Conference Transcript - DCBO 2025-05-09

Operator

Welcome to the Docebo Q1 2025 earnings call. All participants are currently in a listen-only mode. We will open the lines for a question and answer session momentarily. Analysts can ask questions by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We ask that analysts please limit themselves to two questions and return to the queue for any follow-ups. I'd now like to turn the call over to Docebo's Vice President of Investor Relations, Mike Please go ahead, Mike.

Michael McCarthy, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Julianne. Earlier this morning, Docebo issued its Q1 2025 results. The press release, which included a link to management's prepared remarks on our quarterly investor slide deck, were all posted to our investor relations website. This morning's call will allow participants to ask questions about our results and the written commentary that has been in the morning's Q&A. Docebo would like to remind listeners that certain information discussed may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking information reflects the company's current views with respect to future events. Any such information is subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to forward-looking statements, please refer to Docebo's public filings, which are available on both CEDAR and Edgar. During the call, we will reference certain non-IFRS financial measures. Although we believe these measures provide useful performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under IFRS. Please see our MD&A for additional information regarding our non-IFRS financial measures, including reconciliations to the nearest IFRS measures. Please note that, unless otherwise stated, all references are in U.S. dollars. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dorcebo CEO, Alessio Artupo, and our CFO, Brandon Farber. Gentlemen.

Operator

As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We ask the analysts to please limit themselves to two questions and return to the queue for any follow-ups. Our first question comes from Suthan Sukumar from Sifal. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Suthan Sukumar, Analyst — Sifal

Good morning, gents. For my first question, I wanted to touch on the leadership transitions that were announced alongside the results with the departure of the CRO and CPO roles. These are obviously key roles. You know, are these related to execution or performance issues? And what stage are you at in replacing the CRO role? Would appreciate any color there.

Claudio Erba, CEO

Absolutely. Hi, Celestia speaking. Fair question. And, you know, one that I'd like to address head on. So first, you know, for perspective, when you take a step back, Decebo, over the past five years, has grown from roughly 74 million in ARR to currently 225, right? Now, when I stepped into the CEO role, one of the first things that I thought about was taking a close look at what kind of leadership we need for Decebo's next phase of growth. So a few thoughts. First, in general, we're not the same company that we were three or five years ago. The scale that we operate at today with more enterprise customers and more global footprint, it just requires a leadership team that is aligned with that future state. Second, some changes were just natural evolutions. You know, leaders moving on after building an incredible foundation. That's Fabio's example. Our CPO. Others were intentional decisions to bring in fresh expertise where I believe we needed it. And on all of those, we've been very thoughtful and proactive and not reactive in those changes. I'd like to also point to the strength of the talent that we've attracted recently. In the past 12 months, we've added very strong, proven leaders with track records in scaling agro staff businesses. And that kind of bench strength isn't a stand of instability. It's more like a focus on ambition and momentum. And finally, what really matters the most to me is preserving what makes the chevo special, which is our culture, our agility, and a team that is customer-obsessed while upgrading our ability to execute. As far as CRO search, I will say that we're well underway, and I'm very pleased with the process that we're running.

Suthan Sukumar, Analyst — Sifal

Thank you, Lensfield. For my second question, I'd like to touch on AWS. I appreciate the caller in the prepared remarks on the loss of the skills builder use case. and continued work on internal use cases for AWS. Can you speak a little bit about how the relationship overall with AWS is now given this change, and do you see increased risk here of potentially losing AWS altogether?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Yes, so a couple of thoughts on this one. The first one is relative to the relationship, it is excellent, it is collaborative, and we're preserving a very, very close relationship with the Amazon AWS team. Amazon, overall, remains a very important customer for the Chebu, and as such, you know, we're very pleased with that. Relative to Amazon AWS and their journey with us, as a reminder, this is a customer that stayed with us for their entire contract term, and that means five years, roughly. During that time, I think it's important to underscore that we've helped to unlock a massive business. If you think about it, alone in 2025, they've activated close to 10 million users, 10 million learners in the platform and are well underway to train 29 million users, which was their goal. The decision that, you know, AWS team made, although, you know, certainly regrettable from our standpoint, no doubt about that, is that because the business has become so mission critical for them and because they have such a fundamental belief in building internally, you know, with the recent change in leadership, they opted for a build versus, you know, use a commercial product. And so they didn't take the perspective of going for another commercial product. That would have been very concerning, but that was not the intent. The intent was to just have a freedom of executing anything they wanted all around the learner experience, and the way they wanted to achieve it was by building their own technologies. You know, they certainly have the firepower. They're one of the biggest companies in the world, engineering-wise, to do so. I think, in a way, you know, I'm proud of the fact that we've given them a lot of input on how to do it because for five years they've consumed their product, and they probably, you know, it was a catalyst for idea for them. But we maintain a fantastic relationship, and we'll do our best to transition them in the best way. And, again, Amazon remains a great customer, a partner of ours. on a number of different fronts, and we continue securing, and we believe you're super well-suited to win large enterprises in the technology space thanks to this great experience.

