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    NOW
    Earnings call· Mar 2026(Q1 FY26)

    ServiceNow Q1 FY26 earnings call NOW

    Apr 22, 2026 Source

    Executive summary

    ServiceNow Q1 FY26 — Strong AI Traction and Strategic Acquisitions Drive Growth

    ServiceNow delivered strong Q1 FY26 results, surpassing top-line and profitability guidance, driven by robust AI adoption and strategic acquisitions. The company is leveraging its AI control tower platform to drive business reinvention, with significant growth in AI-native offerings and an expanded market presence through recent M&A. Management remains confident in accelerating revenue growth and margin expansion, while prudently navigating geopolitical uncertainties.

    Highlights

    5
    • Subscription revenue grew 19% year-over-year in constant currency, exceeding the high end of guidance.

    • Current RPO (cRPO) grew 21% year-over-year in constant currency, beating guidance by 100 basis points.

    • Non-GAAP operating margin was 32%, 50 basis points above guidance.

    • Free cash flow margin reached 44% in Q1.

    • The 2026 Now Assist NNACV target was raised from $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

    Concerns

    2
    • Q1 subscription revenue experienced a 75 basis point headwind due to delayed closings of large on-premise deals in the Middle East.

    • The Armis acquisition is expected to create near-term headwinds to FY26 margins: 25 basis points for subscription gross margin, 75 basis points for operating margin, and 200 basis points for free cash flow margin.

    Guidance & targets

    10
    CategoryTargetConfidence
    Full-year 2026 Subscription Revenue
    $15.735B-$15.775B
    high materiality
    High
    Full-year 2026 Subscription Gross Margin
    81.5%
    medium materiality
    High
    Full-year 2026 Operating Margin
    31.5%
    high materiality
    High
    Full-year 2026 Free Cash Flow Margin
    35%
    high materiality
    High
    Full-year 2026 GAAP Diluted Weighted-Average Outstanding Shares
    1.04 billion
    low materiality
    High
    Q2 2026 Subscription Revenue
    $3.815B-$3.820B
    high materiality
    High
    Q2 2026 cRPO Growth
    19.5%
    high materiality
    High
    Q2 2026 Operating Margin
    26.5%
    medium materiality
    High
    Q2 2026 GAAP Diluted Weighted-Average Outstanding Shares
    1.04 billion
    low materiality
    High
    Now Assist NNACV Target
    $1.5B
    high materiality
    High

    Segment performance

    8
    SegmentRevenueYoYQoQMargin
    Technology workflows
    Showed broad-based demand with significant deal activity.
    Deals over $1 million: 33Deals over $5 million: 5Service Ops in top 20 deals: 17ITAM in top 20 deals: 17Security and Risk in top 20 deals: 15
    CRM and industry workflows
    Driven by strength in CPQ and sales and order management.
    Deals in top 20: 16Deals over $1 million: 16
    Core Business Workflows
    Contributed to overall deal strength.
    Deals in top 20: 13Deals over $1 million: 12
    Creator Workflows
    Demonstrated strong performance in deal volume.
    Deals in top 20: 16Deals over $1 million: 11
    Transportation and logistics (Industry)
    Continued to lead the way in net new ACV growth.
    Net new ACV growth: >280% YoY
    >280%
    Financial services (Industry)
    Posted impressive growth.
    Growth: >65% YoY
    >65%
    Energy and utilities (Industry)
    Showed strong year-over-year growth.
    Growth: 45% YoY
    45%
    U.S. public sector (Industry)
    Outperformed in Q1 with significant deal activity.
    Deals over $1 million: 10

    Operational metrics

    29
    Subscription revenue headwind (Middle East)
    75 bps
    Q1 FY26

    From delayed closings of several large on-premise deals due to geopolitical conflict.

    On-premise revenue impact
    >1 point lowerYoY
    Q1 FY26

    On-premise revenue was more than 1 point lower year-over-year in Q1.

    Share repurchase executed
    $2B20.2M shares
    Q1 FY26

    Executed a $2 billion accelerated share repurchase, buying back approximately 20.2 million shares, double the amount repurchased in all of 2025.

    Share repurchase authorization remaining
    $4.2B
    Q1 FY26

    As of the end of Q1 FY26.

    Rule of 55-plus standard
    Outperforming
    Q1 FY26

    Company is outperforming its own Rule of 55-plus standard.

    Rule of 56 company
    56
    Q1 FY26

    Company is currently operating as a Rule of 56 company (between free cash flow and revenue).

    Rule of 60 company
    60+
    Future

    Company is aspiring to become a Rule of 60 company and beyond.

    Stock-based compensation
    Single digits
    Future

    Goal to reduce stock-based compensation to single digits.

    EmployeeWorks business growth
    5xYoY
    Q1 FY26

    Moveworks, now EmployeeWorks, grew 5x year-over-year.

    Sales CRM NNACV growth
    >5xYoY
    Q1 FY26

    Sales CRM NNACV grew more than 5x year-over-year.

