November 25, 2025 • 7 mins
Upwork (Nasdaq: UPWK) last week outlined its long-term growth strategy and financial outlook at its 2025 Investor Day. Upwork President and CEO Hayden Brown, CFO Erica Gessert, and other executives detailed how the company has fundamentally rewired its business over the last three years and is leading the reinvention of flexible work in the AI era. The company also unveiled its full year 2026 guidance and 2028 growth targets, seeing itself as well-positioned to capture a greater share of the $1.3 trillion global digital knowledge work market.
Erica details Upwork's playbook for durable and profitable growth with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg BusinessWeek
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Shares the online recruitment company Upwork surged five point five
percent this after it provided guidance for fiscal years twenty
twenty six and twenty twenty eight. At its twenty twenty
five in Investor Day, the company set it will now
achieve long term targets of seven to nine percent compound
annual growth rate. This of gross services volume, it's the
acronym GSV. What essentially means is it's the total value
(00:36):
of all transactions that occur on the upwork platform. The
company also settle to see revenue growth of thirteen to
fifteen percent and twenty percent adjusted EBADA compound annual growth
rate through twenty twenty eight. This comes after shares search
thirteen percent earlier this month, after it reported third quarter
results that beat expectations and raised it's full your forecasts.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Delighted to have with us right here in our Bloomberg
Interactive broker studio Erica g Search. She is the CFO,
Chief Financial Officer of Upwork.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Busy day for.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
You, Very busy Yeah, busy, but great, A lot of
exciting stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, Investors like what they heard from you guys in
terms of guidance. Talk to us about the outlook, what
you're seeing, how much confidence you feel in the outlook,
and what it kind of tells us about us economy
and kind of the workforce.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
You know we have.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
You know that our investor day was really timed perfectly
for us. The reason our stock went up thirteen percent
after our earnings report was we you know, at the beginning,
at the end of twenty twenty four, we told our
investors that we would, you know, take a year and
really reinvest in our company and rebuild up work and
we said that we would return to GSB and revenue
growth in twenty twenty six. Well, we did that two
(01:43):
quarters early. In Q three of twenty twenty five, we
report G three growth of two percent. We reported revenue
growth of four percent. And what we told them then
was that our results are going up into the right
right now, and that is because of really three investment areas.
When is AI, when is SMB expanding our relationship with SMB,
And one is the outsized opportunity that we have with
(02:04):
Lurge enterprise. But you know, with AI is really one
of the big stories for us because I don't know
how well you follow up work. But you know, we
have had a bit of an overhang over our stock
on the opposite side of the spectrum, thinking that we
were going to be you know, you know, hurt by AI,
whereas we are truly a beneficiary of AI. We now
see about annualized volume of three hundred million dollars in
(02:27):
GSB from the A category on our platform, and that
is accelerating. In Q three it was over fifty percent
growth per year.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I want to remind everybody upwork is a hiring platform.
You can go there to find talent in development and
IT AI services, design and creative, sales and marketing, admin
and customer support. It's this two sided markets.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So that's right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You have a good view on what exactly the type
of job that companies are hiring for and then also
the availability of that labor. What does that picture and
that balance look like right now?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, you know it. The last few years.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
Have been, as we all know, tough the on the
job market, and you know, most companies in our industry
were down double digits over the past few years in
terms of both volume and revenue. Upwork was relatively flat
for the past couple of years. So you know, we
were gaining share against staffing companies even other online.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Marketplaces, but still relatively flat.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
And it's really these investments that we've made in AI,
we're actually seeing both the AI category itself increase and
that is really.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Like I say, accelerating.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
So this is this is AI work on the platform,
but also the investments on the front end. So if
you think about the hiring process and how that works,
there's a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Of friction to it, right.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
You know, a client comes onto our website, they post
a job, they have to write it up, they have
to search for talent, the talent has to write a
job proposal.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Well, now AI does all of.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
That for both our clients and our talent, and it's
making them find each other faster and you.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Know and kind of fulfill these jobs and get them done.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Those matches work. Like what percentage of the time are
where is that?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It's like, well, not not good?
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Well no, So what the AI is doing is it's
writing the job post, it's writing the job proposal, and
of course that you know they're they're there can be editing. Yeah,
but now we do have AI interviewer, and and we
also one of our one of our most successful, very
recent launches is Uma, which is our you know, our
AI companion on our site is now recruiting talent. So
so the client asked for a certain type of talent,
(04:23):
Uma goes out within our you know, eighteen million strong
talent based and identifies the right talent for that job.