Suthan Sukumar, Analyst — Sifal

Thank you, Alessio. I'll pass the line.

Operator

Our next question comes from Robert Young from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. The line is open.

Robert Young, Analyst — Canaccord Genuity

Just maybe a question on the full-year guide reduction. I think in the prepared comments you highlighted that it's due to macro expectations as opposed to anything that's happening right now. Maybe we could just revisit churn. Is there churn in the quarter? Is there an increase in churn? And then maybe if you could just broaden the explanation for the decision to reduce the full year guide at this point.

Brandon Farber, CFO

Hey, Rob. It's Brandon speaking. So, you know, Q1 perspective. From a Q2 perspective, our revenues are actually coming in right in line with where. So when you really look at it, we're taking a more measured approach where we're reducing our new logo growth assumption while we're holding our expansion and retention impact the same. You know, from a PS perspective, when we look at the two different revenue streams, our professional service is mainly onboarding of new customers. So that will have a more meaningful impact in the given year. We previously guided that it would be roughly flat year over year. We now expect professional services will be down year-over-year. And, you know, really the main message is we're reacting appropriately to the macro that we're seeing. We came into the year with roughly one-third of our pipeline that was more geared towards macro-sensitive end markets that are particularly being impacted by tariffs, in particular retail, manufacturing, and automotive. and we want to make sure that we're just taking a measured approach and we react accordingly.

Robert Young, Analyst — Canaccord Genuity

Okay, that's good. Okay, so my second question would be around your large customer pipeline. Last quarter, I think you said that customer account over 100,000 grew 18%, and then the numbers you provided this quarter looks like that's up 15% to 16%. So that seems like it's slowing. is maybe if you could revisit the large customer pipeline, is it overrepresented in those end markets that you just highlighted? Maybe just talk about the customer metrics you've shared this quarter and why the growth has decelerated. Then I'll pass the line.

Brandon Farber, CFO

From an enterprise perspective, our pipeline still remains healthy. I would say we did see a bit of deal elongation in the enterprise space. Previously, we've communicated for probably the past four to six quarters that deal scrutiny, deal elongation was roughly stable. We did see that change just a little bit this quarter, but nothing really significant to call out. Even at Docebo, it's typically been more weighted towards the enterprise buyer cycle, buy more software near the end of the budget cycle. So we do expect a lot of that. You know, when you look at our new ACV growth, we still have a solid pace.

Robert Young, Analyst — Canaccord Genuity

And the end markets you highlighted, is the pipeline overrepresented there, or is it, you know, still broadly well-diversified?

Brandon Farber, CFO

It's probably well-diversified. Like, if you look at our ARR by industry, you know, we perform very well in these end markets. You know, historically, manufacturing, retail, and auto are, you know, well-representative, high wind rates, you know, great customer of ours. So, you know, while it is one-third, I don't think that's over-representative compared to historical. Okay.

Robert Young, Analyst — Canaccord Genuity

I'll pass the line.