    Sales CRM deal count growth
    >80%YoY
    Q1 FY26

    Sales CRM deal count grew over 80% year-over-year.

    Moveworks deals closed
    More than prior year
    Q1 FY26

    Moveworks closed more deals in Q1 than it did the entire year last year.

    Now Assist deals with 3+ products growth
    Nearly 70%YoY
    Q1 FY26

    Deals including 3 or more Now Assist products grew nearly 70% year-over-year.

    Now Assist deals with 5+ products
    36
    Q1 FY26

    In Q1, there were 36 deals with 5 or more Now Assist products.

    AI Control Tower average deal size
    More than doubledQoQ
    Q1 FY26

    Average deal sizes for AI Control Tower more than doubled quarter-over-quarter in Q1.

    RaptorDB Pro deal volume growth
    80%YoY
    Q1 FY26

    RaptorDB Pro deal volume grew 80% year-over-year in Q1.

    RaptorDB Pro deals >$1M
    5
    Q1 FY26

    Included 5 deals over $1 million.

    New logo ACV growth
    >50%YoY
    Q1 FY26

    New logo ACV growth accelerated to over 50% year-over-year in Q1.

    Largest net new logo deal
    >$15M
    Q1 FY26

    Included the company's largest net new logo deal ever at over $15 million.

    Top 20 deals with 7+ products
    17
    Q1 FY26

    17 of the top 20 deals included 7 or more products, demonstrating the power of the 'Better Together' platform model.

    Employee IT requests resolved by AI specialists
    90%
    Q1 FY26

    ServiceNow's own deployment of Autonomous Workforce is resolving 90% of employee IT requests.

    AI specialist resolution speed
    99% faster
    Q1 FY26

    AI specialists are resolving assigned cases 99% faster than human agents.

    Robinhood employee request deflection
    70%
    Q1 FY26

    One early example customer, Robinhood, is deflecting 70% of employee requests before human intervention.

    Robinhood manual effort eliminated
    2,200 hours monthly
    Monthly

    Robinhood has already eliminated 2,200 hours of manual effort monthly.

    Online travel company autonomous AI resolutions
    11M annually
    Annually

    A leading online travel company is using ServiceNow Agentic AI to deliver 11 million autonomous AI resolutions annually for HR and IT alone.

    Online travel company ROI
    >230%
    Q1 FY26

    The online travel company achieved over 230% ROI.

    Online travel company hours saved
    45,000 hours
    Q1 FY26

    The online travel company saved 45,000 hours for its people.

    Knowledge attendance growth
    11%YoY
    Q1 FY26

    Attendance for the Knowledge conference is up 11% year-over-year.

    Internal productivity savings
    $0.5B
    Q1 FY26

    Gina Mastantuono has captured $0.5 billion in productivity on the back of AI-driven efficiencies.

    Industry KPIs

    13
    MetricValueDetails
    Revenue growth$3.671BUSD
    Arr net new arr$1.5BUSD
    Rpo current rpo$27.7B (RPO), $12.64B (cRPO)USD
    Pricing model mix50%%
    Large customer cohorts630customers
    Acquisition contribution125 bpsbps
    Large deal new logo metrics16 deals >$5M NNACV, 5 deals >$10M NNACVdeals
    Gross retention renewal rate97%%
    Multi product platform attach17deals
    Operating FCF margin rule of 4032% (Operating Margin), 44% (FCF Margin)%
    Ai product adoption monetizationNearly 70% YoY growth%
    Net revenue net dollar retentionnot trending significantly differently
    Headcount internal ai productivity90%%

    Orderbook & backlog

    2
    Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO)$27.7BQ1 FY26

    +23.5% YoY CC

    Current Remaining Performance Obligations (cRPO)$12.64BQ1 FY26

    +21% YoY CC

    100 basis points above guidance

    Product announcements

    5
    ProductTypeDetails
    EmployeeWorkslaunch
    Autonomous Workforcelaunch
    Build Agentlaunch
    Enterprise Service Management Foundationexpansion
    AI Native Platformupdate

    Deals & partnerships

    9
    Armisacquisition

    Acquisition closed earlier than expected. Yevgeny Dibrov, former CEO of Armis, will run ServiceNow's security business. Armis solves visibility with real-time agentless discovery of every asset (IT, OT, IoT, medical devices, shadow IT). 9 out of 10 Fortune 10 companies already rely on Armis.

    Vezaacquisition

    Acquisition closed in mid-March. Veza solves identity governance with patented Access graph technology, mapping access across people, machines, and AI agents in real time. Tarun Thakur, CEO of Veza, will continue to run the business.

    Moveworksacquisition

    Moveworks merged with ServiceNow's employee experience business and rebranded as EmployeeWorks. Bhavin Shah, former CEO of Moveworks, now runs EmployeeWorks. Integrated into EmployeeWorks within 3 weeks.

    OpenAIpartnership

    Deep technical collaboration between ServiceNow engineers and OpenAI technical advisers. OpenAI native voice and text models are integrated directly into the ServiceNow AI platform, using ServiceNow as a gateway into the enterprise.

