SoundHound AI is giving a voice to artificial intelligence. And the AI voice tech company is making itself heard on Wall Street, where the spotlight on SoundHound stock is growing.
The path to providing AI voice technology to devices, business kiosks and call centers has been bumpy. And that's true for SoundHound's stock, which has been on a roller-coaster ride since the AI boom caught the attention of investors earlier this year.
SoundHound had been a pretty sleepy stock until Nvidia revealed in a regulatory filing on Feb. 14 that the AI giant had taken an investment stake in the company. Beyond Nvidia's stamp of approval, SoundHound Chief Executive Keyvan Mohajer stressed the importance of his company's technology. SoundHound stock rallied more than 17% to 9.25 in morning trades on Friday, on track for a two-year closing high.
"We think every product is going to benefit from voice AI," he told Investor's Business Daily. "And then every service also is going to benefit from an AI agent. Those are the two pillars of our business."
Two Key Business Pillars
The first pillar of its business provides voice AI for physical products.
"You can make a TV, speaker, toaster, washing machine or any IoT (Internet of Things) device voice-enabled as long as it has a microphone and you have a partner like SoundHound," Mohajer said.
The company focused initially on getting its technology into cars, where a voice interface is preferred because drivers should keep their eyes on the road, he said.
SoundHound's conversational intelligence technology is in vehicles from Hyundai, Kia, Genesis and other brands.
Televisions are another big area. TV maker Vizio, which is being purchased by Walmart, uses SoundHound technology.
SoundHound also provides AI agents for customer service applications.
"If you call a restaurant, our AI picks up the phone," Mohajer said. "If you go through a drive-thru of a restaurant, you talk to our AI. If you call your insurance company or bank or health care provider or retail store, we provide AI agents for these businesses. That's a massive TAM (total addressable market) that has been rejuvenated because of generative AI and large language models."
AI Preferred To Human Agents
Recreating the human voice and the smarts behind it increasingly has become an important AI goal.
Just a few years ago, when consumers called a phone number for a business and got an automated service, they immediately wanted to speak to a human, even if it involved waiting in a queue, he said. Automated response systems simply weren't effective, Mohajer added.
But voice AI systems have improved to the point that they have become more acceptable to consumers. Plus, there's no wait time, he said.
"It used to be that you had to be a large insurance company or large bank to be able to invest in AI and automation," Mohajer said. "But our vision is that you can be a single-location plumber or barber shop and you can have your own AI agent in a matter of minutes and at an affordable price."
Restaurant chains — including Chipotle, Jersey Mike's, Applebee's, White Castle, Panda Express and Church's Chicken — have been major adopters of SoundHound's technology.
Third Business Pillar Emerging
A third pillar of SoundHound's business is starting to emerge, Mohajer said. That involves connecting the different products its tools work with to digital assistants from customer service applications.
"If we are powering a car with our AI and we are powering the drive-thru of a restaurant with our AI, you can place your order before you get to the drive-thru," Mohajer said.
He thinks people will use SoundHound's AI-enabled devices to book appointments, buy tickets and do voice-commerce transactions. And that can generate new leads for businesses.
"We have enough scale to implement pillar three," he said. "We are in millions of cars and TVs and we are in over 10,000 restaurants and 200 enterprise brands."
Not Yet Profitable
SoundHound is not yet profitable. In fact, analysts polled by FactSet see quarterly losses continuing through 2025.
However, sales growth has been strong, averaging 74% year over year for the past four quarters.
For 2025, SoundHound is focusing on growth and profitability, Mohajer said.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company expects to roughly double its revenue next year to about $165 million, based on the midpoint of its guidance.
SoundHound also expects to reach profitability on an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis by the end of 2025, Mohajer said.
SoundHound Stock Rated As Buy
In voice AI, SoundHound competes with Cerence in the automotive segment and Big Tech firms like Alphabet's Google and Amazon in everything else.
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria reiterated his buy rating on SoundHound stock after the company's third-quarter earnings report on Nov. 12. He has a price target of 9.50 on SoundHound shares.
"SoundHound reported another strong quarter of impressive revenue growth that was above expectations," Luria said in a client note. "Demand remains high for SoundHound's solutions as it landed another top 10 global QSR (quick service restaurant) brand among other key customer wins and expansions resulting in rapid backlog growth."
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