we're -- right now, we are absolutely making the right responsible moves in order to show that we can produce profitable growth. But this is both a top and bottom line growth company. I think we all have that conviction here as a management team, and I'm going to be working with everyone to work on the road map to deliver that.

但在我看來，這絕不減少這項業務未來的機會。我認為這是巨大的，我將與管理團隊的其他成員一起努力，真正挖掘這些增長機會，並確保我們——現在，我們絕對正在採取正確的、負責任的舉措，以便以表明我們可以實現盈利性增長。但這既是一家頂線成長型公司，也是一家底線成長型公司。我認為作為一個管理團隊，我們所有人都有這種信念，我將與每個人一起制定實現這一目標的路線圖。

Great. And then just one quick follow-up. In the past, you guys have said that, obviously, SMB was a little bit weak. I think last quarter, you guys called them out specifically and also mentioned that they're a little bit quicker to react to changes in the macro environment. I saw you return to growth on active clients. So is there any sort of signs you guys are seeing in terms of the SMB inflecting relative to what you're seeing in terms of the larger customer weakness?

偉大的。然後只是一個快速跟進。過去，你們說，顯然，SMB 有點弱。我想上個季度，你們專門叫他們出來，還提到他們對宏觀環境的變化反應更快一點。我看到你在活躍客戶上恢復增長。那麼，相對於您在更大的客戶弱點方面所看到的，在 SMB 方面，你們是否看到任何跡象？

The SMBs, I think it shows the resiliency of the business even through this macro. It's interesting because it has been the larger customers who seem to be a bit more impacted right now. And when we look at the delta between our expectations last quarter versus this quarter, you're right that basically the difference we've seen is not on the volume side in terms of client activity or even contracts or job postings like that on the site.

中小企業，我認為即使通過這個宏，它也顯示了業務的彈性。這很有趣，因為現在似乎受到更大影響的是更大的客戶。當我們查看上個季度與本季度的預期差異時，您是對的，基本上我們看到的差異不在於客戶活動的數量方面，甚至不在於網站上的合同或職位發布.

The only place where we've been somewhat surprised has been just the spend per contract or the GSV per client, which you can see in some of our published numbers. And I think that's just attributable to some of the factors and the pressures we see in the macro and also the fact that our Talent Marketplace has become so at scale that there's a lot of wage pressure for talent.

唯一讓我們感到有些驚訝的地方就是每份合同的支出或每個客戶的 GSV，您可以在我們公佈的一些數字中看到這一點。我認為這只是由於我們在宏觀上看到的一些因素和壓力，以及我們的人才市場規模如此之大以至於人才面臨很大的工資壓力這一事實。

And so it's a very competitive, attractive marketplace for clients, and clients are finding that great value, which is driving that SMB activity because people are seeing that they're getting great quality talent and great work done in this ecosystem. So those SMBs, as we said, have that fast switch. They responded quicker last year, and now we're seeing some strength there in terms of volume and activity, which is great.

因此，對於客戶來說，這是一個非常有競爭力、有吸引力的市場，客戶正在發現巨大的價值，這正在推動 SMB 活動，因為人們看到他們在這個生態系統中獲得了優秀的人才和出色的工作。因此，正如我們所說，這些 SMB 具有快速切換功能。去年他們的反應更快，現在我們在數量和活動方面看到了一些力量，這很棒。

Our next question comes from the line of Bernie McTernan of Needham.

我們的下一個問題來自 Needham 的 Bernie McTernan。

Hayden, I guess demand looking for people who can do AI jobs is, I think, a bit counterintuitive. I think part of the allure of AI is not having to hire as many people. So can you maybe just describe what you're seeing from the demand perspective?

海登，我認為尋找可以從事 AI 工作的人的需求有點違反直覺。我認為 AI 的部分魅力在於不必僱用那麼多的人。那麼，您能否從需求的角度描述一下您所看到的情況？

Sure. I think some of the growth we're seeing is definitely in categories like data science and analytics, which you can imagine why that will get (inaudible) in this environment. In that area, we saw job postings growing 33% year-over-year and 22% sequentially as one example. We've also been adding new skills and categories to the platform, which got us to over 125 job categories, including some areas that are very relevant to the work that people are undertaking to implement, train and do other AI-based modeling work. So I think that's a piece of it.

