CI&T - Q2 2024

Transcript

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning. Welcome to CI&T Earnings Call for the Second Quarter of 2024. I am Eduardo Galvão, Head of Investor Relations at CI&T. Joining me on today's call are Cesar Gon, Founder and CEO, Bruno Guicardi, Founder and President for North America and Europe, and Stanley Rodrigues, our CFO. This event is being recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After that, there will be a Q&A session. If you'd like to submit a question, please send it via email to [email protected]. The presentation is available on the company's investor relations website, and the replay will be available shortly after the event is concluded. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our expected business outlook, are forward-looking statements.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

They are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed on this call. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as they are valid only as of the date when made. During the company's presentation, we'll comment on certain non-IFRS financial measures to evaluate our business. Please refer to the reconciliation tables of non-IFRS measures in the appendix for more details. Our agenda for today includes an overview of our quarterly highlights, followed by some of our business cases. We'll then talk about our people and our financial results. At this time, I'll pass it on to Cesar Gon to begin our presentation. Cesar?

Cesar Gon (CEO)

Thanks, Eduardo. Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It's always a pleasure to discuss our recent performance and strategic advancements with you. A year ago, we proudly announced the launch of CI&T Flow, our end-to-end AI-powered platform, alongside a bold vision to radically transform CI&T. It was a decisive moment to fully commit to a future boosted by artificial intelligence. Today, I'm thrilled to share the remarkable advances, learnings, and tangible results we have achieved. Thanks to the unwavering partnership and trust of our clients and the extraordinary dedication of our teams, who have embraced this vision and made it a reality. In our vision, the AI disruption will unfold along the next 10 years in three acts. Act one is efficiency and hyper-productivity, paving the way for act two, customer experience and hyper-personalization. And this progression then leads to act three, decision-making and new business models.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

Now, CI&T is totally focused on act one by turning our teams into AI-boosted teams. Thus far, this approach has generated impressive results in time to market, quality, and productivity. One important learning is that adoption of generative AI is not a straightforward process. It's not natural for the enterprises or for the teams, so it demands a structured, a method-based approach. For the companies, our clients, you need to introduce tangible benefits of AI in an enterprise-wide approach, meaning within wide rails of reliability, security, and privacy. For the teams, you need to combine a reskilling roadmap with a concrete view of purpose. So during the last 18 months, we cracked the nut with CI&T Flow for these two fronts, onboarding more than 100 clients and achieving almost 70% adoption across CI&T teams. Bruno will address our engagement metrics shortly.

And this is just the beginning of this new chapter. We have a lot more to do regarding efficiency, the act one, and we are barely touching the act two, the customer experience disruption that is ahead and is inescapable in a timeframe of three to five years. With the continuous evolution of technology, we see possibilities once unimaginable becoming reality. Artificial intelligence is redefining our methods, enhancing our capabilities, and accelerating our results. As we resume our growth trajectory, we are expanding our teams to accelerate AI initiatives across the globe. This is an exciting time for all of us immersed in a world of digital and software engineering, challenging us to rethink what is possible. Now, let me comment on the financial highlights for the quarter.

In the second quarter of 2024, our net revenue totaled BRL 565.7 million, an increase of 8.1% compared to the first quarter of 2024, exceeding our guidance and market expectations. This strong growth was primarily driven by the expansion of our existing engagement with our top clients, with additional contribution from ramp-ups of some new clients we recently acquired. Our AI Growth Machine, a sales team of experts, strategists, and AI specialists, continue to enhance our speed and precision in understanding clients' needs, making us more effective in proposing unique solutions. These efforts are reinforcing our reputation as a trusted partner, and this trend supports our positive outlook for the second half of the year and into 2025. Our value proposition is to deliver state-of-the-art digital services in a hyper-productivity way, powered by CI&T Flow.

As a result, we have been growing our business in the U.S. and Brazil, our core markets, while also fostering growth in emerging regions for us, such as Europe and Asia Pacific. We ended the quarter with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.2%, demonstrating our ability to deliver high growth with solid profitability metrics. Finally, our cash generation from operating activities was BRL 131 million in the first half of 2024, 11.6% above the same period last year. Our cash flow profile allow us to continue investing in strategic initiatives and drive long-term growth. As we announced two days ago, and you might have noticed, and I hope you did, we have refreshed our branding to better reflect our identity as an AI-first technology partner. CI&T stands for Collaborate, Innovate, and Transform, and it highlights our core mission and values.