Operator

Our next question comes from George Sutton from Craig Hallam Capital Group. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

George Sutton, Analyst — Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Thank you. Alessio, I have kind of a DNA question. So as we look at the expected growth for the full year, 9% to 10%, we start to bring in to bear a single-digit growth company. And I don't feel like you're building a single-digit growth company. Can you just talk about that relative to your expectations longer term?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Hey, George. Thank you for the question. And, you know, my background of a CRO and now CEO brings me to say that I agree with you. We are very focused. We remain extremely focused on growth. And, you know, while the guide may not reflect that statement, it takes into consideration the current market that, as Brandon very well explained, has dynamics that are very much outside of our control. And so we take a prudent approach in that regard. But let me touch some points that perhaps give some perspective as how I think about our growth labors. Number one, I believe Docebo is going through a journey of improvement in the product at a pace that is very sustained. We've been adding capabilities, particularly focusing on AI enablement. and really transforming the LMS in what today is a true AI enterprise learning platform. The goal is to offer an end-to-end solution that comprises not only of a place where people store content and deliver content, but where our customers are able to do end-to-end life cycle of content creation through content delivery, as well as coaching on the platform. I believe that these added capabilities will bolster our growth in the future, and I'm really excited about it. I think when I then think even further and think about our future on the agentic side, for example, there's even more room to be optimistic. At Inspire, Rob, we've announced our major initiative called Project Harmony. And I believe that identification and agents will be a crucial component in our story in the future. And very much, very much excited about that. So, in short, answer to your question is, yes, we are very focused on building and remaining a balanced growth story and very much executing towards that.

George Sutton, Analyst — Craig-Hallum Capital Group

So, I'm with you on Agents with AI. I'm very excited about the opportunity. Here's the challenge that I wanted to understand. It's going to change workflows pretty meaningfully. That could clearly affect the chief learning officer and really strengthen their position within an organization. So I'm wondering, will Agentec AI come through the chief learning officer, or will it be someone else in the organization that gets tasked with that opportunity?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Well, the beauty of our business, George, is we are not only multi-industry, as you know, and very horizontal, we're also multi-use case. When I think about the ARR of the company and I split it across multiple use cases, it's very well differentiated. Historically, the chief learning officer has taken a more internal role in companies. Lately, we're seeing a convergence where the CLO becomes more of a chief transformation officer and taps into external learning as well. Now, this doesn't happen everywhere. So I expect the agentification, the automation, to come from different places and not just from one single unit. We will see it from the office of the chief marketing officer, from the office of the chief revenue officer, and, of course, from the office of the CIO. These stakeholders are already involved with the Cievo. They're already talking to us. And in particular, phase two of our agentic solution, the one that will build workflows and connectors between the Cievo and third-party platforms, say HCMs and others, you know, it's going to be very much a diverse audience that will be reaping the benefits of it. So we're not designing this just for one use case, but loyal to our current strategy for multiple use cases.

George Sutton, Analyst — Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ryan McDonald from Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matt Sheehan, Analyst — Needham & Company

Hey, good morning, guys. This is Matt Sheehan for Ryan. Thanks for taking the questions. Considering the guidance update and looking at sales and marketing expenses, I guess, given the macro is creating a tighter budget environment with elongated sales cycles and fewer purchasing decisions, why not ramp EBITDA margins in the near term? How are you thinking about the right balance of having capacity to capture share when the market reopens versus ramping margins when market demand is weaker?

Brandon Farber, CFO

Hey, Matt. So the way we're thinking about EBITDA is you'll notice based off of our guide is that there's going to be a fairly big step function change from Q2 to Q3 and even to Q4 where EBITDA margins. How we're thinking about investments in sales and marketing and more broadly is, you know, we have two big investment opportunities right now and we want to make sure that we're still investing in those. Number one is the government's go-to-market motion. We just received ATO status, and we're seeing strong demand, strong pipeline, and we want to make sure that we're investing and unlocking those investment dollars across the whole go-to-market motion from a government perspective in order to capture that market. Secondly, but probably more importantly, is on product. You know, we just unveiled last month a roadmap that requires more headcounts and also different skill sets than we used to hire from our product of yesterday. So from an investment perspective, we're really thinking about these two levers, and then across the remaining area of the business, we're pulling on efficiencies not only from an AI perspective, but we're just also looking at the overall demand perspective and make sure we're hiring in the right places.

