revenue
—
Q3 2026
official guidance
CI&T INC.
Last · NYSE$3.06-0.03 (-0.97%)close · yahoo · 13h ago
Market cap$391.65M17.4M sh
P/E · TTM10.9fwd 6.9 · eps 0.28
Beta0.82vs S&P 500
Div yield0.00%annual · TTM
52w range
$2.80$5.80
Volume44.8Ksession
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OpenFilings analyst
Our analyst
Agentic read of the latest earnings call — recommendation updates when we process a new transcript. Research synthesis, not investment advice.
Strong BuyBuyHoldSellStrong Sell
Hold rather than chase:
CI&T delivered strong Q2 revenue of $142.8 million, up 21.9% organically, raised FY2026 revenue guidance to $566-$578 million, and expanded adjusted gross margin to 32.4%. However, adjusted EBITDA margin was only 13.3%, FY EBITDA margin guidance is 15%-17%, and management acknowledged that roughly half of the higher sales investment is structural; the AI monetization thesis is promising but not yet sufficiently proven to offset the execution and margin risks.
Themes
- Ai Deployment
- Value Based Pricing
- Agentic Sdlc
- Sales Investment
- Gross Margin Expansion
- Anthropic Partnership
Near term
Q3 revenue guidance is at least $145.7 million, implying 14.4% year-over-year growth, but investors will focus on whether growth converts into the promised sequential EBITDA margin recovery.
Sales investment rose to 12% of revenue from 8% a year ago. Management expects this to normalize toward approximately 10%, but the structural portion will remain and could limit operating leverage.
North America growth decelerated to 10.2% from 16% in Q1. Management attributed this to seasonality and contract-renewal timing, but the next quarter should test whether the slowdown was genuinely temporary.
Consumer Goods revenue fell 9% year over year and remains the only declining vertical; management provided no detailed timeline or quantitative recovery assumptions.
Longer term
Value-based pricing represented 30% of new engagements in the first half, with claimed contribution-margin improvement of 3%-15% versus traditional time-and-materials contracts. If sustained, this could decouple revenue growth from headcount growth.
The 40% year-over-year expansion in the sales pipeline, 24.1% growth from non-top-10 clients, and broad vertical growth reduce dependence on a single account and support the market-share narrative.
CI&T has reskilled 6,700 of 8,100 professionals as AI builders, but revenue per AI builder was up only 7% year over year to more than $80,000. The long-term thesis requires this productivity and monetization rate to accelerate materially.
The Anthropic and Mistral relationships may improve access to enterprise AI deployments, but CI&T remains model-agnostic and does not appear to possess exclusive model economics or a clearly defensible platform moat.
Enterprise reinvention and customer-facing AI use cases could expand the addressable opportunity in 2027+, although management characterized the potential as exponential without providing revenue contribution or bookings targets.
Red flags
Analyst Puneet Jain directly challenged why AI-related investment should decline while enterprise AI deployment is still in its early stages. Management conceded that only the Agentic SDLC component is temporary; roughly half of the sales investment is structural.
Management's claim that CI&T is 5-10x ahead of typical competitors was unsupported by quantified win rates, productivity benchmarks, pricing, or customer retention data.
On consumption pricing, management acknowledged that falling token costs could create a deflationary force and provided no durable pricing formula or margin guardrail. It also said consumption pricing will remain only one part of a mixed commercial model.
Management expects roughly 18 months to reprice existing contracts, but explicitly said the business will not move to 100% new-model revenue. The ultimate margin uplift therefore remains mix-dependent and uncertain.
The 15%-17% FY adjusted EBITDA margin target requires a meaningful second-half recovery from the first-half level, relying on gross-margin improvement, SG&A leverage, and reduced temporary investment without a detailed bridge.
The company is framing 2026 as an investment year, but adjusted EPS declined to $0.07 from $0.09 year over year and adjusted EBITDA margin compressed despite strong revenue growth.
Forward outlook
revenue growth
—
Q3 2026
official guidance
revenue
566–578 $million
FY 2026
official guidance
revenue growth
15.5–18 pct
FY 2026
official guidance
ebitda
15–17 pct
FY 2026
official guidance
OpenFilings analyst view from primary-source filings and earnings calls — not investment advice.
Upcoming earnings
9:00 PM UTC+1
Period
Sep 2026
Est. EPS
$0.10
Est. revenue
146.2M