Artificial intelligence software developer C3.ai (AI) released its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, surpassing expectations on both revenue and profit. However, despite the positive results, the company experienced a significant drop of over 12% in its stock price after hours.
C3.ai projected its first-quarter revenue to range between $70 million and $72.5 million, slightly exceeding Wall Street's estimate of $72.1 million. However, when it came to the full-year revenue outlook for fiscal year 2024, C3.ai fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Analysts anticipated revenues closer to $321 million, while C3.ai's projection ranged from $295 million to $320 million.
The market's response was particularly critical of C3.ai due to the recent strong performance and raised forecasts by other AI companies like Nvidia (NVDA) and Marvell Technology (MRVL), which experienced increased demand. Despite C3.ai's reassurances and the company's significant presence in the enterprise AI market for over a decade, investors remained unimpressed with its outlook.
Artificial intelligence has become the hottest trend on Wall Street, with companies such as Nvidia, Marvell, Microsoft, and Google riding the wave of hype that started with the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022. While Nvidia's stock has risen by 162% since the beginning of 2023, C3.ai has seen an impressive surge of 252% in its stock price.
C3.ai specializes in developing enterprise AI software utilized across various industries, including transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing. Recently, the company announced the availability of its C3 Generative AI product through Amazon's AWS marketplace, in addition to its existing availability on Google's Cloud Marketplace. Unlike generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, C3.ai's offering is specifically tailored for enterprise environments. It enables users to access corporate data using a natural language interface while preventing accidental information sharing with external entities.
inputs from / Google Tradingview
