C3.ai Ramps Up Partner-Led Sales Model: Can It Drive Scalable Growth?

C3.ai, Inc. AI is doubling down on a go-to-market strategy centered around its rapidly expanding partner ecosystem. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the company secured 73% of its agreements in collaboration with strategic partners like Microsoft, AWS and Google Cloud. In fiscal 2025, it signed 193 deals through the partner ecosystem, reflecting a rise of 68% from the prior year. In the fiscal fourth quarter, AI reported a 419% surge in partner-supported bookings, with 59 agreements closed through strategic alliances.

In the fiscal fourth quarter, C3.ai closed 59 partner-led deals. The company’s deepened alliance with Microsoft is noteworthy. Its applications are listed in Azure’s sales catalog, with commissions being paid to Microsoft’s global salesforce for successful closes. In the quarter, the company inked 28 joint deals with Microsoft, emphasizing manufacturing and chemicals.

To support this channel-centric push, C3.ai has invested heavily in demo licenses and enablement tools. These demo licenses — used by partners and strategic customers alike — made up nearly 30% of the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenues.

C3.ai is now jointly targeting over 600 accounts with Microsoft alone, and is pursuing similar scaling with AWS, Google Cloud and newly formed alliances like PwC and McKinsey QuantumBlack. The management is optimistic and anticipates the consulting partners to unlock new levels of scalability and market penetration in the upcoming periods.

How It Stacks Up to Competitors

Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR continues to pursue a more vertically integrated model, emphasizing direct engagement with clients over an external partner-led sales approach. Palantir does collaborate with key institutions, such as R1 RCM in healthcare automation and NATO for mission-critical AI deployments. Its Maven Smart System and AIP platform are deployed directly with defense agencies and commercial clients through proprietary programs. Palantir’s partnerships are strategic in nature but limited in scale compared to the broad commercial enablement seen at C3.ai.

Snowflake Inc. SNOW, in contrast, is building a hybrid model that blends direct go-to-market with strong platform partnerships. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Snowflake highlighted expanded collaboration with Microsoft, enabling customers to host OpenAI models via Azure and integrate Snowflake’s Cortex AI products into Office Copilot. The company leverages technology from its Datavolo acquisition to improve data connectivity with partners like Google Drive, Workday, Slack and SharePoint.

In the public sector, Snowflake launched Snowflake Public Sector Inc. and secured Department of Defense provisional authorization, boosting offerings to the government and national security. Its model emphasizes data ecosystem interoperability, supporting structured and unstructured data across platforms and creating opportunities for seamless collaboration. While not as externally distributed as C3.ai’s, Snowflake’s partner strategy is essential for expanding AI use cases and integrations across verticals.

AI’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of C3.ai, have gained 0.5% in the past three months compared with the industry’s growth of 0.3%.

From a valuation standpoint, AI trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 6.50X, significantly below the industry’s average of 18.47X.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AI’s fiscal 2026 and 2027 earnings per share (EPS) implies a year-over-year uptick of 9.8% and 56.9%, respectively. The EPS estimates for fiscal 2026 and 2027 have increased in the past 30 days.

AI stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). 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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