Matt Sheehan, Analyst — Needham & Company

That's helpful. Maybe sticking with the selling environment, 65% of new customers partnered with Docebo had two or more use cases this quarter, down slightly from 70% last I guess anything to call out there, and I assume this is still up on a year-over-year basis, but maybe it'd be good to get your thinking around the metric and how you expect it to trend in 2025. Is 65% to 70% the right level, or could it maybe move lower given the macro, and then maybe be good to just get a refresh on how you're incentivizing the sales force to drive more of those multi-use case deals given the

Brandon Farber, CFO

So the way we look at it is, you know, we certainly see higher retention metrics with the more use cases customers have. At the same time, when we look at, you know, it's not uncommon for them to come to Nochevo with one use case. and then we expand those and focus on landing eight different use cases, land a customer. We want to onboard them correctly. We want to support them correctly. And we want to expand across the org, multiple different departments, multiple different use cases, and over time make sure they become stickier.

Operator

Our next question comes from Josh Baer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Josh Baer, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

Thanks for the question. I was just hoping you could come back to some of the assumptions embedded in guidance and really wanted to focus on the retention piece, which sounds like the prudence is more on the new logo side. Just wondering if you could expand on what those retention assumptions are. No, like that's not an area where you're putting in, you know, assuming that they declined. Just thinking through past times of budget scrutiny, think that we have seen retention decline. And so what are the assumptions and why, you know, maintain that?

Brandon Farber, CFO

From a Q1 perspective on retention, we performed exactly as we expected. So last quarter, we mentioned that Q1 would be the highest that Docebo has ever had. And just to put that in perspective, it was a 75% increase in contracts up for renewal in Q1 of 2025. The next quarter, we're actually seeing a fairly clear path perspective when we look at the overall macro environment. We're not seeing a big impact.

Josh Baer, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

On the AWS news, so saying that that's not going to really impact 25, does that come into play in 2026, or what's the timing of that?

Brandon Farber, CFO

They provided their intention to not renew as of December 35, and, you know, just to give you guys a little bit more color, AWS was roughly 1.8% of our total ARR, which, you know, when you think about a top-10 customer concentration perspective, support them through this migration. The chance of this takes longer than expected in this business

Operator

as if it's going to go away in December. The question comes from Stephanie Price from CIBC.

Stephanie Price, Analyst — CIBC

Please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi, good morning. I just wanted to follow up on AWS as well. So Amazon uses DeCebo for three other use cases. Just curious if you could give us how much of the ARR Amazon is in total, you know, and wondering when these three other Amazon when contracts expire, and if they could move to an internally built AWS solution?

Brandon Farber, CFO

The other use cases is, so we're in three different departments within Amazon, and there are smaller use cases that, you know, let's call them roughly six figures each, low six figures each. We do not believe that they'll move to internally developed solutions just because if they were, they're, you know, overall an intruder.

Stephanie Price, Analyst — CIBC

Okay. Okay. That's a good caller. And Brandon, maybe you could provide an update on capital allocation priorities as well. You were active on the NTIB in the quarter and announced the renewal and also a new credit facility. How are you thinking about balancing shareholder returns

Brandon Farber, CFO

and potential M&A here? Yeah. And just, you know, overall in the credit facility, you know, we're entering into this credit facility from a position of strength. We have $90 million of cash on the balance sheet. We just generated $9 million of free cash flow during the quarter. We repurchased $9 million of shares in the open market during the quarter. So, you know, we're always going to look at our three prongs of cash deployment, which is investing back in the business, buying back shares in companies from an M&A perspective. And this credit facility allows us to operate in those three levers at the same time if

Operator

the opportunity exists. Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Tsai from National Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Richard Tsai, Analyst — National Bank

Yes, thank you. So beyond the management changes you were talking about earlier, are there any things you need to do from an operating perspective to kind of get your execution with large enterprise to the level it's been in the past for sort of prior smaller cohort? So as an example, do you need to lean in more heavily on in SI partnerships or anything like that?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Hi Richard, your reference to partners is a very good one. We are in fact leaning heavily in leveraging the relationships with SI partners, namely we're working very closely with Accenture and Deloitte and many others to strengthen our position in the enterprise space. and these efforts are paying off. Additionally, I mentioned that Amazon AWS is a partner. We've recently become a part of their certified program and are seeing a great success in leveraging AWS as a partner with enterprises buying Docebo through Amazon AWS as a channel. In general, I would say our goal in the coming months is to strengthen overall principles such as discipline in forecasting, in the overall execution, and I believe we're doing a great job in that regard. But as I spend more time with the revenue organization these days, and I become very, very involved in it, I'm really focused on, again, strengthening our capabilities so that we set up our incoming CRO for success.