We are thrilled to embark on this new chapter and continue our mission with renewed energy and focus. Now let's explore some concrete examples of how we are creating value for our clients and revolutionizing our offerings through the power of AI.

Speaker 7

In the competitive landscape of corporate benefits and expense management, Alelo, a company with 21 years of expertise, embraced the challenge of hyper-productivity. In collaboration with us, they embarked on a digital transformation journey, integrating CI&T's Flow platform into their software development life cycle. Alelo's quest for innovation led to a significant revamp of its software development, which focused on three core areas. User story refinement. The objective was to trim the average time spent on user stories, refine their breakdown, and standardize their structure. The results were outstanding. The story creation time was reduced by 61% and speed increased by 2.55 times, reducing from 5.6 to 2.2 days per item. Development phase. Aimed at saving development time through more detailed and cohesive stories.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

Achievements included more precise acceptance criteria, fewer business-related queries, a smoother development flow, and less rework, leading to a 51% reduction in development time and a 2.05 times increase in speed. Gen AI cut down time from 7.4 to 3.6 days per item. Testing. The goal was faster test scenario creation and increased execution speed. Results showed a 21% reduction in test execution time and a 1.27 times increase in speed, with Gen AI improving efficiency from 3.3 to 2.6 days per item. The Alelo-CI&T partnership has delivered remarkable efficiency and productivity, substantially enhancing process speed and quality in software development.

Speaker 7

Our partnership with BP, the Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo, is dedicated to advancing healthcare through AI solutions. BP, recognized as one of the world's best healthcare hubs, employs 7,000 staff and 4,000 doctors. Partnering with us, they harness generative AI to address key challenges, cutting costs by 50% through automating medical audits. This ensures accurate prescriptions and procedures, speeds up approvals, and enhances evaluation reliability. The transformative results include quicker treatment authorizations, simplified reimbursements, and more efficient healthcare journeys. Together with us, BP is leveraging AI to improve patient care and pave the way for a more innovative and efficient future in healthcare.

We embarked on a strategic path to evolve into an AI-first company, focusing on accelerating modernization and innovation across multiple domains. As tech transformation specialists, we face the challenge of integrating AI into our core processes to enhance overall performance and maintain a competitive edge. By implementing AI-driven marketing, administration, IT, facilities, and HR strategies, we optimized operations, automated routine tasks, and fostered a culture of innovation. The areas of transformation encompass content, social media, hiring, career management processes, legal and audit procedures, demonstrating AI's potential to revolutionize all aspects of a company. Significant improvements were seen: a 50%-75% increase in efficiency in daily tasks in marketing and communications, a 7.5 times faster creation of content for client cases with a 95% cost reduction and time savings in processes ranging from 20%-40% in HR, IT, and facilities.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

The Inova program, which focused on process automation in human resources, including ESG initiatives, saw active participation and an average increase in innovation knowledge. Undoubtedly, it's a long journey, and we are committed to the long run, first transforming ourselves so we can transform our clients. Technology is changing faster than ever, and you need the right partner to navigate it, to be right by your side, innovating together and pushing you forward. We got you! Navigate the AI revolution to boost efficiency, real-time payments to enhance customer experiences, open finance to drive new revenue streams. Navigate financial tech changes to stay ahead of the curve. Navigate change with CI&T.

Speaker 7

Welcome to our latest update. We have gathered the most recent information and insights from our leadership team to share with you.

The second edition of Gen AI Pulse lights the path of disruption. Here, we bring together our specialists to share valuable insights and success stories in implementing AI solutions. In this edition, we explore how leadership needs to be reinvented now, more human and adaptable, thanks to the strategic integration of AI. 50% of teams with engaged leadership in AI transformation are more likely to experience and achieve significant productivity gains. What are you waiting for? The Gen AI Pulse is available on our website. CI&T is proud to announce it has been recognized by Globo for operational excellence in the 2023 Partners in Excellence program, achieving a 95% average grade, showcasing high standards of quality and efficiency. CI&T excelled in the Digital Tower contract, delivering exceptional technological solutions that exceeded client expectations.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

We are honored to receive this recognition from Globo, a Latin American leader in entertainment and mass media. It reflects our commitment to operational excellence and innovation.

