Largest TCV deal in history closed early Q3 contributed to revenue upside
Upmarket ACV now 73% of total ACV (shifted 5 points from downmarket over past year); upmarket ACV growth 6%, downmarket negative 10% year-over-year
Usage-based and other revenue up $3 million year-over-year
Mgmt stance: Bullish — strong execution across business, multiple structural improvements (product quality, mix shift, large deals) driving outsized beat
Q2 — Elizabeth Elliott
Topic: GTM Studio early feedback and adoption
Key points:
GTM Studio described as data management platform unifying CRM, call transcript, email, ZoomInfo, product usage data
Viewed as "white space opportunity" with potential to be "biggest product ever released"
No specific breakdown of greenfield vs. replacement adoption provided
Mgmt stance: Bullish — positive early feedback, innovative solution, significant upside expected into 2026
Q3 — Sitikantha Panigrahi
Topic: Upmarket retention and NRR drivers
Key points:
Upmarket net retention above 100% in Q3; downmarket net retention improved sequentially
$100,000 cohort had one of its best ACV quarters ever; growth driven by moving $150k–$200k customers to $500k–$1M cohort
Operations business (fastest-growing) accelerated in Q3
Copilot customers show higher engagement and higher net retention than non-Copilot customers
Mgmt stance: Bullish — compounding effect from mix shift, product improvements, and Copilot driving retention gains
Q4 — Brad Zelnick
Topic: Agentforce integration opportunity
Key points:
Revenue agent available in Salesforce marketplace, featured, promoted, with co-selling incentives
Upcoming prospecting agent planned with extended press coverage
Partnership positions ZoomInfo intelligence as grounding for AI in go-to-market
Mgmt stance: Bullish — strong signal that AI in go-to-market requires ZoomInfo data; early but positive
Q5 — Aleksandr Zukin
Topic: cRPO vs. billings growth delta and Q4 guidance
Key points:
Current RPO up 6% year-over-year; implied current calculated bookings growth 18%
Q3 billings growth impacted by high single-digit millions year-over-year due to balance sheet reserve mix changes in Q3 last year (first clean comparison)
Guidance approach consistent with prior quarters; focus on delivering upside Q4; 2026 outlook deferred to next call
Mgmt stance: Neutral — explains billings noise as one-time comparison issue; no forward guidance on 2026 exit rate
Q&A Batch (6-10 of 15)
Q6 — Taylor McGinnis
Topic: Q4 revenue guidance and seasonality assumptions
Key points:
Guidance philosophy unchanged; management continues to manage expectations consistently as in prior quarters.
Q3 performance was more front-end loaded than usual; Q4 expected to be increasingly back-end loaded.
Sequential trends will fluctuate; year-over-year growth is the better measure.
Mgmt stance: Neutral — managing expectations to maintain investor trust, despite momentum feeling better than in years.
Q7 — Raimo Lenschow
Topic: Geographic and vertical performance improvements
Key points:
Upmarket ACV acceleration, upmarket retention improvements, company-wide retention improving for the fifth straight quarter.
Operations growth accelerating, Copilot growth, positive feedback on Go-To-Market Studio.
Reached Rule of 40 again this quarter; software retention improved sequentially for the sixth quarter in a row.
Solid quarters in telecom, manufacturing, and business services.
Mgmt stance: Bullish — confident in AI transformations requiring a valid data foundation, positioning the company as necessary for go-to-market AI.
Q8 — David Hynes
Topic: Copilot adoption in upmarket and pricing strategy
Key points:
Percentage of upmarket on Copilot not disclosed, but it is a significant portion.
Operations (over 15% of total ACV, growing high 20s) is almost exclusively upmarket.
Pricing for GTM Workspace/Studio designed for customer simplicity and frictionless adoption; platform fee plus prepaid AI action credit allotment.
Focused on early adoption and learning customer usage trends heading into 2026.
