WEBVTT - UiPath Sees Continued Strength as AI Tools Sharpen 

0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:09.800
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg

0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:14.720
<v Speaker 1>Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.560
<v Speaker 2>For RBC Capital Markets among the analysts that raised its

0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.400
<v Speaker 2>price target on UiPath following recent earnings. In one note

0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.320
<v Speaker 2>from RBC, they said the company is set to continue

0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:29.520
<v Speaker 2>recent trends like new netnew annual recurring revenue also known

0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.760
<v Speaker 2>as NNAARR for those keeping track. They also cited stabilization

0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.360
<v Speaker 2>and improved profitability despite debate around its role in an

0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.680
<v Speaker 2>increasingly edgentic automation world. That is something we're going to

0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.000
<v Speaker 2>dig into with our next guest.

0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.440
<v Speaker 1>We got Ashim Gufto with us CFO and COEO of

0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.680
<v Speaker 1>the nine point four billion dollar market cap company. UiPath

0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:49.879
<v Speaker 1>shares up close to forty percent so far this year.

0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.599
<v Speaker 1>Twelve percent of the float is shorted. Also with us

0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.040
<v Speaker 1>here in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Studio. Nina Trappman, Bloomberg News

0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.880
<v Speaker 1>senior editor. She writes the CFO Briefing newsletter. You should

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.840
<v Speaker 1>subscribe to it at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Briefing.

0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.720
<v Speaker 1>Ashe I'm good to have you on the program. An

0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.880
<v Speaker 1>application software company robotics automation software. Remind everybody and introduce

0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.200
<v Speaker 1>people who don't know exactly where you play in the industry.

0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.520
<v Speaker 1>Who are your customers and where do you fit?

0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, thanks so much for having me. For those who

0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.400
<v Speaker 3>don't know UiPath. UiPath is an AI powered platform that

0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:30.800
<v Speaker 3>helps businesses and enterprises transform their enterprise processes and organizations

0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.360
<v Speaker 3>to yield productivity and ROLI. We do so by emulating

0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:40.280
<v Speaker 3>what humans do through both deterministic rules based automation and

0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.240
<v Speaker 3>agentic automation, using agents and AI to automate a lot

0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.400
<v Speaker 3>of those tasks. You know, we own more than half

0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.840
<v Speaker 3>of the Fortune five hundred companies in the world. We

0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:55.320
<v Speaker 3>have ten thousand, eight hundred customers that span industries from

0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.520
<v Speaker 3>financial services to healthcare to the US federal government, and

0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.279
<v Speaker 3>we opt in overall over one hundred countries. The reason

0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.960
<v Speaker 3>for that breath is because we are very relevant to

0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.200
<v Speaker 3>what every enterprise of almost any scale does in terms

0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.760
<v Speaker 3>of taking away mundane work to yield for a more

0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:13.840
<v Speaker 3>productive workforce.

0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.639
<v Speaker 2>So wait, so do me a favor just because I'm

0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.040
<v Speaker 2>stupid and it's Friday, so tell me give me. I'm okay,

0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.799
<v Speaker 2>I'm really okay with it. Give me just in thirty

0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.000
<v Speaker 2>seconds a quick example of a company that you work

0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:26.040
<v Speaker 2>with and what you do for them.

0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so Carol Voya Financial. Just as an example, is

0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.800
<v Speaker 3>a large scale bank in the in the in the

0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.200
<v Speaker 3>United States. We're working with them to automate their everything

0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:43.160
<v Speaker 3>from HR operations such as employee onboarding to financial processes.

0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.720
<v Speaker 3>If you step back and look at almost any any

0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.680
<v Speaker 3>enterprise that's there, think about something as mundane is procured

0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.520
<v Speaker 3>to pay, where you're receiving invoices, entering them into systems,

0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:59.120
<v Speaker 3>then moving that data that you're entering into systems, doing reconciliations.

0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.079
<v Speaker 3>That work can be done by software and does not

0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.440
<v Speaker 3>need to be done by for the hours that people

0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.200
<v Speaker 3>are putting into it. You take something like that as

0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.440
<v Speaker 3>a simple example. But then you can go and you

0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.639
<v Speaker 3>look at a Fortune ten healthcare company that we work with.

