SoundHound's Voice Commerce Gains Traction: Is the Flywheel Emerging?

SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN is leaning into its Voice Commerce strategy, positioning the capability as the next growth engine across its automotive and restaurant customer base. Once a long-term vision, Voice Commerce is now moving into pilots and advanced-stage trials with global automakers and major QSR chains, enabling drivers to order food, pay for parking, or make reservations directly from their vehicles. Management emphasized that going live is “imminent,” with early adoption already improving customer win rates and renewal activity.

In the second quarter of 2025, SoundHound reported record revenues of $42.7 million, up 217% year over year. The upside was driven by broad-based growth across enterprise, restaurant and automotive segments. The company processed nearly 3 billion queries during the quarter, more than double the prior year, underscoring accelerating demand for conversational AI. During the second quarter, SOUN reported scaling of restaurant adoption, surpassing 14,000 locations, while automotive deals included a major new OEM win in China, expanding its global footprint.

Voice Commerce sits at the intersection of these businesses, creating incremental revenue opportunities for both automakers and merchants. By integrating its proprietary Polaris engine and agentic AI platform, SoundHound is offering a differentiated solution that enhances user experience while opening new monetization pathways. Management believes this ecosystem effect could drive a self-reinforcing cycle of adoption as OEMs and merchants seek to capitalize on transactional engagement.

How It Stacks Up to Competitors

C3.ai, Inc. AI continues to expand its positioning as a broad enterprise AI platform, with deployments across energy, defense and manufacturing verticals. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the company introduced its Strategic Integrator Program, which licenses its agentic AI platform to OEMs and service providers for embedding into mission-critical workflows. While C3.ai did not single out automotive as a core revenue driver, the program underscores its ability to scale predictive and generative AI across large industrial ecosystems. This enterprise-first approach broadens C3.ai’s relevance across sectors and could intersect with adoption trends in industries such as automotive, where connected platforms are becoming increasingly prominent.

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. BBAI remains anchored in government and defense-driven markets, benefiting from substantial funding tailwinds and expanding international partnerships. In the second quarter of 2025, the company extended its biometric solutions to 25 airports and advanced ConductorOS, its autonomy platform supporting next-generation drone operations. New agreements in the UAE and Panama further broaden BigBear’s reach in security and logistics, underscoring its growing relevance in global AI adoption. Despite near-term revenue pressure from U.S. Army contract disruptions, management emphasized financial strength as a strategic advantage. BigBear closed the quarter with $391 million in cash and a net positive cash position, providing ample liquidity to pursue both organic investments and targeted M&A. Executives framed this as an “offensive strategy,” positioning the company to capitalize on generational AI funding and accelerate long-term market capture.

SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of SoundHound have gained 31.5% in the past three months against the industry’s decline of 10.2%.

SOUN Three-Month Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, SOUN trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 27.21X, significantly above the industry’s average of 16.99X.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2025 and 2026 earnings per share (EPS) implies a year-over-year uptick of 87.5% and 57.7%, respectively. The EPS estimates for 2025 have increased in the past 30 days.

SoundHound stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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