Innodata and Big Tech: Why Customer Expansion Is Accelerating

Innodata Inc.'s INOD relationship with Big Tech is entering a new phase — one defined not just by wins, but by expansion. The company is deepening its role in the AI ecosystem as Big Tech customers expand spending on training, evaluation and next-generation model capabilities.

The company’s latest results underscore this shift. Third-quarter 2025 revenue rose 20% year over year to $62.6 million, while year-to-date revenue climbed 61% to $179.3 million. Management reiterated 45% or more full-year growth and pointed to “transformative growth” in 2026, driven largely by deeper engagement with leading technology customers.

Big Tech Expansion Is Broadening

On the third-quarter earnings call, management highlighted accelerating momentum with foundation model builders. Of eight major Big Tech customers previously disclosed, six are forecast to grow next year, several substantially. The company also received verbal confirmation of expansion with its largest customer and another deal expected to generate a $6.5 million annualized run rate.

Beyond existing accounts, Innodata landed or expects to finalize five additional Big Tech customers, two described as global leaders in commerce, cloud and AI. This diversification reduces reliance on any single program while increasing exposure to rising AI training and evaluation budgets.

Strategic Vectors Accelerating Spend

Customer expansion is also being powered by new capability areas. In pre-training data alone, Innodata has signed contracts that could result in approximately $42 million of revenue and expects to sign another $26 million, totaling roughly $68 million of potential revenue across five customers.

Meanwhile, its selection by Palantir to provide specialized annotation and data engineering for AI-enabled platforms highlights its growing role inside advanced AI deployments.

As generative AI budgets scale across hyperscalers and sovereign programs, Innodata is increasingly embedded deeper into customer workflows — positioning expansion, not just new logos, as the primary driver of its next revenue wave.

Cognizant and C3.ai in the AI Data & Services Race

In the fast-expanding AI data-services market, Cognizant CTSH and C3.ai AI are relevant peers to Innodata (INOD). Cognizant has been scaling its AI and digital engineering capabilities, working closely with hyperscalers and enterprises to build, train and deploy AI-driven applications. As foundation model builders increase spending on data engineering, model tuning and enterprise AI integration, Cognizant increasingly overlaps with Innodata in large, complex AI transformation programs. The company’s global scale and enterprise penetration give it  the ability to compete for multimillion-dollar AI data and lifecycle contracts.

C3.ai operates in enterprise AI software, focusing on model-driven applications across industries. As enterprises move from experimentation to production AI, C3.ai competes for budgets tied to AI deployment, workflow automation and analytics modernization—areas where data quality and preparation remain critical.

Together, Cognizant and C3.ai illustrate how customer expansion in AI is attracting both specialized data players and large digital transformation firms into the same high-growth opportunity set.

INOD’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of Innodata have gained 5.1% in the past six months, outperforming the Zacks Technology Services industry’s 0.2% growth.

INOD 6-Month Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, INOD trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 37.74, much higher than the industry’s average of 23.5.

P/E (F12M)

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for INOD’s 2026 earnings has remained unchanged at $1.20 in the past 60 days. The estimated figure indicates 35.6% growth from the expected 2025 level.
 

INOD 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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