Richard Tsai, Analyst — National Bank

Great, thanks. And my second question is, you know, with respect to the departure of your CPO, So should we read anything into it in that your product portfolio is sort of still in need of some changes, sort of the timing given that you're making this hard pivot to enterprise, you've released a bunch of products, and then you announce a departure? How should we sort of read that?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Well, yes, I can give some color. So first, this is not a reaction or a sudden departure. It's part of a well-sort-out succession planning. About 10 months ago, we brought on board a very capable leader in Mr. Stigieri as our SVPO product, and Andrea since has taken over our product management organization and is doing a great job at that. But him and our Vice President of Artificial Intelligence have been really, really instrumental at accelerating our product, especially on the AI front. Relative to Fabio's departure, it was, you know, again, part of the succession planning and Ricardo La Rosa joining us as Chief Technology Officer brings the characteristics of the leader we were looking for in terms of engineering that. And our goal really is to strengthen our overall organization and make it an AI-first organization, not just on the product offering side, but in the backbone and in the core of the product. And so this is all a cohesive plan towards that.

Operator

Our next question will come from Kevin Krishnaratny from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Kevin Krishnaratne, Analyst — Deutsche Bank

Hey there. Good morning. Just first a question maybe for Brandon on the SMB base. Can you remind us how big that business is? I think it's historically been around 25% of your ARR. Sort of what are you seeing there? What gives you the confidence, you know, in the coming quarters that you won't be impacted by macro uncertainty? You know, SMBs are quite sensitive. Is that mainly because the majority of those renewals happen in Q1? Or, you know, just give us your view on the confidence of that SMB business not falling off, you know, at a faster pace.

Claudio Erba, CEO

Yeah, guys, I think Brandon and Mike got kicked out of the call and are currently in the process of dialing in, so no problem at all, I will answer the question. So relative to SMB, the figures you've shared are accurate, and in terms of the retention trend, we don't see any reason why we believe this is going to accelerate in any way. Now, with regards to our strategy, we've been very clear we're building on a position of strength with our mid-market business and enterprise. And the reason is very simple. The capabilities that we're building suit a complexity that is more appropriate of companies that have more complex use cases, more use cases. And as a result, over time, we will see SMBs, you know, probably dilute. But, you know, we have many SMBs that are very happy customers, and we maintain them as such. And I don't have any information that makes me believe that, let's say, loss of SMB customers should accelerate at this point.

Kevin Krishnaratne, Analyst — Deutsche Bank

Got it. Okay, thanks, Alessio. Maybe just a small question here. In the script, you know, you talked about instances where procurement teams are tapping the brakes and, you know, bringing deals to sign off. And a majority of that is from macro, you used the word majority. So I'm wondering, what else are you seeing outside of macro? Is there anything on competition? Is it, you know, decisions on, you know, products with an AI flavor taking a bit longer? Just anything else that you're seeing there that might be impacting sort of the tapping of the brakes?

Claudio Erba, CEO

Yeah, for sure. So macro plays a very significant role in all of this. Decisional scrutiny is not a new factor in this environment, but certainly some industries, as described before, have taken a prudent position again in light of the, frankly, daily uncertainty that many have been subject to. I think another element that plays into this, and I believe it's a very temporary element that will resolve itself from a maturity curve standpoint, is the one of the AI readiness, not so much of us on the selling part, but of the buyers themselves. What we see is that while the businesses, meaning the people that want the products, are very AI first, the procurement officers the GRC teams the risk teams are not always aligned already if you will with this posture and so there is sometimes a disconnect in the buying journey between what the customers are looking for and what the legal ramifications of the house are ready to embrace and so it's a lot of education It's a lot of, you know, working through tests with legal teams, with IT teams, with risk teams. And, frankly, as we continue to do this, we become better and better and better. And, frankly, we see this also on the flip side. As we buy ourselves AI technologies at the table, we experience this with our legal team, really looking into how to best ask the right questions to these providers. I believe it's part of a natural cycle that will resolve itself, and does remind me a little bit of the era of on-prem to cloud when procurement teams were very, let's say, not ready at first to embrace SaaS providers, and then it became the de facto standard.

