Five9 Earnings Soar on AI Demand - What Customer Support Teams Should Do Next
Five9 Inc. (NASDAQ: FIVN) is trading up 12.98% after Q4 results beat expectations and leadership guided higher for 2026. The story is simple: AI-fueled growth, stronger subscription revenue, and improving profitability are pulling attention - and budget - into the contact center.
For support leaders, this isn't just market noise. It's a signal that AI in customer experience is moving from "interesting" to "operational." If your team plans ahead, you can ride this momentum - not get dragged by it.
Key Results (Fast Facts)
- Q4 2025 revenue: $300M, up 8% year over year.
- Full-year 2025 revenue: $1.15B, up 10% year over year.
- Enterprise AI revenue: up 50% year over year.
- Subscription revenue: up 12%.
- Adjusted EPS: $0.80 vs. $0.78 consensus.
- Gross margin: 55.1%.
- P/E ratio: 49.54; enterprise value: $1.59B.
- Pretax margin: -4.5% (opportunity for cost discipline under new leadership).
- 2026 revenue guidance: ~ $1.25B, with margin and EPS improvements expected.
- Analyst stance: ratings remain strong (e.g., Overweight/Outperform), with some price target trims tied to sector valuations.
What This Means for Customer Support Teams
AI is no longer a side project - it's embedded in the contact center roadmap. A 50% jump in Enterprise AI revenue suggests stronger adoption of agent-assist, automated summarization, AI routing, and self-service deflection.
Expect faster rollouts, more AI-first features, and tighter integration across voice and digital channels. If your org delays, you'll feel it in handle times, backlog, and CSAT compared to peers who automate faster.
Practical Moves You Can Make Now
- Shortlist use cases with measurable ROI: agent assist, auto-summaries to CRM, intent/routing, knowledge suggestions, and deflection via virtual agents.
- Set baseline metrics this week: AHT, FCR, CSAT/NPS, transfer rate, containment rate, ticket backlog, and agent occupancy.
- Run a 30-60 day pilot: pick one queue, define success criteria (e.g., -12% AHT, +5 pts CSAT, -15% escalations), and timebox the rollout.
- Tighten the knowledge base: prune outdated content, add concise answer cards, and structure articles for AI retrieval (clear titles, bullet points, tagged intents).
- Update QA: auto-score call summaries for compliance keywords, empathy markers, and resolution confirmation. Spot-check exceptions instead of every interaction.
- Rework staffing: shift headcount from repetitive inquiries to complex, high-value cases; expand cross-training for omnichannel coverage.
- Govern data and privacy: define redlines for PII exposure, retention, and agent prompts; align with Legal and Security before scaling.
Budget and Vendor Talk Tracks
- Ask your vendor about roadmap timing for agent-assist, multi-language intent models, and real-time QA. Tie each to a line-item KPI improvement.
- Negotiate pilot-to-scale pricing with clear thresholds (cost per assisted interaction, per-minute transcription, or per-agent uplift).
- Request proof: side-by-side reports showing AHT, FCR, and CSAT changes on pilot queues vs. control groups.
Technical Setup: For Teams That Also Watch the Tape
Recent weekly action shows a bullish engulfing pattern, with February moving from a low of $16.29 to a high of $19.41 on strong volume. Immediate resistance sits near $19.41 with support around $18.
Common approach: don't chase strength; look for pullbacks toward support with volume confirmation. Above $19, watchers are eyeing $20 in the short term, with a stretch technical target near $25 if momentum holds.
Risks to Keep on Your Radar
- Valuation: a P/E near 49 implies execution needs to stay strong.
- Profitability mix: pretax margins are still negative; cost control and gross margin discipline matter.
- Sector repricing: analysts trimmed some targets across software - macro can overpower single-name execution in the short term.
- Adoption risk: AI outcomes depend on clean data, clear use cases, and change management. Tools don't fix broken workflows.
Quarterly Action Plan for Support Leaders
- 30 days: baseline KPIs, clean your top 50 KB articles, and launch an agent-assist pilot on one high-volume queue.
- 60 days: expand to auto-summaries and intent-based routing; add QA automation for compliance and empathy checks.
- 90 days: scale to two more queues, codify playbooks (prompts, escalation paths, exception handling), and publish a before/after ROI brief to leadership.
Learn More
- Five9 Investor Relations - earnings materials and guidance.
- AI for Customer Support - practical guides and playbooks for service teams.
- AI Learning Path for Call Center Supervisors - implementation tips, metrics, and change management.
Bottom line: Five9's numbers confirm what many teams feel on the floor - AI is moving KPIs. Get your pilot live, measure hard outcomes, and scale what works. The window is open.
This is stock news, not investment advice.
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