當然。我認為我們看到的一些增長肯定是在數據科學和分析等類別中，你可以想像為什麼在這種環境中會（聽不清）。在該領域，我們看到職位發布同比增長 33%，環比增長 22%，例如。我們還一直在向平台添加新的技能和類別，這使我們擁有超過 125 個工作類別，包括一些與人們正在實施、培訓和進行其他基於 AI 的建模工作非常相關的領域。所以我認為這是其中的一部分。

And then I think the other thing I would mention in this area is as we drop off the tail for this new job in this area, we also have additional categories like writing, which you might think, to your point, is going to be more at risk. It's a very small category for us today. I mean it's pretty tiny. But even in that category, we actually saw sequential growth quarter-over-quarter.

然後我想在這個領域我要提到的另一件事是當我們在這個領域放棄這個新工作的尾巴時，我們還有其他類別，比如寫作，你可能認為，就你而言，將會更多有一定風險。這對我們今天來說是一個非常小的類別。我的意思是它非常小。但即使在該類別中，我們實際上也看到了環比增長。

So I would just underscore, we're not seeing any negative impacts from AI today. And as we look across the work that's happening in the platform, some of the more interesting things we see is in pretty much every category we serve, talent are using AI tools to augment their workflows. And I think this is where they're now delivering better value and better solutions for their clients.

所以我只想強調，我們今天沒有看到人工智能的任何負面影響。當我們審視平台中正在發生的工作時，我們看到的一些更有趣的事情幾乎存在於我們服務的每個類別中，人才正在使用人工智能工具來增強他們的工作流程。我認為這就是他們現在為客戶提供更好的價值和更好的解決方案的地方。

And so I think to the extent that that's happening, we can also help that happen because we can give them insight into what tools to be using, give them access to tools and things like that. That's improving their outcomes, improving satisfaction for the clients that are buying work from them, potentially driving our prices but also just getting the clients to come back to the platform again and again. So with all of that happening, I think that's a plus.

因此，我認為在這種情況下，我們也可以幫助實現這種情況，因為我們可以讓他們深入了解要使用的工具，讓他們能夠訪問工具和類似的東西。這正在改善他們的成果，提高從他們那裡購買作品的客戶的滿意度，可能會推高我們的價格，但也只會讓客戶一次又一次地回到該平台。因此，隨著所有這些發生，我認為這是一個加號。

And then the final thing I'd add on this is 85% of our GSV today actually comes from longer, complex projects and jobs on the platform. So again, I think the thing we see here is AI augmenting the work over time more so than displacing the work altogether. So we're very excited about what that's going to unlock for our customers. I think directly with talent using the tools as well as us embedding a lot of the AI functionality directly into the site, we're executing on all fronts to really take advantage of this exciting opportunity.

然後我要補充的最後一件事是，我們今天 85% 的 GSV 實際上來自平台上更長、更複雜的項目和工作。所以，我認為我們在這裡看到的是，隨著時間的推移，AI 會增加工作量，而不是完全取代工作量。因此，我們對這將為我們的客戶解鎖的內容感到非常興奮。我認為直接與使用這些工具的人才以及我們將許多人工智能功能直接嵌入到網站中，我們正在各方面執行以真正利用這個令人興奮的機會。

Our next question comes from the line of Marvin Fong of BTIG.

我們的下一個問題來自 BTIG 的 Marvin Fong。

I guess just to build on some previous questions. So a question on the take rate change or the commission fee change that, I think, is starting today. So I guess by definition, the 5% tier are your most valuable relationships since that's a $10,000 cutoff. So they'll be seeing a fee increase. And I guess just maybe drill down a bit deeper into your thought process about the trade-off of simpler, higher fee structure and the potential that some of your most valuable projects might be -- might see some pressure from your -- from the change in the fee structure.

我想只是基於之前的一些問題。因此，我認為從今天開始，關於收費率變化或佣金變化的問題。所以我想根據定義，5% 的層是你最有價值的關係，因為這是 10,000 美元的截止點。所以他們會看到費用增加。我想也許可以更深入地了解您的思考過程，了解更簡單、更高費用結構的權衡，以及您的一些最有價值的項目的潛力——可能會看到來自您的一些壓力——來自變化在費用結構中。

Marvin, the change for the folks that are already at 5% tier with their existing projects actually doesn't go into effect until the end of this year. So for those relationships and contracts, there's a really good grace period before any of that impact happens. And probably a lot of those relationships or contracts may have already rolled off or reached a natural endpoint before that time anyway. So I think that helps derisk part of what you're asking about.

