On Thursday, AudioEye (NASDAQ:AEYE) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

AudioEye reported $10.7 million in revenue for Q2 2026, marking 42 consecutive quarters of revenue growth, with a year-over-year ARR increase of 11% to $42.3 million.

The company raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to at least $12.7 million, representing 40% year-over-year growth, and expects significant free cash flow in the second half of 2026.

Strategic initiatives include evaluating cash deployment options such as share buybacks and dividends, and expanding in the EU market in response to increased digital accessibility regulations.

AudioEye's automation technology continues to lead the market, addressing accessibility issues, particularly as AI coding contributes to increased website accessibility problems.

Operational highlights include a 16% year-over-year revenue growth in the partner and marketplace channel and a strategic focus on AI integration for enhanced reporting and customer solutions.

Management expressed optimism about scaling operations in Europe and highlighted the lowered litigation expenses anticipated to boost cash flow.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to AudioEye's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining us for today's call are AudioEye's Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Kelly Jorgevich, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Matthew Domayer. Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions from the company's publishing analysts. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be recorded and made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.audioeye.com.

Before I turn the call over to AudioEye's CEO, the company would like to remind all participants that statements made by AudioEye management during the course of this conference call that are not historical facts are considered to be forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for such forward-looking statements. The words believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, confident, will, and other similar statements of expectation identify forward-looking statements.

These statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events and are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in today's press release, comments made during the conference call, and in the Risk Factors section of the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and in its other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Participants on this call are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's beliefs only as of the date hereof. AudioEye does not undertake any duty to update or correct any forward-looking statements. Further, management's remarks today will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to these non-GAAP financial measures is available in the company's earnings release or otherwise posted in the Investor Relations section of its website at www.audioeye.com.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to AudioEye CEO, Ms. Kelly Jorgevich.

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Q2 marked our 42nd consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth, and we're excited about the continued momentum throughout the business. Revenue came in at $10.7 million, and ARR grew $1.1 million sequentially to $42.3 million. This reflects low double-digit year-over-year ARR growth. Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow have reached a pivotal point, and we're raising our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance.

Adjusted EBITDA has grown at a CAGR of 42% over the last two years, and we now expect to achieve over $15 million run-rate adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2026. We also expect meaningful free cash flow generation in the second half as we expect litigation expense to trend down. We are currently evaluating options to deploy excess cash, including potential share buybacks and dividends. In the second quarter, adjusted EBITDA reached a record $3 million, representing a 28% adjusted EBITDA margin, over $600,000 higher than Q1 2026 and $1.1 million higher than Q2 2025, representing a 54% increase from the prior-year quarter.

As ARR scales, a growing share of incremental revenue is flowing to the bottom line. We expect that trend to continue and accelerate in the second half of 2026. We have proven that our operating model is highly scalable and expect continued growth of cash flow in 2027. The internet continues to be highly inaccessible, and we believe it is becoming more inaccessible as AI coding becomes more prevalent. LLMs were not built with accessibility in mind, which is contributing to the problem.

WebAIM's latest study found that 95.9% of top homepages had detectable WCAG failures, averaging 56.1 errors per page, up 10% year over year—the first increase after six years of steady improvement. WebAIM points to third-party frameworks and AI-assisted code as key drivers. In June, we released the third annual Digital Accessibility Index, covering more than 165,000 pages across 6,100 domains in the US and Europe. Two findings stood out most in this report.

First, many organizations focus their accessibility efforts primarily on the homepage and typical user flows. But interior pages now carry more risk: they average 10% more issues than homepages and accounted for roughly 60% of accessibility claims filed last year. As the use of LLMs increasingly exposes pages that haven't been prioritized for accessibility, contributing to increased litigation. Second, despite the European Accessibility Act having been in place for over a year, EU websites on average still carry roughly 25% more accessibility issues per page than comparable US sites—a gap I'll discuss in more detail when I walk through where EAA enforcement stands. Both findings point to the same thing: the risk is living where most companies aren't focused—in webpages with less traffic or across a whole region still catching up with a new law. That's where our solution is built to scale. AudioEye's automation finds and fixes far more issues than any other solution on the market, automatically, in real time, across every page a customer has. Our custom fixes handle the majority of remaining issues in a scalable, cost-effective way.