0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.160
<v Speaker 3>All of their claims processing gets touched by our software,

0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.560
<v Speaker 3>entering data, analyzing and understanding data and with a gentic

0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.880
<v Speaker 3>providing reasoning to allow for decisions to be made. Those

0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.120
<v Speaker 3>are two examples.

0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.840
<v Speaker 4>Just wondering actume in your finance organization, are you using

0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:35.480
<v Speaker 4>it there too?

0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.760
<v Speaker 3>Huge? You know when you look at UiPath. UiPath is

0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:45.920
<v Speaker 3>scaled from almost zero revenue in twenty seventeen to over

0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.040
<v Speaker 3>one point eight billion dollars of arr to where we

0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:53.520
<v Speaker 3>are today within our finance department, but across our enterprises,

0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.560
<v Speaker 3>we employ our own software, so we have not had

0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.960
<v Speaker 3>to add people net net to our company, and many

0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.400
<v Speaker 3>years we've been able to achieve that scale both geographically

0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.560
<v Speaker 3>as well as as well as from a revenue perspective

0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.640
<v Speaker 3>using automation, and that's not unique to us. That is

0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.760
<v Speaker 3>something that a lot of our customers benefit.

0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.240
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so we all set up a stream a little

0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.279
<v Speaker 2>bit straight. Because there is so much of a narrative

0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.800
<v Speaker 2>and conversation going around AI and what it's going to

0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.440
<v Speaker 2>do to labor market, it sounds like you haven't had

0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.240
<v Speaker 2>to hire people. Reality check, are a lot of companies

0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.240
<v Speaker 2>going to be able to not hire people or even

0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.080
<v Speaker 2>let people go because of what AI or jetic AI

0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.440
<v Speaker 2>is going to be able to do for them?

0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, let me make let me make a small nuance here.

0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.839
<v Speaker 3>We've hired people just in the places that provide higher

0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.000
<v Speaker 3>return in terms of revenue or higher pieces of innovation.

0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.400
<v Speaker 3>So in our minds, companies should be hiring and people

0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.520
<v Speaker 3>will continuing to work, but it's going to be working

0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.640
<v Speaker 3>in higher skilled areas and areas that have a higher

0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.720
<v Speaker 3>return to the whether that is working interactively with customers,

0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.440
<v Speaker 3>or whether that is on pace for designing the next

0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.240
<v Speaker 3>fee of innovation to bring to the market over the

0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.480
<v Speaker 3>next couple of years. So this isn't about hiring less.

0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.800
<v Speaker 3>It's about hiring where you want to and all of

0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.920
<v Speaker 3>that translates to ROI.

0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.560
<v Speaker 4>A sheem just wondering. We've seen a lot of concerns

0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:28.159
<v Speaker 4>in recent weeks, specifically in November among investors around AI

0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.800
<v Speaker 4>and whether what we're currently seeing is leading us into

0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.680
<v Speaker 4>a bubble at some point. If you look at your

0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.159
<v Speaker 4>bookings for next year, like, what does that look like?

0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.800
<v Speaker 4>What's the feedback that you're getting from clients if they're

0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.760
<v Speaker 4>thinking about their spending plans for next year. Yeah.

0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.800
<v Speaker 3>Look, I think what our customers feel is they feel

0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.760
<v Speaker 3>a variable macroeconomic environment. I think like all of us do.

0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.560
<v Speaker 3>And you know a lot of times what we all

0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.240
<v Speaker 3>discuss in our various forums, whether that's formal or informal.

0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.520
<v Speaker 3>What I can tell you is what's encouraging is customers

0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.960
<v Speaker 3>want to see spend the key area is they're not

0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.520
<v Speaker 3>going to spend unless they see ROI. So as we're

0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.800
<v Speaker 3>looking at our demand funnel, we launched our agentic platform,

0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.919
<v Speaker 3>bringing agents in AI infused automations to enterprises earlier this year.