Speaker 7

This past June, we hosted Not Another AI event at London's iconic Tate Modern, bringing together a vibrant new community of innovators and leaders from top global brands like Vodafone, Virgin Media O2, Clarks, Kaizen Gaming, Microsoft, Inchcape, and more. Our goal was beyond simply hosting an event, hence the name. We aimed to foster open discussions on AI implementation strategies, where we all shared tangible examples and discussed the hurdles and lessons from our AI journeys. The evening was a fusion of art, inspiration, and networking. Our panel, Gen AI in Action, led by our partner, EVP Solange Sobral, featured experts Sarb Sembhi of Virtually Informed and Mental Health in Cybersecurity Foundation, Fotan Barnard, formerly at VMO2, Mel Schmith from Microsoft, and Simon Clark from Clarks. We also surveyed attendees on their AI usage, revealing a diverse AI adoption landscape with equal parts early and advanced adopters.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

While 76% reported efficiency gains, data readiness and company culture emerged as key obstacles. Looking ahead, the event underscored the need for collaboration and knowledge sharing to navigate AI's evolving landscape.

Speaker 7

Our very own executive has just released an extraordinary book titled Smart Frontiers. This book explores the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence. Written by a combination of humans and AI, the book has used more than 18 AI agents in its production. Discover how AI transforms lives and redefines humanity itself. Ready to dive in?

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

At Collision 2024 in Toronto, a success story was revealed. From June seventeenth to 20, Domino's and CI&T shared knowledge behind its global pizza empire in the session, A Slice of Success: The Tech Revolution Behind a Global Pizza Empire. Bruno Guicardi, Co-Founder and North America President at CI&T, Kelly Garcia, CTO of Domino's, and Eliza Cohen, moderator, led the session. They explored the evolution of Domino's tech stack, showing how innovation has consistently elevated the customer experience and participated in roundtables on how Gen AI drives next-gen customer engagement. It was an unforgettable experience at Collision 2024, celebrating innovation and the ongoing success of an iconic brand. Technology is changing faster than ever, and you need the right partner to navigate it. To be right by your side, innovating together and pushing you forward. We got you.

Navigate AI to get personalized recommendations, omnichannel integration to create seamless experiences, and online engagement to deliver immersive shopping journeys. Navigate retail tech changes to increase your customer satisfaction. Navigate change with CI&T.

Speaker 7

Gen Gen: The Awakening of the Generative Generation, a documentary from Box 1824, in partnership with Stink Films, delves into the profound impact of artificial intelligence on society, culture, and humanity. This film explores the generative era where AI emerges as a creative partner, redefining art, work, and human connections. In addition to the documentary, Box 1824 published speculative stories. These are three forward-looking visions of the future, crafted by writers with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. The writers were invited to imagine the impacts of generative AI in the year 2050.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

You can call them Gen Gen or the Generative Generation. A generation that can use all of this technology not to replace, but to enhance. A generation that, for once, doesn't just break things to make things. We can generate them.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

It's exciting to witness tangible AI advancements in our offerings. Now, I invite Bruno to talk about our people and how we are preparing our teams to the future.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

Thank you, Cesar. The world of technology is undergoing a significant transformation, fueled by advancements in artificial intelligence and changing consumer behaviors. This shift presents immense opportunities and challenges for business across all sectors. As a global leader in digital transformation, CI&T is well positioned to capitalize on these trends. In the second quarter of 2024, we surpassed 6,200 employees, a 0.6% increase year over year, and a 2.4% increase compared to the first quarter of 2024. Our voluntary attrition rate remains at a healthy level of 10.4%, which strongly indicates employee satisfaction and engagement. As we navigate these technology changes, I'm excited to share our vision for growth and opportunity at CI&T. We are once again boosting our hiring machine to attract technology professionals across the globe to strengthen our artificial intelligence initiatives.

Our investments in talent are a response to the surging demand for our digital services. Our clients increasingly turn to us for innovative solutions that drive efficiency and enhance consumer experiences. This demand is expected to grow in 2025 and beyond, and we're committed to equipping our teams to meet these needs ahead of time. By attracting top-tier technology talent, we are not only preparing ourselves for the challenges ahead, but also positioning CI&T as the workplace of the future in an industry poised for decades of growth. The successful adoption of generative AI is paramount for workers, leaders, and organizations to continue to thrive.