The 25% accessibility gap between EU and US sites I just mentioned aligns with the current state of EAA enforcement. The European Accessibility Act is beginning to shift from a compliance deadline to active enforcement, though we still call it early innings, not yet an inflection point. Sweden and the Netherlands both began market surveillance and reporting requirements in late 2025 and escalated those efforts throughout this year. Germany has seen a wave of warning letters targeting non-compliant e-commerce operators.

Most notably, French courts issued a ruling in June against a major retailer, rejecting the argument that partial compliance—in that case roughly 71% conformance—satisfies the law. The court held that digital accessibility is an obligation of results, meaning sites must be fully accessible, not mostly accessible, and ordered full remediation within six months under the threat of daily penalties. These cases are important signals of future enforcement.

We're seeing early EU momentum building, with Q2 marking our strongest EU contribution to ARR growth to date. We continue to take a strategic, multi-channel approach in the EU, positioning ourselves to capitalize on the inflection point when it arrives. Now turning to guidance. For the third quarter of 2026, we expect revenue between $10.85 million and $11.05 million, a sequential quarterly increase of approximately $235,000 at the midpoint. We expect further acceleration of sequential revenues in Q4.

For the full year 2026, we are maintaining the midpoint of our revenue guidance while tightening the range to between $43.5 million and $44 million. For the third quarter of 2026, we expect adjusted EBITDA between $3.4 million and $3.6 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 32% at the midpoint, and adjusted EPS of between $0.26 and $0.28 per share. For the full year 2026, we are increasing adjusted EBITDA guidance from at least $12 million to at least $12.7 million.

This represents a 29% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint of revenue guidance and 40% year-over-year growth. We also expect adjusted EPS of at least $0.98 for 2026 and a run-rate adjusted EBITDA of over $15 million by the end of 2026. We expect cash flow to ramp significantly in the third quarter—at the midpoint of guidance, an adjusted EBITDA of $3.5 million plus around $400,000 of software development costs implies $3.1 million of adjusted free cash flow.

We expect adjusted free cash flow to accelerate further in Q4. Additionally, we expect litigation expense to come down in the second half, resulting in substantial cash generation. Lastly, I want to formally welcome Matt Domayer, who joined us as CFO in July. Matt brings nearly 20 years of finance experience, including public company and operational finance background, making him a strong partner as we scale. I'm looking forward to working closely with him in this next phase of growth.

With that, I'll hand it over to Matt to cover our financial results in more detail.

Matthew Domayer, CFO

Thank you, Kelly. Revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $10.7 million, representing a 9% increase from the comparable prior-year quarter. As Kelly mentioned, this marks our 42nd consecutive period of record revenue. Annual recurring revenue was $42.3 million as of June 30, 2026, up from $41.2 million as of March 31, 2026, reflecting 11% annualized sequential ARR growth. ARR also grew 11% compared to the prior-year comparable period. We continue to expect ARR growth in future quarters and that the compounding impact of sequential ARR growth will generate notable growth rates in revenue in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

As of June 30, 2026, AudioEye had approximately 129,000 customers, up 9,000 from June 30, 2025. The increase is primarily in our partner and marketplace channel, driven by further expansion with existing partners. Going deeper into revenue by our two channels, AudioEye's Enterprise channel consists of our large customers and organizations, including those with non-platform custom websites, who generally engage directly with AudioEye sales personnel for pricing and solutions.

In Q2 2026, Enterprise revenue was flat year over year, with lower non-recurring revenue offset by increased recurring revenue. Enterprise ARR grew 5% over the comparable period of the prior year, and sequential annualized Enterprise ARR growth was 17% as of June 30, 2026. Enterprise ARR represented approximately 41% of total ARR. Our partner and marketplace channel includes all revenue from our SMB-focused marketplace products, as well as from partners who deploy these products for their SMB customers.