Now we're seeing fill rates much higher using the using
the AI recruiter than with the human recruiter. Why, well,
you know, I think we have one of the best
data sets honestly on the planet. And if you think
about what these what this AI is actually really good at.
(04:43):
It's good at at at you know, uh, spinning lots
and lots of data, right, And so you know, we've
been building our our platform is over ten years old,
and we've been building this data set of you know,
what types of jobs match with which talent. You know,
whether client client is price sensitive or you know, maybe
their quality sensitive. And so the recruiter, the air recruiter
(05:03):
is much better at scanning across all of this data
than a human can be.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Are you are you seeing demand stay of stable decrease
or increase from the side of your platform that is
looking for the workers.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Yeah, so client demand and I think you know what
we are seeing is client demand has been where we
have seen the biggest impact from from you know, I
would say the job market and the economy written large.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Maybe like like if the economy is softer, then demand
will go down from the cience, yes.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And and and if you think about that, if you
think about you know, our our online marketplace is primarily
SMB customers, right and so small the small medium sized business.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
So if you think about what's going on there.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
When inflation is high, you know, you know this this
hits consumer whiles it also hits SMB you know leaders
and and and then also when interest rates are high,
they have lower access to capital, right, And so we
do see the demand environment in terms of just pure
volume of SMB hirers, uh, you know, relatively flat in.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
This in this you know right now.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
But what we are seeing is, you know, we are
one of the few places where these SMB customers can
actually access very high quality AI talent and afford you know,
in an affordable way and quickly. And so as they're
trying to implement AI work within their businesses.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
You know, contingent.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
This contingent marketplace that we offer is one of the
best places they can.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Find what's your take on AI and the impact it's
going to have on the labor force.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
So you know, we have amazing data on this, and
what we are seeing is is that AI is not
going to replace humans. What's going to you know, humans
with AI will replace humans without AI, right, And so
what we're seeing AI replace very simple tasks, but not
you know, the larger, more complex work because these a
(06:47):
these AI agents are not that edgentic, right, they have
no judgment, They cannot complete the complex tasks. So what
we've seen over well, what we've seen over the years
is you know, jobs that are three hundred dollars in
lower those have those have gone down on our platform.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
So about two years ago we had.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
About five percent of our work with job three hundred
dollars and lower.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Now it's about three and a half percent.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
But at the same time, the AI jobs on our platform,
clients who engage in AI work spend about three times
what our normal you know kind of platform work does
and so you know, we see that growing and growing
because that work is more complex. It requires humans and
you know humans using AI agents, but it requires humans
in the loop.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg BusinessWeek
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Shares the online recruitment company Upwork surged five point five
percent this after it provided guidance for fiscal years twenty
twenty six and twenty twenty eight. At its twenty twenty
five in Investor Day, the company set it will now
achieve long term targets of seven to nine percent compound
annual growth rate. This of gross services volume, it's the
acronym GSV. What essentially means is it's the total value
(00:36):
of all transactions that occur on the upwork platform. The
company also settle to see revenue growth of thirteen to
fifteen percent and twenty percent adjusted EBADA compound annual growth
rate through twenty twenty eight. This comes after shares search
thirteen percent earlier this month, after it reported third quarter
results that beat expectations and raised it's full your forecasts.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Delighted to have with us right here in our Bloomberg
Interactive broker studio Erica g Search. She is the CFO,
Chief Financial Officer of Upwork.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Busy day for.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
You, Very busy Yeah, busy, but great, A lot of
exciting stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, Investors like what they heard from you guys in
terms of guidance. Talk to us about the outlook, what
you're seeing, how much confidence you feel in the outlook,
and what it kind of tells us about us economy
and kind of the workforce.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
You know we have.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
You know that our investor day was really timed perfectly
for us. The reason our stock went up thirteen percent
after our earnings report was we you know, at the beginning,
at the end of twenty twenty four, we told our
investors that we would, you know, take a year and
really reinvest in our company and rebuild up work and
we said that we would return to GSB and revenue
growth in twenty twenty six. Well, we did that two
(01:43):
quarters early. In Q three of twenty twenty five, we
report G three growth of two percent. We reported revenue
growth of four percent. And what we told them then
was that our results are going up into the right
right now, and that is because of really three investment areas.