Marvin，對於現有項目已經處於 5% 層級的人們的更改實際上要到今年年底才會生效。因此，對於這些關係和合同，在任何影響發生之前都有一個非常好的寬限期。並且可能很多這些關係或合同可能在那之前已經結束或達到自然終點。所以我認為這有助於消除你所問問題的一部分。

I think on the other side, we've seen a lot of data over the many years that we've kind of monitored and examined our pricing in this platform. And we approach this change with extreme care and thoughtfulness based on the data we have going back to 2016, what we had in our previous pricing, which was a flat 10% fee.

我認為另一方面，多年來我們已經看到了很多數據，我們在這個平台上進行了某種程度的監控和檢查我們的定價。根據我們可追溯到 2016 年的數據，我們以極度謹慎和深思熟慮的方式處理這一變化，我們之前的定價是 10% 的固定費用。

And based on looking at all that data and the experimentation and testing we've done to really understand the dynamics around pricing and how it drives incentives and behaviors, we did conclude that the new flat fee structure is both simpler, which has a huge benefit for customers, and also has a really positive impact in terms of reducing pricing for the vast majority of talent and relationships that actually will unlock and stimulate further client demand, which is the #1 thing that freelancers care about other than making sure that they get paid. Like those are the 2 things that people want, more jobs and making sure that they get paid for the work they're doing.

基於查看所有數據以及我們為真正了解定價動態及其如何推動激勵和行為而進行的實驗和測試，我們確實得出結論，新的固定費用結構既簡單又具有巨大的好處對客戶來說，在降低絕大多數人才和關係的定價方面也有真正積極的影響，這實際上將釋放和刺激進一步的客戶需求，這是自由職業者關心的第一件事，而不是確保他們得到有薪酬的。就像那些是人們想要的兩件事，更多的工作，並確保他們從他們所做的工作中得到報酬。

So with all of that taken together and understanding the puts and takes at a very deep level based on all the data we have from many years of looking at this, we are very confident that the onetime risk around switching that fee structure, both the 20 to 10 at the front end of relationships and the 5 to 10 for relationships that get to that $10,000 earning level, is definitely a positive change for the marketplace for the long term.

因此，根據我們多年來觀察到的所有數據，將所有這些放在一起並在非常深的層次上理解看跌期權和看跌期權，我們非常有信心改變這種費用結構的一次性風險，無論是 20在關係的前端增加到 10，對於達到 10,000 美元收入水平的關係從 5 到 10，從長遠來看，這對市場來說絕對是一個積極的變化。

Great. That makes perfect sense. And then just to build on all the questions about AI, and I imagine that this will be difficult for you to pinpoint, but you've already -- you're giving us full year guidance. Would you say that AI factored at all as a stand-alone phenomenon in your annual revenue guidance? And if so, is it a positive, negative or neutral?

偉大的。這是完全有道理的。然後只是建立在所有關於人工智能的問題上，我想這對你來說很難確定，但你已經——你給了我們全年的指導。你會說人工智能在你的年度收入指導中完全作為一個獨立的現象來考慮嗎？如果是這樣，它是積極的、消極的還是中性的？

AI did not factor into our full year guidance at all because we're not seeing any impact of that on the business. I think the benefits for sure outweigh the opportunity -- sorry, outweigh the negatives here. And so I think as we're executing through this, we're excited to take advantage of the tailwinds and the things that we're executing in the future, but we didn't factor anything specific into the guidance around that.

AI 根本沒有考慮到我們的全年指導中，因為我們沒有看到它對業務有任何影響。我認為好處肯定大於機會——抱歉，在這里大於負面影響。因此，我認為當我們執行此操作時，我們很高興能夠利用順風和我們未來正在執行的事情，但我們沒有將任何具體內容納入相關指南。

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Boone of JMP Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 JMP Securities 的 Andrew Boone。

You talked in the letter about narrowing the focus for R&D. Can you flesh that out a little bit and help us understand what on the product road map is being emphasized versus maybe being put on the back burner? And then on the Enterprise sales force, it sounds like there are significant changes going on there. Can you help us understand, as we get to the other side of that transformation, what changes about Enterprise and kind of what's your longer-term vision there?

