Verint has secured a $20MN deal – in total contract value (TCV) – from a prominent entertainment services company in Europe.
The massive win pushed the vendor’s revenues to above $219MN last quarter, representing 11 percent growth year-over-year (YoY).
While Dan Bodner, CEO of Verint, didn’t confirm the company’s name, he did note that Sky – alongside CarMax and Louis Vuitton – was one of 100 new logos added last quarter.
Moreover, he highlighted that the deal included AI-powered bots, which is unsurprising as nine of Verint’s ten largest bundled SaaS deals in Q3 did so.
Those other deals included a $6MN TCV order from a telecoms company in North America and a $4MN TCV order from a healthcare organization in the US.
Such bundles are a signal of the emerging Verint 4.0. First, it was a call recording company. Next, it became a workforce optimization (WFO) business. Then, it was workforce engagement (WEM).
Now, for this latest evolution, Verint has become the company of openness, data, and AI delivered by bots into workflows.
During a recent earnings call, Bodner reflected on its progress: “Verint is shifting to more bundled SaaS, and our TAM (total addressable market) is growing because we have a much larger AI opportunity in the future.”
Indeed, more than 50 percent of Verint’s SaaS bookings included AI-powered bots, a significant increase from the previous year – as per Bodner. He continued:
Our customers are going to save a lot of money. They will increase the technology spend, but the net decrease will be bigger because they will decrease much more the labor spend.
Verint’s approach to bot building does catch the eye – especially since the launch of its specialized bot strategy.
The strategy aims to create a swathe of bots that augment a specific role and only automate a single human function. In doing so, they allow Verin customers to “automate without disruption.”
As such, businesses can pull automation into any environment, according to Bodner.
“When you have thousands of people, it’s not one contact center. It’s multiple,” he said. “They may be in different countries and deal with different technologies.
These large customers really do not have the desire to just rip and replace everything and do one big transformation into the cloud.
“The way we designed our platform… you don’t need to bring your legacy Verint solution to the Verint Cloud – our bots work in the cloud with your on-prem and with the many partners that are hosting our software.”
Before the end of the year, Verint will bring 50 of these bots to the market, with another 50-100 expected in 2024, which may offer the vendor a route to expand significantly on its existing business.
“As the market shifts to a workforce of people and bots working together, we have a significant opportunity in our large customer base and with new logos,” summarized Bodner.
Yet, one final, fascinating thought is that these specialized bots may help businesses leverage new forms of AI – including generative AI – more responsibly.
After all, if it is only tasked to do a single job, it’s not processing and storing customer data unless that’s a job one of the bots is tasked to do.
As businesses come to terms with the risks of generative AI – ranging from data pricy and cyber security to copyright issues – such safe and secure bots may provide the best route to getting started.