In 2024, we intensified our efforts to elevate internal adoption rates of CI&T Flow, our own Gen AI platform, and I'm pleased to report that 68% of CI&T teams have now integrated Flow into their daily activities, and 2,400 CI&Ters are Flow certified, a fairly recent effort that we initiated earlier this year. Achieving these high adoption rates requires a well-structured and phased strategy, emphasizing training, user engagement, and skill development. These efforts are not just about technology, they're about transforming our culture and workflows to fully realize the benefits of Gen AI. Most importantly, over 100 clients have been scaling up their results with the Flow platform, boosting productivity and efficiency within the full software development process. Delivering more with less sets CI&T apart from other vendors, strengthening our relationship.

We are at a pivotal moment where embracing this opportunity can propel us to new heights, allowing us to play a crucial role in the upcoming global technology landscape. Now, I invite Stanley to present our financial performance for the second quarter of 2024.

Stanley Rodrigues (CFO)

Thank you, Bruno, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here once again to present our financial performance. In the second quarter of 2024, our net revenue was BRL 565.7 million, representing a 1.1% decline compared to the same period last year. However, compared to the first quarter of 2024, we achieved an impressive 8.1% revenue growth. This rebound was primarily driven by the sequential growth of our top 10 clients... This achievement demonstrates our ability to expand our wallet share with clients, seize new opportunities, and strengthen relationships, even in a dynamic market environment. Now, let's deep dive into our net revenue distribution by geography and industry verticals. North America remains our largest market, accounting for 43% of our total revenue in the first half of 2024.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

The revenue contribution from North America grew 15% sequentially, boosted by the expansion of our largest clients in the region, demonstrating our ability to grow within our core market. LATAM remains a crucial part of our operations, contributing 41% of our total revenue in the first half of 2024. Revenue from LATAM grew 1.5% quarter over quarter, indicating a resumption on its growth trajectory. Europe and Asia Pacific accounted for 11% and 4%, respectively, of our total revenue in the first half of 2024. Both regions reported sequential growth, fostering market opportunities for CI&T. We are pleased to highlight that we have observed sequential growth across nearly all of our industry verticals. Consumer goods and retail and industrial goods experienced above average growth, recording sequential increases of 19.7% and 15.7%, respectively.

This strong performance was driven by two main factors: accelerated growth from large clients we onboarded last year that are gaining traction and ramping up their engagements, and the deepening of existing relationships with our long-term clients. Finally, both of our top client and our top ten clients posted an increase of 5.6% and 10.2% compared to the first quarter of 2024, respectively. The expansion of our existing engagements with our major clients has been our main growth driver and underscores our ability to generate value on a recurring basis. Last quarter, we announced our intention to change our reporting currency to U.S. dollars by the end of the year. Thus, as of this quarter, we will begin presenting the number of our multimillion accounts in U.S. dollars.

This approach offers a better segmentation of our client cohorts, giving the growth trends of our business. For the twelve months ended in the second quarter of 2024, we had nine clients with revenue exceeding $10 million and 16 clients with revenue between $5 million and $10 million. We are quite excited about the addition of new logos as well as the development of our recent engagements. As Cesar mentioned, our AI Growth Machine, a dedicated sales team, have been fine-tuning our offerings according to client needs, fostering the addition of new logos, including blue-chip companies with relevant technology investment opportunities. Our track record of delivering on our commitments and navigating the challenges and opportunities within our clients speaks for itself. We are proud of our long-term relationships with our clients, built on value creation and continuous innovation. Now, moving on to our financial performance.

In the second quarter of 2024, adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 108.7 million, representing a year-over-year decline of 4.8%. This decrease mainly reflects our strategic investments in sales efforts aimed at fostering long-term growth, combined with a strong comparison basis in the second quarter 2023. The adjusted EBITDA margin was a solid 19.2% in the quarter. On a sequential basis, we observed a significant 29% increase in adjusted EBITDA. This improvement was driven by better gross margins and the dilution of fixed expenses. We remain committed to generating healthy margins through our diligent cost management approach, while we continue investing to resume our sustainable growth trajectory. Our focus remains on balancing short-term profitability with long-term growth initiatives.