您在信中談到縮小研發重點。你能稍微充實一下，幫助我們了解產品路線圖上的重點是什麼，而不是可能放在次要位置嗎？然後在企業銷售隊伍中，聽起來那裡正在發生重大變化。當我們到達轉型的另一端時，您能否幫助我們了解 Enterprise 的變化以及您在那裡的長期願景是什麼？

Sure. So on the R&D side, we're taking this opportunity to really hone in on -- we have a really robust product portfolio and cover the fantastic breadth of use cases for our customers across the Work Marketplace. We built that out substantially over the last 3-plus years. And now we're really just going deeper in terms of driving product quality and adoption for the products that we're serving customers with rather than going broader and adding new products to the lineup.

當然。因此，在研發方面，我們藉此機會真正磨練——我們擁有非常強大的產品組合，涵蓋了 Work Marketplace 中客戶的廣泛用例。在過去 3 年多的時間裡，我們大幅構建了它。現在，我們真的只是在推動產品質量和我們為客戶提供的產品的採用方面更深入，而不是更廣泛地向產品線添加新產品。

So that's really the opportunity for us. And as we go through that exercise over the next month and quarters and continue to go deeper and really continue to drive performance in those products, I think we will continue to evaluate other places where we can sunset feature/functionality aspects of the product portfolio to, again, continue to make sure that our resources are focused on delivering where we have the best results. So that's part 1 of what we're capturing on the R&D side.

所以這對我們來說真的是機會。當我們在接下來的一個月和幾個季度進行這項工作並繼續深入並真正繼續推動這些產品的性能時，我認為我們將繼續評估其他地方，我們可以在這些地方日落產品組合的特性/功能方面再次，繼續確保我們的資源集中在我們取得最佳成果的地方。這就是我們在研發方面捕獲的第 1 部分。

And obviously, part 2 is with all the exciting work happening around AI, which we talked about on this call, that's a big opportunity as well. And in key places, we are moving resources from less exciting areas of our product road map and portfolio into those opportunities.

顯然，第 2 部分是圍繞 AI 開展的所有激動人心的工作，我們在這次電話會議上談到了這一點，這也是一個巨大的機會。在關鍵的地方，我們正在將資源從我們產品路線圖和產品組合中不太令人興奮的領域轉移到這些機會中。

On the Enterprise side, this is -- again, this is a huge long-term opportunity for us. The sales team is really just shifting focus into the most high-value and high-performing areas of our portfolio, and we have amazing data on what that is. So it's pretty easy and evident for us to take our leaner team that we have today and redirect them to those high-performing opportunities.

在企業方面，這對我們來說是一個巨大的長期機會。銷售團隊實際上只是將注意力轉移到我們產品組合中價值最高和績效最高的領域，我們有關於那方面的驚人數據。因此，對我們來說，讓我們今天擁有的更精簡的團隊並將他們重定向到那些高性能的機會是非常容易和明顯的。

And so I think the long-term vision here is absolutely unchanged. We know we can serve larger customers, whether it's the Fortune 100, the Microsofts of the world and others, as we have always done with a really compelling best-in-class offering and continue to graduate customers who come into our self-service marketplace and start to scale up into our Enterprise offering over time.

所以我認為這裡的長期願景是絕對不變的。我們知道我們可以為更大的客戶提供服務，無論是財富 100 強、世界上的 Microsoft 還是其他公司，正如我們一直以來所做的那樣，提供真正引人注目的一流產品，並繼續吸引進入我們自助服務市場的客戶隨著時間的推移，開始擴展到我們的企業產品中。

So broadly speaking, it's not about changing the strategy or the vision. It is more about tuning some of our focus areas and the efforts of the sales team to go after the places that in this macro environment are most evident. So nothing is diminished about the opportunity. The strategy is broadly unchanged, but we are tuning the approach to be really tailored for this market.

所以從廣義上講，這與改變戰略或願景無關。更多的是調整我們的一些重點領域，以及銷售團隊努力追求在這個宏觀環境中最明顯的地方。因此，機會並沒有減少。該策略基本沒有變化，但我們正在調整方法以真正為這個市場量身定制。

Our next question comes from the line of Ron Josey of Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Ron Josey。

This is Jake on for Ron. I just wanted to touch on the full-time opportunity. Now that we're a quarter in, could you kind of give us an update on adoption reception of that offering and whether the headwinds on macro change anything in terms of pushing this offering to clients?