    Google Geminipartnership

    ServiceNow AI specialists are working side-by-side with Google Gemini AI agents across 5G networks, retail, and IT operations with zero data movement and zero gaps in governance.

    Claude modelspartnership

    Claude models are deeply integrated into the ServiceNow AI platform for developers and employees.

    NTT DOCOMO and StarHubpartnership

    Developing the industry's first inter-carrier autonomous roaming resolution model on the ServiceNow AI platform.

    Cohesitypartnership

    Announced a partnership to deliver agent resilience by combining ServiceNow's AI agent control tower with Cohesity's immutable point-in-time data recovery.

    Carahsoftpartnership

    Expanded partnership to extend ServiceNow AI platform availability, opening all Carahsoft's commercial channels in addition to its established government network of 10,000+ resellers.

    Risks & headwinds

    2
    Geopolitical conflict in the Middle EastQ1 FY26 and Q2 FY26

    75 basis point headwind to Q1 subscription revenue

    Mitigation: Management is taking a prudent view of the geopolitical environment and its potential impact to deal timing, but held the full-year guidance.

    Integration of Armis acquisitionFY26

    25 basis point headwind to FY26 subscription gross margin, 75 basis point headwind to FY26 operating margin, 200 basis point headwind to FY26 free cash flow margin

    Mitigation: Strong AI efficiencies internally and underlying platform leverage are expected to normalize operating and free cash flow margin expansion trajectory in 2027 and beyond. The operating margin headwind is expected to go down to 0 by the end of the year due to efficiency.

    Q&A highlights

    7

    Clarify the impact of Middle East deal deferrals on Q1 results and the methodology for measuring Now Assist AI revenue, especially with new pricing tiers.

    Management confirmed Q1 was a beat and raise, with the Middle East impact being a minor 75 basis point headwind from on-prem deals, some of which have already closed in Q2. The full-year guidance was not reduced. The methodology for measuring AI revenue remains consistent, focusing only on incremental AI contributions. The 2026 Now Assist target was raised from $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

    We had a goal to be $1 billion on our AI commit this year, as you know. And I think we might have understated that a little bit. We're already talking about $1.5 billion now, and it's on a run.

    asked by Mark Murphy · answered by William McDermott

    2 min read6 chapters

    Detailed Narrative

    01

    AI Control Tower for Business Reinvention

    ServiceNow positions itself as the AI control tower for business reinvention, leveraging its 22 years of data, 95 billion annual workflows, and over 7 trillion transactions to provide unmatched context for AI agents and workflows. This architecture ensures governance and auditability across a heterogeneous enterprise environment, integrating with hyperscalers, language models, and systems of record. The platform's context engine learns from every decision, grounding AI agent actions in live context, approval chains, asset dependencies, and business rules.

    02

    Strategic Acquisitions and Integration Success

    The company successfully closed the acquisitions of Armis and Veza, integrating their capabilities to enhance security and identity governance within the ServiceNow platform. Moveworks, acquired earlier, has been rebranded as EmployeeWorks and has seen significant growth, quintupling its business year-over-year. This rapid integration and market adoption demonstrate the company's ability to effectively leverage M&A to expand its offerings and accelerate growth.

    03

    Expansion into New AI-Native Hypergrowth Areas

    ServiceNow is strategically expanding into five hypergrowth areas: core IT business (positioned as the ERP for IT), AI security, AI native CRM, AI native frontdoor and employee experience (EmployeeWorks), and Workflow Data Fabric. These areas are expected to significantly expand the company's total addressable market and growth trajectory. The entire ServiceNow portfolio is now AI native, with AI, data, security, and governance built into every product and package.

    04

    Hybrid Pricing Model and Consumption Trends

    The company's hybrid pricing model is gaining traction, with 50% of net new business now originating from non-seat-based models, including tokens and other assets. This approach combines predictable foundational seat licenses with usage-based scalability, offering customers flexibility and freedom to scale AI adoption without friction. This model is seen as crucial for monetizing the emerging value of AI as customers move from experimentation to full-scale deployment.

    05

    Internal Productivity Gains from AI Adoption

    ServiceNow's internal deployment of its Autonomous Workforce, featuring AI specialists, has yielded substantial productivity gains. These specialists are resolving 90% of employee IT requests 99% faster than human agents. This internal efficiency has allowed the company to maintain headcount while achieving a 'Rule of 56' performance, demonstrating the tangible benefits of AI in driving operational leverage and cost savings.

    06

    Expanding Partner Ecosystem and Collaborations

    ServiceNow is actively deepening its technical collaborations with key partners, including OpenAI and Google Gemini, integrating their models directly into the ServiceNow AI platform. Strategic partnerships with NTT DOCOMO, StarHub, Cohesity, and Carahsoft are further expanding market reach and solution capabilities. These collaborations reinforce ServiceNow's open platform strategy, allowing it to integrate with various AI models and systems to deliver comprehensive enterprise solutions.

    AI-generated summary of the company’s earnings call. Not investment advice.