Our adjusted net profit for the quarter was BRL 65.4 million, 5.8% higher than the same period last year. Our adjusted net profit margin rose from 10.8% in the second quarter of 2023 to 11.6% in the second quarter of 2024. This improvement is attributed to lower income tax and financial expenses. Sequentially, adjusted net profit increased by 56.7%, showing our commitment to operational efficiency and financial discipline. Finally, in the first half of 2024, we generated BRL 131.3 million from our operating activities, which is 11.6% higher than the first half of 2023. Free cash flow, calculated as net cash generated from operating activities, excluding CapEx, was $71.9 million. Our cash conversion ratio for the period was 68%.

Our financial strength provides us flexibility to pursue opportunities that enhance our competitive position and deliver long-term value to our stakeholders. Now, I will pass it on to Cesar to comment on our business outlook.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

Thank you, Stanley. Now let me add some color to our business outlook for the next quarter and year. We expect our net revenue in the third quarter of 2024 to be at least BRL 591 million, on a reported basis, equivalent to an 11.7% growth in revenue compared to the third quarter of 2023, and a 4.5% increase on a sequential basis. For the full year of 2024, we are increasing our guidance to reflect the growing demand for our services. We now expect our net revenue growth at constant currency to be in the range of -0.5% to 2.5% year over year. In addition, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA margin to be in the range of 17%-19%.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

Once again, I want to highlight that our full year guidance implies a significant sequential growth throughout 2024. We anticipate a faster recovery from the unusual challenges of 2023, leading to double-digit revenue growth year over year in the second half of 2024. This robust performance will set the stage for a strong growth trajectory in 2025 and the years to follow. In closing, I want to extend my gratitude to our team for their unshakable dedication and resilience. Together, we will continue to propel our company towards a future marked by innovation, collaboration and meaningful impact. Thank you all for your trust and support. We now conclude our presentation and may begin the Q&A session.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay, we'll now begin the Q&A session. I'll announce each participant's name. Once you hear your name, please unmute your line and ask your question. Then when you're done, please mute your line. The first question comes from Leonardo Olmos, from UBS. Leo, go ahead.

Leonardo Olmos (Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Whoa, we are so impressed with the numbers. Congratulations. Very good results and perspective ahead. Well, I'd like you to talk about revenue first. If you could disclose a little bit how are bookings, the projects pipeline? Talk a little bit about how the verticals are performing. It looks like across the board, but we can see, for example, that the growth in the U.S. was 10 times higher than the growth in LATAM. So if you could talk a little bit about those successes, stories in the U.S. and what you're looking for, what verticals are performing well. And that's it. That's my question. I think it's long enough. Thank you.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

I can get this one. Hello, Leonardo. Great to see you here. Well, let me talk about the environment, then budgets and then commercial activities. First, I think in general there is still a lot of uncertainty in the macro environment. However, there is an important difference from last year, from 2023, especially for our clients, large companies. I think what we see now is the tech budgets are more stable, so we are operating still in a mode of scarcity, but without the ups and downs of last year. Budget stability is key for us for two reasons. One of our main strategies for gaining client share is replacement of underperforming competitors, and clients will only be open for this type of, let's say, intervention if they have a good budget visibility.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

And the second factor is a similar process. I think it's also a child of this scarcity period, and also plays in favor of CI&T, is a lot of vendor consolidation process. So I think during the previous years, companies, especially large companies, increased the number of vendors and leading to a lot of complexities and overhead. So now they are, I think, searching for efficiency and this process of consolidation playing in favor of CI&T strength and positioning. In terms of commercial activity, I think if you... and pipeline for this year, if we compare the same period of last year, it's considerable higher, probably the double in terms of opportunities and bookings. So...

And also another good indicator is the deal closing ratio continues to improve along the year. So, and it give us a very positive outlook for the second half of the year and for 2025. In terms of regions, as you mentioned, I think US and our North America operation was the star of this first half of the year, mainly because we onboard some amazing new clients last year that are still ramping up. But during this first half of the year, I think we evolved a lot, especially in Brazil. So you should expect a lot of traction in our Brazilian operation in Q3 and Q4.

We are expecting good growth across the board, even in our smaller regions like Europe and Asia Pacific. I think in general it's a combination of some big new deals we did in the second half of last year and the beginning of this year, and also I think the success of this combination of offerings powered by AI and our new sales approach, which we are calling AI Growth Machine, that is a more aggressive sales strategy.