When is AI, when is SMB expanding our relationship with SMB,
And one is the outsized opportunity that we have with
(02:04):
Lurge enterprise. But you know, with AI is really one
of the big stories for us because I don't know
how well you follow up work. But you know, we
have had a bit of an overhang over our stock
on the opposite side of the spectrum, thinking that we
were going to be you know, you know, hurt by AI,
whereas we are truly a beneficiary of AI. We now
see about annualized volume of three hundred million dollars in
(02:27):
GSB from the A category on our platform, and that
is accelerating. In Q three it was over fifty percent
growth per year.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I want to remind everybody upwork is a hiring platform.
You can go there to find talent in development and
IT AI services, design and creative, sales and marketing, admin
and customer support. It's this two sided markets.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
So that's right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You have a good view on what exactly the type
of job that companies are hiring for and then also
the availability of that labor. What does that picture and
that balance look like right now?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, you know it. The last few years.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
Have been, as we all know, tough the on the
job market, and you know, most companies in our industry
were down double digits over the past few years in
terms of both volume and revenue. Upwork was relatively flat
for the past couple of years. So you know, we
were gaining share against staffing companies even other online.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Marketplaces, but still relatively flat.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
And it's really these investments that we've made in AI,
we're actually seeing both the AI category itself increase and
that is really.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Like I say, accelerating.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
So this is this is AI work on the platform,
but also the investments on the front end. So if
you think about the hiring process and how that works,
there's a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Of friction to it, right.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
You know, a client comes onto our website, they post
a job, they have to write it up, they have
to search for talent, the talent has to write a
job proposal.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Well, now AI does all of.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
That for both our clients and our talent, and it's
making them find each other faster and you.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Know and kind of fulfill these jobs and get them done.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Those matches work. Like what percentage of the time are
where is that?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It's like, well, not not good?
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Well no, So what the AI is doing is it's
writing the job post, it's writing the job proposal, and
of course that you know they're they're there can be editing. Yeah,
but now we do have AI interviewer, and and we
also one of our one of our most successful, very
recent launches is Uma, which is our you know, our
AI companion on our site is now recruiting talent. So
so the client asked for a certain type of talent,
(04:23):
Uma goes out within our you know, eighteen million strong
talent based and identifies the right talent for that job.
Now we're seeing fill rates much higher using the using
the AI recruiter than with the human recruiter. Why, well,
you know, I think we have one of the best
data sets honestly on the planet. And if you think
about what these what this AI is actually really good at.
(04:43):
It's good at at at you know, uh, spinning lots
and lots of data, right, And so you know, we've
been building our our platform is over ten years old,
and we've been building this data set of you know,
what types of jobs match with which talent. You know,
whether client client is price sensitive or you know, maybe
their quality sensitive. And so the recruiter, the air recruiter
(05:03):
is much better at scanning across all of this data
than a human can be.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Are you are you seeing demand stay of stable decrease
or increase from the side of your platform that is
looking for the workers.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Yeah, so client demand and I think you know what
we are seeing is client demand has been where we
have seen the biggest impact from from you know, I
would say the job market and the economy written large.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Maybe like like if the economy is softer, then demand
will go down from the cience, yes.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And and and if you think about that, if you
think about you know, our our online marketplace is primarily
SMB customers, right and so small the small medium sized business.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
So if you think about what's going on there.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
When inflation is high, you know, you know this this
hits consumer whiles it also hits SMB you know leaders
and and and then also when interest rates are high,
they have lower access to capital, right, And so we
do see the demand environment in terms of just pure
volume of SMB hirers, uh, you know, relatively flat in.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
This in this you know right now.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
But what we are seeing is, you know, we are
one of the few places where these SMB customers can
actually access very high quality AI talent and afford you know,
in an affordable way and quickly. And so as they're
trying to implement AI work within their businesses.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
You know, contingent.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
This contingent marketplace that we offer is one of the
best places they can.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Find what's your take on AI and the impact it's
going to have on the labor force.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
So you know, we have amazing data on this, and
what we are seeing is is that AI is not
going to replace humans. What's going to you know, humans
with AI will replace humans without AI, right, And so
what we're seeing AI replace very simple tasks, but not
you know, the larger, more complex work because these a
(06:47):
these AI agents are not that edgentic, right, they have
no judgment, They cannot complete the complex tasks. So what
we've seen over well, what we've seen over the years
is you know, jobs that are three hundred dollars in
lower those have those have gone down on our platform.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
So about two years ago we had.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
About five percent of our work with job three hundred
dollars and lower.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Now it's about three and a half percent.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
But at the same time, the AI jobs on our platform,
clients who engage in AI work spend about three times
what our normal you know kind of platform work does
and so you know, we see that growing and growing
because that work is more complex. It requires humans and
you know humans using AI agents, but it requires humans
in the loop.
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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