Can Restaurant Voice AI Keep SoundHound's Core Growth Engine Intact?

Restaurant-focused voice AI has long been a foundational pillar of SoundHound AI, Inc.’s SOUN business, providing early scale, real-world validation, and recurring deployments across national and regional chains. As enterprise AI and newer verticals expand, the key investor question is whether restaurants can continue to serve as a dependable growth engine rather than a mature, slowing segment.

The company continues to position restaurant voice AI as more than just an order-taking tool. Its offerings increasingly extend into employee assistance, operational insights and workflow automation, which allows existing customers to expand usage beyond initial deployments. This layered approach helps deepen relationships while raising average revenue per location, supporting durability even as market penetration increases.

In the third quarter of 2025, the restaurant vertical remained a meaningful contributor to performance, with the company adding roughly 1,000 restaurant locations during the period. Expansion wins included both new brand deployments and broader rollouts across existing chains, reinforcing SoundHound’s leadership position in quick-service and fast-casual formats. The company also highlighted continued traction for newer solutions such as Voice Insights and Employee Assist, which broaden monetization without relying solely on unit growth.

Going forward, restaurant demand appears resilient despite broader macro uncertainty. Automation-driven efficiency, labor cost pressure, and order accuracy remain compelling value propositions for operators, supporting continued adoption. While newer segments like enterprise AI attract attention, restaurants still provide scale, visibility and recurring usage. Restaurant voice AI may not deliver the fastest growth, but its consistency and expansion potential suggest it can continue anchoring SoundHound’s core growth profile.

Competition Intensifies as Rivals Scale Their AI War Chests

In the race to dominate conversational and agentic AI, C3.ai AI and Cerence CRNC remain two of SoundHound’s most persistent competitors, and both are aggressively expanding their capabilities. C3.ai has been pushing deeper into enterprise AI automation, making it a frequent point of comparison as enterprises evaluate large-scale deployments. C3.ai’s expanding product suite keeps it in direct contention with SoundHound for contracts across financial services, energy and government, ensuring C3.ai stays consistent in competitive deal cycles.
 
Meanwhile, Cerence continues to fortify its automotive AI footprint, making it a recurring competitor in in-vehicle voice systems and OEM partnerships. As EV makers and global automakers modernize infotainment platforms, Cerence often appears alongside SoundHound in shortlists. Moreover, CRNC maintains strong legacy relationships that keep it entrenched in key accounts.

SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

SoundHound shares have lost 44.9% in the past year compared with the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry’s 17% decline. SOUN stock has lagged the broader Computer and Technology sector and the S&P 500, as shown below.

SOUN's Price Performance

In terms of its forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio, SOUN is trading at 20.27, up from the industry’s 15.66.

SOUN's Valuation

Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SOUN’s 2026 loss per share has remained unchanged at 5 cents. The estimated figure indicates a whopping 58.5% improvement on a year-over-year basis.

SOUN currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

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

Zacks Investment Research