Leonardo Olmos (Analyst)

Very good. Congrats again. Have a good day. Bye-bye.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

Thank you.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Leo. Our next question comes from Thiago Kapulskis from Itaú. Thiago, please go ahead.

Thiago Kapulskis (Analyst)

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to make questions. The first one is on AI, right? I mean, there's a lot that you guys are doing and really interesting stuff. We heard great things from other digital IT services this quarter that we go over, and one of the things that kind of is kind of question that we have after hearing everything is about the cycle, right? Because there are companies that are mentioned. They're still at very early stages and still need to educate people about AI, and budgets there still have a lot to ramp up.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

So if you could mention a little bit what you're seeing and where we are in the cycle, if this should be a cycle as strong as others, like the cloud implementation and the migration, et cetera, that would be great. And also, in terms of the strength that you're seeing in the conversations, do you think that such strength will... or stabilization, at least, in you know in terms of the budgets, how you see that trend going into 2025? Do you see a more benign environment that could make us more confident about the exit rate this year and it being extended towards next year? Thank you.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

Thanks, Thiago. I'm gonna address the, I think, basically two questions, right? The first one, regarding timeline of investments, what we see is, this is the moment for efficiency. Of course, everyone is expecting a future, I would say, war around customer experience, but the technology is not there yet. There is still a mature cycle that we need to wait for before expose the clients of our clients to the models, to this new technology. But the efficiency is already there, and if you have a good, a method-based approach, you can capture that. It's not easy.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

It's a combination of, of an strategy for adoption for the teams, and also how you guarantee for large companies that you are playing in a, within the wide rails of security, of privacy, and reliability that are non-negotiable for large, established enterprise. So what I see as a roadmap is probably we will continue to see the majority of the investment relate to generative AI, link it to efficiency this year and next year, and probably, in two or three or five years, we're gonna see the beginning of a lot of, a huge investment in a radical, change in customer experience. We basically are going to move from the current paradigm, the smartphone screens, buttons, to a more natural language-based interaction between, computer and machine.

I like to say that the interaction with the machines will become more human, and this will be a huge opportunity for disruption, for getting customer attention and engagement. I think this will be a huge cycle of investment, very similar or even higher, what we saw with the mobile revolution a few years ago. It's the timeline. I would guess my educated guess is three to five years for that. After that, I think there is another huge battle along decision-making and business models. This is basically we are guiding our clients. Don't focus on short term. I think in terms of...

In the world of technology disruption, companies and we as humans tend to radically overestimate the impact in the short term, but radically underestimate in a timeline of ten years, for example. So it's time for preparing the capabilities and capture the benefits of efficiency and prepare for the experience battle ahead. The second question was regarding, I think-

Thiago Kapulskis (Analyst)

Budgets.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

The budgets. Yeah. What I see is gradually the now 2024. I think the word is stable. That is good. It is very good to play in a stable environment without ups and downs of budgets. What I expected and is natural is an increase for next year, basically because I have no doubt that tech and digital are secular trends. So this now is this relatively conservative investment in this year and last year are not sustainable in terms of competitiveness and client engagement. So companies will need to accelerate their digital strategies in the following years.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

So I am expecting an increase in investment around digital, so a new cycle of investments in technology that will play in favor of companies with a very solid value prop as us.

Thiago Kapulskis (Analyst)

Fair enough. Thanks a lot for the answers, Cesar.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

My pleasure, Thiago.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Thiago. Our next question comes from Puneet Jain from J.P. Morgan. Puneet, your line is open.

Puneet Jain (Analyst)

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Quick question on Bill, your average revenue per employee. It seems like revenue per employee was down a little bit on year-on-year basis, even like on constant currency. Would you attribute that to like the change in revenue mix, like maybe more offshore or nearshore delivery in the mix, or are you also seeing any pricing pressure in the overall environment?

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

I can take that one. Puneet, that's the first option, right? So it's, as we kind of grew, we kind of replaced, also, some on-site to nearshore revenue. So that's the outcome you see there. It's less about price pressure. We don't see that. That's to Cesar's point earlier, the market is stable, and so the pressure on prices are also stable. So it's very competitive, but still stable, so we don't see any need to reduce price at this point. But the average price consequences we see there is more a mix between onshore and nearshore, and we predict that will continue to be the case, you know, for the next, you know, couple of years.