In the second quarter of 2026, partner and marketplace channel revenue grew 16% year over year and contributed meaningfully to ARR growth. In the quarter, as of June 30, 2026, our partner and marketplace channel accounted for approximately 59% of ARR. We continue to see solid expansion from our state and local government partners, specifically in the second quarter of 2026. Gross profit for the second quarter was $8.4 million, or approximately 79% of revenue, compared to $7.6 million, or 77% of revenue, in Q2 of 2025.

Adjusted gross margin—defined as gross margin adjusted for non-cash items in our cost of revenue such as amortization of capitalized software development costs and stock-based compensation expense—was 84% in Q2 2026, compared to 83% in the prior-year comparable period. In the second quarter of 2026, operating expenses were $9 million, compared to $7.4 million in Q2 2025. The year-over-year increase in total operating expenses was primarily due to a $1.4 million benefit from the revaluation of contingent consideration in the prior year's comparable quarter, which did not recur in the current period.

Our total R&D spend in Q2 was approximately $1.2 million, which includes approximately $400,000 capitalized as software development costs and recorded in the investing section of the cash flow statement. Total R&D spend was around 12% of Q2 2026 revenue, down from 17% in Q2 2025, primarily due to reduced headcount resulting from efficiencies realized through the implementation of AI tools and automation. Net loss in the second quarter of 2026 was $0.9 million, or $0.07 per share, compared to breakeven or $0 per share in the same year-ago period.

Excluding the impact of the $1.4 million revaluation of contingent consideration in the comparable period of the prior year, net loss improved mainly due to higher gross profit. In the second quarter, we achieved adjusted EBITDA of approximately $3 million, or $0.23 per share, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 28%. This compares to Q2 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 million, or $0.15 per share, and a 20% adjusted EBITDA margin. The $1.1 million increase in adjusted EBITDA over the comparable period of the prior year was primarily driven by an increase in gross profit.

In the second quarter, we generated $2.6 million of adjusted free cash flow, calculated as adjusted EBITDA of $3 million plus $400,000 of software development costs, an improvement of $1.2 million from the second quarter of 2025. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $8.7 million in cash and $3 million available under our revolving line of credit. As of June 30, 2026, our net debt—defined as total debt less cash—was $8.1 million, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio, using our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance, is approximately 0.6.

With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions. Operator.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now take questions from the company's publishing analysts. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

And your first question comes from Joshua Riley with Needham & Company. Please state your question.

Joshua Riley, Analyst at Needham & Company

All right, great. Thanks for taking my questions. Nice job on the quarter here. So if you look at these warning letters that are now being sent out in Europe, how do you think about potentially accelerating sales investments there in that region, and how quickly can you scale up sales support there if demand really takes off over the next few quarters? And does it make sense to maybe add additional sales partnerships in Europe?

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yeah, we're definitely watching it closely and keeping an eye on all countries and developments. We are being strategic in investments in the EU. We do have resources in the EU and are investing in a multi-channel approach. So I think we're ready when—you know, we said we still view it as early innings—but at some point it will hit an inflection point, and we're ready to capitalize on that and making inroads now to do that.

Joshua Riley, Analyst at Needham & Company

Got it. And then I guess a couple items on AI. You know, first of all, what are you seeing, I guess, in the direct channel with the larger customers in terms of their willingness to spend given the AI-driven, concern-software spend environment right now? And then along with the AI angle, second part to the question is, how are you doing in terms of implementing AI internally for R&D and customer service, and how is that efficiency trending there relative to your expectations?

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yep. Yeah, good question. Right now we're not seeing any notable impacts besides adding more value to customers on the AI front. As we mentioned previously, AI coding tools are trained on the internet that's not built with accessibility, so we're not seeing any impact from competitors coming in. One of the unique things about us is that we have the best automation in the industry. Our studies have our automation at 89% to 300% more than competitors.

And we've also taken that unique approach to accessibility of custom fixes, and no one has that proprietary dataset. I'd also say—the other thing to keep in mind is that we do provide litigation protection at the end of the day. So on the enterprise customer front, they see us as protection, and it's not something that they see as an opportunity to cut. On the cost-cutting front, on your second point, we're really—everything we're doing is starting with the proprietary data that we have.