0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.320
<v Speaker 3>You know, if you go back to maybe twenty sixteen,

0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.200
<v Speaker 3>twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, there were innovation funds that you

0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:22.920
<v Speaker 3>could go and say, hey, let me go and spend

0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:27.760
<v Speaker 3>two million dollars in just experiment. I think experimental funds

0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.080
<v Speaker 3>are moving down, but the funds that but there's a

0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.839
<v Speaker 3>lot of funds available that for projects and areas that

0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.839
<v Speaker 3>yield ROI. So once we launched our platform, the demand

0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.600
<v Speaker 3>for proof of concepts and pilots. Really we're super encouraged

0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.080
<v Speaker 3>by even in the first five to six months, more

0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.479
<v Speaker 3>than seven hundred of our ten thy eight hundred customers.

0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.160
<v Speaker 3>They are these companies are going and building agents on

0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.960
<v Speaker 3>our platform and figuring out where are the highest ROI areas.

0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.359
<v Speaker 3>So there's a lot of activity and I think funding

0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.120
<v Speaker 3>will follow activity so long as that there is ROI

0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:03.760
<v Speaker 3>that is there. And that's what gives us a lot

0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.320
<v Speaker 3>of confidence and optimism as we look into the years

0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:07.440
<v Speaker 3>ahead for upas.

0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.240
<v Speaker 1>Actually very briefly, very interested in the work that you

0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.440
<v Speaker 1>do for governments in the US and around the world.

0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.600
<v Speaker 1>How do you characterize that work, like what do you

0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.560
<v Speaker 1>do for them? And also how big of a business

0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:17.640
<v Speaker 1>is that for UiPath.

0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.840
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so the public sector is DOLE. It's greater than

0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.200
<v Speaker 3>ten percent of our revenue base just globally. You know,

0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.400
<v Speaker 3>that was as of two years ago. We haven't disclosed

0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.560
<v Speaker 3>figures since then, but it's you know, I would imagine

0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.000
<v Speaker 3>it's in a similar vein here. I can represent that

0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.760
<v Speaker 3>when you look at the US government, it's everything from

0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.360
<v Speaker 3>you know, from areas of agencies that are in high

0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.760
<v Speaker 3>paper network. They use our software to actually scan, read,

0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.680
<v Speaker 3>and extract data so they can process things fast. There

0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.760
<v Speaker 3>are there are partners that we work with with the

0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.520
<v Speaker 3>government that are taking papers that are sitting in caves

0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.160
<v Speaker 3>and in parking lots, trailers and trailers of them and

0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.880
<v Speaker 3>digitizing them as a part of their digit transformation. Getting

0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:06.800
<v Speaker 3>audit compliance across the government, which involves retrieving documents and

0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:11.000
<v Speaker 3>processing different areas for auditors and business teams. That is

0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.080
<v Speaker 3>a key area that we can look at, but we're

0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.120
<v Speaker 3>across every agency that is there. What it'd say is

0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.960
<v Speaker 3>we've gotten super close to the government over these last years.

0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.640
<v Speaker 3>We continue to have a great relationship with them, and

0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.160
<v Speaker 3>just like enterprises, what's encouraging is they're looking for high ROI,

0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.720
<v Speaker 3>high impact transformative areas to deploy our software.

0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.520
<v Speaker 2>All right, well, super interesting and I hope you'll stay

0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.240
<v Speaker 2>in touch so we can continue this conversation. Ashima Gupta,

0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.520
<v Speaker 2>CFO and COO of UiPath joining us from AFAR and

0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.400
<v Speaker 2>of course right here in studio. Nina Trttman, Bloomberg News

0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.240
<v Speaker 2>Senior Editor. She writes the CFO Briefing newsletter, which you

0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.320
<v Speaker 2>can subscribe to at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Briefing.

0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.640
<v Speaker 2>You get a new one every Sunday in thanks, and

0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:52.320
<v Speaker 2>she will.

0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.760
<v Speaker 1>Be featured in an upcoming edition of the Bloomberg CFO

0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.040
<v Speaker 1>Briefing news that are also for more coverage of CFOs,

0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.160
<v Speaker 1>you've got to check out Chief Future Offer, the series

0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.400
<v Speaker 1>from Bloomberg. The newest episode premieres next week. It features

0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:08.920
<v Speaker 1>the CFO and COO of Hasbro. That's Gina Getter. Watch

0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.360
<v Speaker 1>next Wednesday at nine thirty New York time. This is

0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:12.720
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg BusinessWeek Daily