這是羅恩的傑克。我只是想談談全職機會。現在我們已經進入四分之一了，您能否向我們介紹一下該產品的採用接收情況以及宏觀逆風是否會在將此產品推向客戶方面改變任何事情？

Absolutely. The full-time offering continues to be something that -- as I mentioned, a key part of our product lineup that we just launched a quarter ago. So in terms of adoption reception, very positive. We see strong signals in the current marketplace that customers on both the client side and the talent side are very interested in things like contract-to-hire, which was a piece of that offering as well as intrigued that they can now use Upwork to do things like payrolling solutions from the Talent Marketplace, which historically was something only available to our Enterprise customers.

絕對地。全職產品仍然是——正如我提到的，這是我們一個季度前剛剛推出的產品系列的關鍵部分。所以在收養方面，非常積極。我們在當前市場上看到了強烈的信號，即客戶端和人才端的客戶都對合同僱傭等事情非常感興趣，這是該產品的一部分，並且對他們現在可以使用 Upwork 來做這件事很感興趣諸如人才市場的薪資解決方案之類的東西，這在歷史上僅適用於我們的企業客戶。

But I'd also note that it is only a quarter end. And so we always knew that this type of new offering would be something that would take time to socialize, to ramp, to tune, given that this is not something that most of our customers have historically expected to do with us. And so I wouldn't say that there's anything notable about macro headwinds. It's more about socializing and introducing this type of a new offering to a customer base that has been historically accustomed to getting other types of things from us. So we're very excited to continue pursuing that.

但我還要指出，這只是四分之一結束。因此，我們一直都知道，這種類型的新產品需要時間來社交、升級、調整，因為這不是我們大多數客戶歷來期望與我們一起做的事情。因此，我不會說宏觀逆風有什麼值得注意的地方。它更多的是關於社交並將這種類型的新產品介紹給歷史上習慣於從我們這裡獲得其他類型東西的客戶群。所以我們很高興能繼續追求這一點。

And the last question comes from the line of Rohit Kulkarni of ROTH.

最後一個問題來自 ROTH 的 Rohit Kulkarni。

On the revenue outlook for the rest of the year, maybe talk about like the level of visibility or the confidence that you have today versus where you were at the beginning of the year. You talked about these 3 phases and the first phase being cost cutting and freezing hiring budgets in your customers, and you're still in that phase. So given that probably there is a little bit more time for the second phase to kick in, maybe just talk about how confident do you feel about the remaining 8 to 9 months of the year as well as just the visibility that you have versus where you were at the beginning of the year.

關於今年剩餘時間的收入前景，可以談談你今天與年初相比的知名度或信心水平。你談到了這三個階段，第一階段是削減成本和凍結客戶的招聘預算，你仍然處於那個階段。因此，考慮到第二階段可能還有更多時間開始，也許只是談談您對今年剩下的 8 到 9 個月的信心，以及您的可見度與您所在的位置在年初。

Well, we're a quarter closer to the end of the year, Rohit. So I guess we have a little more visibility than we did 3 months ago. And I'd say what's changed is we definitely have a perspective now that more of our larger customers and targets are sitting still in that first phase that we talked about rather than having moved to the second or third phase. So that is more information that we didn't have previously.

好吧，我們離年底還有四分之一，Rohit。所以我想我們比 3 個月前有更多的知名度。我想說的是，現在我們肯定有一個觀點，即我們更多的大客戶和目標仍然停留在我們談到的第一階段，而不是進入第二或第三階段。所以這是我們以前沒有的更多信息。

In terms of where we see the rest of the year shaking out, I think what we removed from our guidance outlook was previous expectations that we had about our normal seasonality that we would have in the business in a non-macro impacted year where the back half of the year would be seasonally stronger due to kind of the ordinary things we see on our platform.

就我們看到今年餘下時間的情況而言，我認為我們從指導展望中刪除的是之前的預期，即我們對正常季節性的預期，即我們在不受宏觀影響的一年中對業務的預期由於我們在平台上看到的一些普通事物，一年中的一半會季節性更強。

So with our revised outlook, based on seeing more of these customers in that Phase 1 impacted by the macro environment, we now do not expect to see that normal seasonal behavior in the second half of the year. We do expect to see a step-up in the second half of the year versus the trough we're in, in Q2 because of the dynamics around the rollout of our pricing changes and the lapping effects relative to last year in -- what we'll see in Q3 and Q4. But I think that is a shift in perspective versus what we had last year.