Mgmt stance: Neutral — prioritizing customer delight and value delivery; monetization opportunities will follow, with benefit seen in net retention.
Q9 — Koji Ikeda
Topic: Sales process for a private unified data and AI company win
Key points:
Customer was a long-term ZoomInfo user; account grew through Merit across the organization.
Already cleared security and data privacy review; trust built with stakeholders.
Few enterprise clients are wall-to-wall with an ELA; significant opportunity remains.
Sales cycles overall slightly shorter than historically, but upmarket shift will extend cycles with larger deal sizes.
Mgmt stance: Bullish — uniquely positioned to grow existing accounts with new products; large untapped opportunity in enterprise.
Q10 — J. Lane
Topic: Go-to-market resourcing and inorganic strategy for AI
Key points:
Sales organization has right capacity to grow much faster than recent years.
Rebuilt strong consultative customer relationships over the last few years; now positioned to bring new products (GTM Workspace, GTM Studio).
Customers are shifting back to outbound SDR motions as inbound demand declines due to AI/LLMs; hiring more SDRs and full-cycle AEs.
Company is the trusted partner to arm those teams with data, signals, insights, and AI.
Mgmt stance: Bullish — confident in capacity and demand trends; leveraging rebuilt customer trust to drive growth.
Q&A Batch (11-15 of 15)
Q11 — Tyler Radke
Topic: Rule of 40 feasibility for FY2025 and FY2026
Mgmt committed to managing expectations and delivering revenue growth, margin expansion, and aggressive share repurchases in 2026
Goal is accelerating free cash flow per share growth in 2026 vs. 2025
Mgmt stance: Neutral – acknowledges FY2025 likely misses Rule of 40 on a full-year basis, but reaffirms long-term commitment to the metric via three levers.
Q12 — Johnathan McCary
Topic: Net new business productivity and Copilot persona expansion
Key points:
Down-market: fewer sellers, rightsized packaging, more rigorous qualification; productivity per rep "fairly consistent"
Upmarket new business: $1 ACV growing year-over-year; reps fully ramped in Q2/Q3 after 9–12 month ramp
Copilot expanded personas from SDRs (top-of-funnel) to AEs, account managers, CSMs, sales operations professionals
GTM Studio and GTM Workspace expected to further extend into RevOps and frontline sales leadership
Mgmt stance: Bullish – excited about Copilot success in broadening personas and confident in continued persona expansion with new products.
Q13 — Rishi Jaluria
Topic: Impact of AI search and SEO changes on business
Key points:
AIO and SEO shifts are affecting the business, but impact is "very mitigated" by deliberate upmarket shift
PLG motion performing in line with expectations for this year
Sales focus is on upmarket; want significantly more new business mix in upmarket
$100K and $1M cohort ACV and customer count growing; net retention improving
Mgmt stance: Bullish – upmarket focus provides protection from AIO/SEO headwinds, and customers are hungry for AI solutions.
Q14 — Clark Wright
Topic: Internal AI investment to maintain data advantage
Key points:
ZoomInfo is "customer-zero" on all AI solutions released to customers; thousands of salespeople use products before launch
AI drives efficiency: creates decks, QBR plans, account plans, writes back to CRM, flags account risk
AI used across finance, product, and product marketing organizations; has lowered headcount
Peer groups and clients are "incredibly impressed" and request best practices/tear sheets
Mgmt stance: Bullish – believes company is in top decile of leveraging AI for efficiency; committed to continued AI investment.
Q15 — Jackson Ader
Topic: Sources of 2026 free cash flow per share acceleration
Key points:
Three contributors: growing top line, improving margins, aggressive repurchases
Compounding effect from all three levers will meaningfully contribute to acceleration of FCF per share in 2026
Notably, this combination "hasn't necessarily been the case over the last couple of years"
Mgmt stance: Bullish – committing to all three levers simultaneously, excited about compounding effect.