Kevin Krishnaratne, Analyst — Deutsche Bank

Gotcha. Thanks, Alessia.

Operator

Our next question comes from Gavin Fairweather from Cormark. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Gavin Fairweather, Analyst — Cormark

Oh, hey, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just on the Gov side with ATO completed and Doge seeming to calm down a little bit. Curious if you're seeing any change in the pace of sales processes, and maybe you can just discuss your expectations for the flow of RFPs over the next year.

Brandon Farber, CFO

Hey, Gavin. So just as a reminder, you know, please zoom out on the FedRAMP opportunity just for a second. So, you know, a couple of weeks ago, we announced we received authority to operate, which is ATO status. And what that means for us is that essentially it unlocked the opportunity to bid and win contracts as if we're fully authorized. You know, since the introduction of Doge, we've actually seen a step function change where the FedRAMP PMO office is moving faster. So if you look at our previously communicated timeline, we expected to receive ATO status at the end of Q3. and we received it well in advance of where we expected. Full authorization usually takes, or previously took, six to 12 months after ATO, and now we expect to get that closer to the six-month mark, if not sooner. There was also some positive news where the White House last week, or roughly last month in April, put out an executive order where they're essentially telling the federal departments to favor off-the-shelf SaaS solutions over on-prem. That's definitely all playing in our favor. The pipeline growth since we received ATO, we've been surprised by. We're building the pipe. We even have an expansion opportunity with our sponsoring agency. We're going to be very excited about that.

Gavin Fairweather, Analyst — Cormark

That's very helpful. And then just my second question, just on CAC paybacks, they've been impacted by the renewal cycle that you're moving through. But I'm curious how those are trending on a gross bookings basis, if you could discuss that. And then secondly, how do you think about a target CAC payback for this business in more of a kind of normal environment, given your shift off market and the building partner network?

Brandon Farber, CFO

A CAC perspective on a new logo perspective, it's certainly not where we want it to be. You know, we realize we're never going to get back to the CAC levels. We were during the COVID era where there was some natural efficiencies in our operating model. At the same time, we think where we are now versus where we used to be, somewhere in the middle of that is the right target operating model. Now, we're doing a lot of things to become more efficient. We are now fully staffed from an enterprise perspective. We're investing in Gov and expect that to pay off in 2026. And, you know, we're really focused on pipeline conversion, improvement, and win rates. And as, you know, we take a deeper look into our go-to-market, we see a lot of opportunities for continuing efficiency and continuing improvement from CAC.

Stephanie Price, Analyst — CIBC

Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Yifu Lee from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yifu Lee, Analyst — Cantor Fitzgerald

Thank you for taking my question. And good morning, Alexio and Brandon. So a couple questions for Alexio first. Like, kicking off from the Inspire event, obviously well-attended. Attendance on the prospect is 3x higher. I was wondering if you could give us some of the feedbacks you received from the event. And how is the pipeline building process on that, Alexio, you know, in terms of, you know, having the pipeline built and converting throughout the year? And then the second piece of my question is on the product side, Alexia. I mean, you spoke pretty bullish on the Atlantic Automation Harmony co-pilot. I was wondering, you know, obviously, you know, it's in the early phase. When will this opportunity, you know, be more monetizable, like be more material? And then I have a follow-up with Brenda on the financial side, Alexia.