因此，根據我們修改後的前景，基於在第一階段看到更多受宏觀環境影響的客戶，我們現在預計下半年不會出現正常的季節性行為。我們確實希望在今年下半年看到我們在第二季度所處的低谷，因為圍繞我們推出定價變化的動態以及相對於去年的重疊效應 - 我們會在第三季度和第四季度看到。但我認為，與我們去年的情況相比，這是觀點的轉變。

I'll also note, we didn't bake in a specific macro perspective about things getting worse or things getting better, but we did remove from our outlook the normal seasonality improvement that we would see absent what we're now seeing in the macro.

我還要指出，我們並沒有從特定的宏觀角度看待事情變得更糟或事情變得更好，但我們確實從我們的前景中刪除了正常的季節性改善，我們會看到我們現在在宏觀中看到的缺失.

Okay. That's helpful. And then a question on AI. I guess there is this growing debate that structurally, AI is going to drive more efficiency, and the first leg of efficiency would come into most of the tech companies that would be early adopters of those AI tools internally and just to drive better discipline. So maybe talk about your thoughts on that. Do you feel structurally speaking, a year or 2 years from now, Upwork could be a much more profitable company if you are adopting AI internally? Is there -- just broadly, not specifically to Upwork, where do you think about applying AI for internal productivity gains, not just for your customers?

好的。這很有幫助。然後是關於 AI 的問題。我猜有越來越多的爭論認為，從結構上講，人工智能將提高效率，而效率的第一站將進入大多數科技公司，這些公司將在內部成為這些人工智能工具的早期採用者，只是為了推動更好的紀律。所以也許談談你對此的看法。從結構上講，從現在開始一年或兩年後，如果您在內部採用人工智能，Upwork 可能會成為一家利潤更高的公司嗎？有沒有 - 只是廣泛地，而不是專門針對 Upwork，你認為在哪裡應用人工智能來提高內部生產力，而不僅僅是為了你的客戶？

This is a huge opportunity for us and every tech company. And certainly, we've been testing these new tools as well because I think the productivity gains are very real. And so I can't tell you how that will translate exactly into profitability outlook 1 or 2 years out, but I think it's the responsibility of me and every CEO who has engineers in their business to be really pushing on how we can use these tools to improve efficiency and also to improve developer satisfaction. I mean I can tell you that as our engineers try out these tools, [it unleashed] extremely exciting conversations and, frankly, unlocked their skills and expertise to be doing other things that they're really excited about kind of layering on in their work.

這對我們和每家科技公司來說都是一個巨大的機會。當然，我們也一直在測試這些新工具，因為我認為生產力的提高是非常真實的。所以我無法告訴你這將如何準確地轉化為 1 或 2 年後的盈利前景，但我認為我和每一位在其業務中擁有工程師的首席執行官都有責任真正推動我們如何使用這些工具以提高效率並提高開發人員的滿意度。我的意思是我可以告訴你，當我們的工程師試用這些工具時，[它引發了] 非常激動人心的對話，並且坦率地說，釋放了他們的技能和專業知識，可以做其他他們真的很興奮的事情，在他們的工作中分層.

So I think there's going to be big questions about as our teams get more productive, what then do you do with the resources that you're freeing up. And so I think those are questions that all of us will navigate as we move forward. But again, AI is a huge opportunity, and we're really excited to be taking advantage of it.

因此，我認為隨著我們的團隊變得更有效率，將會出現很大的問題，然後您將如何使用您釋放的資源。因此，我認為這些是我們所有人在前進過程中都會遇到的問題。但同樣，人工智能是一個巨大的機會，我們很高興能利用它。

Thank you. That does conclude the call. I can turn the call back over to Evan Barbosa for any closing remarks.

謝謝。這確實結束了通話。我可以將電話轉回 Evan Barbosa 以獲得任何結束語。

Thank you. On behalf of the entire Upwork team, thank you for joining us today, and thank you for your interest in Upwork. If you need any clarifications or have any follow-up questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at investor@upwork.com. This concludes our call.

謝謝。我代表整個 Upwork 團隊，感謝您今天加入我們，感謝您對 Upwork 的關注。如果您需要任何說明或有任何後續問題，請隨時通過 investor@upwork.com 與我聯繫。我們的通話到此結束。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

謝謝。女士們，先生們，今天的會議到此結束。謝謝大家的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。祝你有美好的一天。