C3.ai Stock Tumbles 30%. Why Things Could Get Worse After ‘Catastrophic’ Earnings.
Aug 11, 2025 05:39:00 -0400 by Adam Clark | #AI
Thomas Siebel, CEO of C3.ai, is stepping down for health reasons. Photo: F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg
C3.ai stock was plunging early on Monday after it said its quarterly results were set to miss expectations by a long shot. Don’t count on a rebound for the artificial-intelligence software company.
C3.ai gave preliminary results for its July quarter after the close on Friday, and they were ugly, with revenue of around $70.3 million coming in about 33% below its previous guidance.
The stock was down 31% at $15.27 in early trading. That’s set to add to a 36% drop already this year through to Friday’s close, in a sharp fall from grace for what was briefly an AI market darling back in 2021.
The results were “catastrophic” according to D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria, who downgraded his rating on the stock to Underperform from Neutral.
“With C3.ai in the process of finding a successor to CEO Tom Siebel, more disruption is on the horizon from leadership changes and view business trends as likely to get worse before they get better,” wrote Luria.
C3.ai said last month it had begun a search for a successor to Siebel, who disclosed that he had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease earlier this year and has experienced significant visual impairment.
Siebel’s absence was likely part of the reason C3.ai has been struggling to get sales across the finish line, according to Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. The company has restructured its sales team, including appointing Rob Schilling as chief commercial officer on June 16, joining from software-and-cloud company Oracle.
“We maintain our Outperform [rating] giving the company a few quarters to reverse this negative sales trend with Siebel now out of the sales picture,” wrote Ives, who lowered his target price on the stock to $23 from $35.
C3.ai has been mooted as a merger target amid a wave of AI deals. However, D.A. Davidson’s Luria said that appears unlikely until the company can demonstrate stable financial performance for several quarters. He lowered his target price on the stock to $13 from $25.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com