Claudio Erba, CEO

So great question. Let me start with the experience of the Docebo Inspire, which you attended and were able to witness the infectious energy around the conference. First, you know, let me say one thing about this conference. It started historically as a Docebo customer conference, and it's becoming an industry conference, de facto standard. I myself have had customers, but as you pointed correctly, prospects, which have increased very materially year over year and, you know, certainly serving as a lead generation and sales acceleration platform for us, but also industry experts and analysts. We had in the room some of the most recognized industry experts in the field. So we take a lot of pride in building not just a conference, but an incredible experience. During Inspire, as you said well, we've announced and committed beyond announce, because if one can announce things and not put a date to it, for each and every single thing that we spoke about, we were bullish in saying whether it's live already or very shortly live, meaning a week or a month, or for the medium term. So customers have really appreciated that. Some of the feedback that has been the most enthusiastic, frankly, has varied. It has varied across a few categories. The one that continues to be an area of real interest from customers is relative to the Chebo Creator. Creator, I think, is a very symbolic example of our renewed AI-first vision, because it's not just simply about creating the content which one could superficially attribute to it. It goes well beyond it. You know, Creator is a real creator of learning experiences. You can go in Creator now and create videos from simple text. You can convert text into fully narrated podcasts. You can do things that were inimaginable just a year ago. And customers are really, you know, pleased not only with those capabilities, but also with the fact that we've made a strategic and frankly bold decision to include creators for every customer. And we've done it on the basis of a belief that if we have customers happy and creating content within our platform and not having to leave the platform to create content, we have not only happier customers, but also stickier customers. The second wow at the conference was relative to our UX plan. Let's face it, the Chebos UX, because we have such an enterprise depth, has become complex on the administrative side. And we ourselves know that when that happens, administrators get overwhelmed. So we've announced a deeper work of our administrative features, and the customers are really, really happy about that. It shows in our MPS scores, and it shows in all the feedback we've been given. And finally, just because otherwise they take a lot of time, you know, this is a question that I'm very passionate about, agents and agentic and monetization. So in the summer, we are launching our first agent in platform to improve platform operation. They will take care of automating and enabling capabilities as administrators sleep. My goal over time, this is a journey, it's not a sprint, is that Achebo becomes a manageable platform that allows agents to do the work and creative people to be creative and not waste their time spending endless amount of hours enrolling users into courses. We will enable automation in all of this. From a monetization standpoint, my focus is building the best learning platform out there. Monetization is absolutely important, and it's not a second thought. However, our priority is shipping a product that makes people happy. Monetization will come. We're introducing a credit-based system already for the first time in our history on the AI video presenter capability. So we're starting to introduce where logical and where aligned with the way buyers buy, some consumption form. But, you know, again, agents are something that first we need to ship. We need to prove that they solve customer problems and they really have ROI for our customers. At that point, when value meets business processes and it's in the end of customers, monetization

Yifu Lee, Analyst — Cantor Fitzgerald

will be very simple. Got it. Got it. Thanks for that, Alexa. Very extremely appreciate a really comprehensive answer. And then Brendan, on the financial side, I just understood you do this, some of the guidance for, you know, 2025. I was wondering how much conservatism have you placed on, you know, this revision, you know, considering, you know, we have the headwinds, the renewal headwinds, 1Q, has that been ended? We have the AWS headwind, and then on the flip side, the upside, you have the FedRAMP. It sounds like it takes 69 months, but you envision on the lower end side, six months, So, we presume by, like, September, maybe, you know, you get FedRAMP certified, and I I assume that you're building a pipeline. When will that show the upside from the FedRAMP as well to offset that? So basically, your conservatism on the guidance. Thomas, on that.

Brandon Farber, CFO

It's a more measured approach. Some of the items you just mentioned are not factored into our guide. We certainly do not have a material in 2025, so if that does materialize, that will be upside. We do guide in a way where we do not receive certain large deals, which I'm talking about deals over a million air are closed in the given year. This is a measured approach and, you know, with upside potential with the items I discussed.

Yifu Lee, Analyst — Cantor Fitzgerald

Thanks for that, Brendan, and thanks for that, Alessio.

Claudio Erba, CEO

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Alessio Artufo for closing remarks.

Claudio Erba, CEO

The excitement at the placebo is at a peak. We're not just improving the LMS. We are imagining the future of learning with an AI-first learning platform that aims at solving real-life business problems and, again, giving back the time and the power to learning professionals. The team at Acebo is super excited. Our customers are thrilled about the innovation we're rapidly bringing to the market. We appreciate your time, and we look forward to the next call, and thank you very much.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thanks for your participation. You may now disconnect.