Puneet Jain (Analyst)

Got it. And then, margins obviously came in well above at least our estimate for this quarter. And they ramped up significantly on sequential basis as well. So can you talk about like what drove margins in this quarter? Were they in line or better than your expectations, and what should we think about margins for the second half of this year?

Stanley Rodrigues (CFO)

Oh, I can take that one. Thank you, Puneet. With regard to margins, if you see, we grew our margins sequentially. Comparing to one year ago, we are even. So we will continue to focus on productivity gains from our diligent cost management approach. Also, we are leveraging on top of GenAI as we grow. GenAI has fixed costs. On the other hand, we are investing on hiring, training people. Also, we have expenses related to AI, and we foresee that this. We will continue to focus on those margin management, let's say, but also investing in what really matters, which is, propelling growth and the opportunities that they are ahead of us.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

You should expect the same type of margins as we are guiding EBITDA between 17%-19%. We are on track to deliver that guidance, so that's pretty much what you should expect.

Puneet Jain (Analyst)

Got you. Thank you.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Puneet. We have a few questions here from Bryan Bergin, TD Cowen. The first one is related to GenAI. "So how are clients approaching the contracting dynamics when GenAI is being utilized in your delivery? Is it impacting the structure, or do you expect it to in any material way, or early indications on how conversions are going?

Cesar Gon (CEO)

I can get this one, Galvão. Thank you, Bryan, for the question. Basically, I think, at this moment, we are really focused more on turning the hyper-productivity in new business than trying to replace the business model. So even the AI-boosted teams are still working in a very time and material way, but the difference is that you can work with much more aggressive time to market in terms of deliverables. And this is new in the market. Companies, I think, were not prepared for the level of difference among players, and they are getting used to it. There is still some discussions about evolving the business model of the whole industry towards some more output-based, but I think this is very early stage.

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

So what I see now is companies are being aggressive on capturing the efficiency opportunities regarding AI, but very conservative in terms of changing the way they acquire services in the market. So basically, it's an overview of what I see. Probably it will evolve in different pathways in the years to follow.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

All right, the second question from Bryan is regarding the quarter over quarter growth. "So guiding strong Q4 sequential growth, is there any way to separate large deal ramp-ups versus normal Q4 seasonality as we try to gauge an exit rate of 2024 into 2025?

Cesar Gon (CEO)

I think it's basically increasing demand. We don't have seasonality in the top line. Normally, we have seasonality in our bottom line regarding salary adjustment in the beginning of the year, contract price adjustment along the year, but in terms of top line, it's... We can see we have been seeing a lot of consistent on sequential growth, so we expect to continue growing sequentially along Q3, Q4, and first quarter of next year.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

The final question here regarding the workforce planning. "So the second quarter headcount grew 2% sequentially. What is your expectation as you move through Q3 and Q4? Can you provide color on balancing utilization with the need to add incremental billable employees to support the growth?

Bruno Guicardi (President for North America and Europe)

I'll take this one. We will, as we see more demand and demand accelerating towards 2025, we're actually rebuilding bench a little bit more. So we can expect utilization rate to go down a little bit as we kind of build that bench, preparing for a higher growth in 2025, right? So that's already started. We started hiring and preparing, you know, for mini trainee programs and the hour to really strengthen our roots and to develop people and to build our own people. So that investment will resume the second half of 2024, again, preparing for a higher growth in 2025.

Eduardo Galvão (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Bruno. So that concludes our Q&A session. Thank you all for attending our event today. I now invite Cesar to proceed with his closing remarks. Cesar, please go ahead.

Cesar Gon (CEO)

Sure. Thank you all for participating in our call. Thanks, Bruno, Stanley, Eduardo. I think you probably saw this week, we proudly launched our new visual identity. We are not just updating our brand, we are celebrating who we are and what we stand for, and I love the feedback from our clients, partners, and especially our teams. So once again, thank you, all CI&Ters around the world, for your spectacular hard work and achievements in this quarter, and I continue counting on you. And a special thanks for our clients for selecting CI&T to co-create this new, exciting chapter of innovation powered by AI. So stay well, see you soon.