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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
We're going to go back a little bit too earnings, because that's definitely been on our radar as of late. I know we talked a lot about geopolitics, and we might roll a little bit of that into our next conversation. Want to go to Upwork Shares ralling big time yesterday following their quarterly update. The online recruitment company reported second quarter results that beat expectations. They also raised their full
year forecasts. The one point seven billion dollar market cap company, it connects businesses and independent professionals, so freelance, freelancers and others for remote work opportunities. The stock down more than twenty percent year to date, and about ten percent of the float is short. The company though a useful indicator of what is going on in the labor force, and so let's get to it. Today's CFO briefing with us as Erica Gesser. She is chief financial officer at Upwork.
She joins US for San Francisco. She will be featured in an upcoming edition of the Bloomberg CFO Briefing newsletter, which you can find at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Briefing and also with us as Nina Trupman. She's Bloomberg News senior editor who writes the Bloomberg CFO Briefing newsletter. She joins us here in studio. Eric, good to have you here with Nina, Jess and myself. Your stock did
soar on your latest quarterly update and outlook. Talk to us about the business and what's driving growth.
Yeah, thanks so much, Carol, it's great to be here. You know, we had a standout quarter in Q two in so many ways, but you know, I think really the most distinctive thing is that is the AI category of work. So many different types of work are developing in AI and on our platform. Our AI category group thirty percent year over year in the second quarter, and that was actually an acceleration from the first quarter. And one of the other drivers is actually all of the
AI enablement on our platform. So if you think about the high hiring process just in general, you know that you know, posting a job freelancers, you know, bidding on a job, and then and then you know the interview process well, we have now enabled AI all across the hiring process, pulling out friction from every single part of the customer experience, and we actually attribute about eighty million dollars a volume on our platform just from those improved customer experiences.
Erica, thanks for joining us. I'm just wanting to follow up on this. Of course, your platform operates all around the world. It's not just an indicator of job markets in the US, but also in other countries. Just wondering if we're looking at your US business in particular, I'm wondering, what does the growth that you've seen in the latest quarter tell you about the state of the labor market more broadly.
You know, it's really interesting Nina, and and hello, good to Good to talk to you again. You know, we overall, you know, I think on the in the labor market writ large. You know, there are obviously persistent winds hitting the labor market, the BLS data coming down, and you know, public staffing, if you look at the kind of public market public staffing companies, they reported about a four percent on average down quarter in Q two and actually projecting
even you know, even more kind of negative growth. We're actually really pleased in that context that you know, upper kind of growth quorder in Q two and that actually just shows the strength and the attractiveness of our digital platform.
But you know, I would just say that the vagaries of the BLS data in general, you know, if that's telling us anything, it's that things are really uncertain out there, and that uncertainty is affecting our clients and people in small businesses in general that are just unsure about what's around the corner.
When you're looking at particularly your share price actually being down roughly seventeen percent year to date, why is that And what do you think investors are telling you when it comes to their chief concerns right now?
You know, it's a great question, and and you know, we obviously, uh, you know, disagree with what the market is saying right now. And I think I think that the reality is is some of these kind of broader labor market concerns are affecting a lot of stocks in the human capital industry, and we're kind of getting pulled down with the pack, even though our results and the progress on the platform is really standing out from the crowd.
You know, I think that in general, there's been this you know concept out there that you know, as these really really exciting advances in a AI come forward, that they're going to start to substitute work. And there's actually no doubt that in certain categories at the very lowest end of you know, the types of work that are getting done and writing and translation, you do see AI substitution.
But on platforms like ours, where we we we actually supply much larger, more complex work with skilled workers, we're seeing AI actually enhance work and actually start to augment and accelerate categories that that some people thought would be disrupted, things like video and animation, contract law, accounting, and bookkeeping. All of these categories are actually being accelerated and advanced by Aiay.
Eric I will turn to AI in a second. I think Carol has a follow up on that. I'm just wondering. You said one thing about the BLS that I thought was interesting and actually one of the things I had wanted to to ask to you about as the CFO of a business that is, of course labor related. I'm wondering what you make of the firing of President Trump of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently.
Uh, well, it's it's it's hard to comment on on sort of on those decisions. I think, you know, these types of data get you know, get get revised all the time. These were actually large revisions. But you know, it's hard to comment on that decision. It was it was certainly very surprising.
Is it?
But is it a data point that you respect and have looked at and compared it to know what's going on in your world?
Look, I mean, we, of course as a business, you know, in a business in the human capital industry, watch the labor market very very carefully. And you know, and we have seen historically that you know, our kind of volume related trend what we call GSV in our platform have some correlation to kind of the movement of the Jolt report on a lagging on a lagging as a lagging indicator.
But you know, what we're what we're seeing now is that all the improvements on our platform and again, you know, some of the strength that we're seeing in certain categories is actually helping us to kind of buck the trends of what's going on out there. And you know, we're really kind of we're relying on the strength of our platform and advancements in our own tech to offset you know what continues to be a very very uncertain operating environment. Erica Nina was right.
I want to go back to AI for a moment because I'm kind of blown away that you say AI is kind of enhancing your your work and your platform in a big way, because I think there is this feeling like could even AI make what you guys do obsolete at some point? But educate because I think as we go along and we throw so much about AI into one little bucket, like, help us understand how you are using it on the platform, how it is actually driving things in your business.
Yeah, so it is driving things in our business in two ways, you know. The first is you know what I refer to is that AI enhancements on our platforms, So just making it easier for our clients, which are you know, businesses of all sizes who are coming onto our platform, you know, looking for great talent to get work done. In the past, they would have to write up a job post, you know, post the job interview, interview freelancers a series of freelancers, and the freelancers themselves
have to write a proposal. Now all of that is done by AI, and it's taking what used to take hours and hours, you know, down to minutes. So that's a huge advancement just in the enablement of finding a great match to get the work that you want to get done done quickly and easily. But the even more interesting trends are really around how AI is enhancing every
single category of work. I mean, you know, what we're seeing on our platform is you know, freelancer, you know, job descriptions popping up saying hey, I'm an AI video animator, I'm an AI artist. You know, it's not just prompt engineering or or you know, ll and building, of which we have you know, many, many, many, nearly two hundred and fifty thousand, you know, AI skilled talent on our platform.
But it's really impacting every single area of work. And what we're finding is, you know, it's enabling our freelancers to get work done faster, to get get work done better, and clients are actually looking for freelancers who are using AI to get to get work done.
Hey, listen, we just have about thirty forty seconds. I know Nina has one last question that she wants to ask us quickly.
Yeah, Eric, I was just wondering you completed two transactions recently and wondering did any of the macro uncertainty influence those so the deal making for those transactions.
That's an interesting question. You know, I don't think the macro uncertainty, you know, really played into it at all. These two game changing transactions that we did, the names
of the companies are buve Tea and Assen. These are really adding kind of digitally native capabilities to our enterprise offering to integrate you know, kind of an incredible AI kind of enhanced platform with our talent, as well as a broader contingent labor solution that will enable enterprises to again quickly and easily and kind of get through all the red tape of compliance and everything else to hire the contingent labor that they need.
Thank you so much, You're so real.
Love it.
Erica Guessert, two financial officer at Atwork, featured in an upcoming Bloomberg CFO briefing, and of course, Anita Treatman Bloomberg new Senior Editor