Company Description
C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE: AI), doing business as C3 AI, is described as an Enterprise AI application software company in the information sector. According to company disclosures, C3 AI focuses on delivering software products that help organizations develop, deploy, and operate enterprise-scale artificial intelligence applications. The company is incorporated in Delaware and its Class A common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AI.
C3 AI states that it delivers a family of fully integrated products built for enterprise AI. These products include the C3 Agentic AI Platform, described as an end-to-end platform for developing, deploying, and operating enterprise AI applications; C3 AI applications, which are characterized as a portfolio of industry-specific SaaS enterprise AI applications that support digital transformation; and C3 Generative AI, which the company describes as a suite of large or domain-specific generative AI offerings and transformer models for the enterprise.
Business model and revenue sources
Based on its financial reporting, C3 AI generates revenue primarily from subscription arrangements and professional services. The company’s filings and earnings releases separate revenue into subscription revenue and professional services revenue. Professional services revenue includes service fees for consulting, training, and paid implementation services, as well as prioritized engineering services.
C3 AI explains that prioritized engineering services occur when a customer asks the company to accelerate the design, development, and delivery of software features and functions that are already planned in the company’s product roadmap. The company negotiates a fee for this accelerated development. When the software feature is delivered, it becomes part of the core product offering and is available to all subscribers of the underlying software product. Under the company’s accounting policy, revenue from prioritized engineering services is recognized as professional services over the period in which the software development is completed.
Core product families
Across its public communications and SEC filings, C3 AI consistently describes three main product groupings:
- C3 Agentic AI Platform – characterized as an end-to-end platform used to develop, deploy, and operate enterprise AI applications. The platform is positioned as the foundation on which customers and partners can build and run AI-powered workflows and applications.
- C3 AI applications – described as a portfolio of industry-specific, software-as-a-service enterprise AI applications. These applications are intended to support the digital transformation of organizations in multiple sectors by providing pre-built, domain-focused AI capabilities.
- C3 Generative AI – described as a suite of large AI transformer models or domain-specific generative AI offerings for the enterprise. The company reports that it enters into agreements for C3 Generative AI with customers in areas such as government, industrial, and commercial sectors.
C3 AI also refers to specific solution areas in its news releases, such as C3 AI Contested Logistics, C3 AI Readiness, C3 AI Agentic Process Automation, and predictive maintenance and supply chain applications. In its communications, the company states that these offerings are used in contexts including logistics planning, readiness for defense organizations, and industrial analytics.
Customer and industry focus
In its public announcements, C3 AI highlights activity across a range of industries and public-sector entities. The company reports agreements or deployments with organizations in defense and intelligence, federal civilian agencies, manufacturing, utilities, energy, agribusiness, consumer packaged goods, and life sciences, among others. Examples mentioned in company communications include work with the U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office on AI-driven logistics, engagements with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create a unified, secure, and scalable data foundation, and applications in industrial and energy settings.
The company also notes that its software is used by commercial enterprises and government agencies, and that it supports use cases such as contested logistics, readiness, predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, inventory optimization, fraud detection, and process automation. These descriptions indicate that C3 AI positions its products for organizations that want to embed AI into core operations and data workflows.
Partnerships and ecosystem
C3 AI describes a partner ecosystem that includes large technology and consulting firms. In its earnings and news releases, the company reports working with partners such as Microsoft, AWS, McKinsey & Company, Baker Hughes, Booz Allen Hamilton, and others. C3 AI states that a significant portion of its bookings is driven with and through this partner network.