We have millions of human reviews and billions of real-world fixes, and no one else has that data. And so we're using it currently to make reporting easier for clients to understand, to make fixes easier, to make sure it works seamlessly with our devs for people who are in dev environments and want to make source fixes. But we're also making sure we utilize that proprietary data in new and exciting ways, and I think more to come on that front in the next handful of months.

Joshua Riley, Analyst at Needham & Company

Got it. One last question for me is on the partner versus direct channel revenue growth rate. I believe you mentioned that there were a couple moving parts on the direct side there. In terms of the year-over-year revenue growth, could you just give a little more color on what you saw in terms of the year-over-year growth rate between the partner and direct channels? Thank you, guys.

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yep, thanks. Yeah, if you look at revenue year over year, the direct revenue year-over-year growth was impacted by—and we've mentioned this before—that shift from non-recurring revenues to recurring revenue. If you look at ARR growth in Enterprise, it was pretty notable both sequentially and year over year, and we really think focusing on that ARR growth is where to look there. And on the partner and marketplace side, we continue to see good results from our existing partners and continue to see that expand, so good growth on both the revenue side and the ARR side in that.

Joshua Riley, Analyst at Needham & Company

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from George Sutton with Craig-Hallum. Please state your question.

George Sutton, Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Thank you, and I'd like to welcome Matt to the call. So Kelly, I'm particularly enthused to see the partner strength in front of the mandates actually going into effect. Can you just give us a little picture on sort of the focus? I know you've got a couple key partners, and I know they've had specific salespeople dedicated to this. I assume they're seeing some impact as a result.

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

You know, we're seeing all systems go on the partner side. We know that DOJ was pushed back to 2027, but we're still seeing really good results from those partners. And I think everyone's now just all eyes on 2027 and further penetration into their customer base before that deadline.

George Sutton, Analyst at Craig-Hallum

So, just on the cash deployment theme, obviously M&A has been one area that you've been at least looking for a while. I know some of the challenge has been prices expected by the sellers. Where do things stand on the M&A side, as you're thinking of cash deployment?

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yeah, as I mentioned, we do expect to generate significant free cash flow as we go into the second half of the year and into 2027, and that just opens up a number of different possibilities. And M&A would be one of those. We always are evaluating M&A. It's got to be the right fit, it's got to be at the right price. But I do think it could be an opportunity for the future.

George Sutton, Analyst at Craig-Hallum

All right, that's it for me. Thank you.

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Thanks, George.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And your next question comes from Eric Suppager with B. Riley Securities. Please state your question.

Eric Suppager, Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Yeah, thanks, and congrats on a good quarter. On the AI features that you've been adding to your platform, is there opportunity for that to drive pricing higher? And conversely, how difficult will it be for large language models or for AI coding to develop accessibility capabilities? I understand you have proprietary data for that, but are they able to chip away at that?

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yeah, I'll answer the first question first. I think with AI capabilities, there's opportunity to introduce supplemental products, and so over time I think ASP per customer could grow because of that. But I think big opportunities ahead in general. We've commented on this a bit, and I might have already said this in the comments, but WebAIM supports that websites are just getting more inaccessible. LLMs weren't trained on accessible websites, so they're actually creating more inaccessible sites.

And the thing that makes us really unique that no one else has is our proprietary dataset. We've been doing human fixes for 10 years, and no one's been doing that. And all of that data really lends itself to building out something really interesting in the AI space that LLMs or other competitors don't have access to in terms of data.

Eric Suppager, Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Okay. And then lastly on litigation, can we assume that that's going to stay at lowered levels for the foreseeable future, or what are your thoughts in terms of that?

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

Yeah. As I mentioned, Q2 came down 40% from Q1. We do expect it to ramp down in the second half of 2026. We can't comment any further on active litigation, but I think you can expect significant additional cash generation with litigation trending down in the second half of 2026.

Eric Suppager, Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Very good. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Ms. Kelly Jorgevich for her closing remarks.

Kelly Jorgevich, CEO

I'd like to thank our employees, customers, and investors for their support. We look forward to providing an update on the next quarter.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for AudioEye's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.