The company reports that it has expanded native integrations across Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure AI Foundry, enabling customers to run C3 AI’s intelligence layer on the Microsoft Cloud. According to C3 AI, these integrations allow enterprise users to invoke C3 AI applications and agents through a conversational interface in Microsoft Copilot and to operate on data in Microsoft Fabric and OneLake. C3 AI also reports that its applications are available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
Government and regulatory context
C3 AI reports multiple engagements with U.S. federal agencies. The company states that it has achieved a FedRAMP Moderate designation, which it describes as a U.S. government framework for validating the security of cloud platforms that process sensitive, data-heavy workloads. C3 AI also notes existing IL5 and IL6 authorizations and indicates that its FedRAMP authorization allows federal agencies to use its technology for protected, high-impact government use cases.
In addition, C3 AI reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services selected the C3 Agentic AI Platform as an enterprise AI platform to integrate data across the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The company describes this work as creating a unified, secure, and scalable data foundation to support research, analytics, program integrity, and public health analysis, as well as automating complex administrative workflows.
Recognition and third-party evaluations
According to C3 AI’s news releases, the market research firm Verdantix has identified C3 AI as a Leader in Enterprise AI platforms and as a Leader in industrial AI analytics software in its Green Quadrant reports. C3 AI reports that Verdantix awarded the company high scores in areas such as AI technical depth, data source orchestration, unstructured data utilization, model training and fine-tuning, user interfaces, dashboard building, cybersecurity and model guardrails, deployment options, predictive maintenance, supply chain management, and machine-learning operations.
The company also cites examples from the Verdantix report of customer outcomes using C3 AI software, such as improved forecast accuracy and savings at an industrial customer, and large-scale AI predictions supporting grid reliability at a utility customer. These examples are presented by C3 AI as evidence of how its applications are used in production environments.
Corporate governance and stockholder matters
C3.ai, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware and files periodic reports, proxy statements, and current reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company’s definitive proxy statement describes its dual-class common stock structure, with Class A and Class B common stock voting together as a single class, and outlines matters such as the election of directors, advisory votes on executive compensation, and the ratification of the independent registered public accounting firm.
The company’s SEC filings also describe equity compensation plans, including a 2025 Inducement Plan that provides for equity-based awards such as non-statutory stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock awards, restricted stock unit awards, performance awards, and other stock-based awards. The plan is reserved for individuals who qualify for employment inducement awards under NYSE rules and was adopted by the board of directors without stockholder approval as permitted by those rules.
Use of non-GAAP metrics
In its earnings releases, C3 AI presents both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. The company explains that it uses non-GAAP measures such as non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP loss from operations, non-GAAP net loss per share, and free cash flow. C3 AI states that these measures exclude certain non-cash items, including stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, and that it believes these metrics provide supplemental information for evaluating its operating results and liquidity. The company also notes that non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation from GAAP results.
AI and automation focus
C3 AI’s communications emphasize its focus on enterprise-scale AI systems. The company describes the C3 Agentic AI Platform as enabling organizations to encapsulate business workflows and industrial processes as autonomous AI agents, including through offerings such as C3 AI Agentic Process Automation. In its descriptions, C3 AI states that users can describe complex workflows in natural language and that the system can automatically build and deploy them. The company positions these capabilities as tools for organizations that want to use AI for reasoning, automation, and decision support across large data sets and operational systems.
Geographic reach
In its earlier business description, C3 AI reports that it derives revenue from multiple regions, including North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. This indicates that the company markets its enterprise AI software internationally across several major geographic regions.
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Short Interest History
Short interest in C3.Ai (AI) currently stands at 39.4 million shares, up 3.8% from the previous reporting period, representing 37.9% of the float. Over the past 12 months, short interest has increased by 77.2%. This high level of short interest suggests significant bearish sentiment among traders. The 8.0 days to cover indicates moderate liquidity for short covering.
Days to Cover History
Days to cover for C3.Ai (AI) currently stands at 8.0 days, up 36.2% from the previous period. This moderate days-to-cover ratio suggests reasonable liquidity for short covering, requiring about a week of average trading volume. The days to cover has increased 152.7% over the past year, indicating either rising short interest or declining trading volume. The ratio has shown significant volatility over the period, ranging from 2.2 to 8.0 days.