Twilio (TWLO) Q2 FY26 earnings call: guidance and Q&A

Where is AI most pronounced, what's driving Messaging strength, and what's different about Voice AI vs. expectations?

Khozema noted broad-based strength in Messaging and Voice, with AI tailwinds primarily showing up in Voice. Thomas provided examples of AI-native customers starting with Voice and expanding significantly, with one growing to $6M ARR and another to $9M ARR.

“Generally speaking, I guess, I would call it broad-based strength across both channels and some of the newer products.”

asked by Aleksandr Zukin · answered by Khozema Shipchandler

What's driving the DBNE increase and accelerated gross profit growth, and should this continue?

Aidan stated DBNE was helped by 5 points from carrier fees but still accelerated organically. It's driven by healthy growth with existing customers, especially ISVs and multiproduct customers. Gross profit acceleration is due to higher-margin products and cost optimization efforts (cloud migration, direct carrier connections). Expects gross profit to grow similar to organic revenue.

“DBNE accelerate even adjusting for the fees. It was about 1 point better quarter-over-quarter. And really, in terms of what's driving it, just healthy growth with our existing customers.”

asked by Aleksandr Zukin · answered by Aidan Viggiano

How early are we in the Voice AI uplift, and what factors ensure the durability of this tailwind for Twilio?

Khozema stated it's "very early innings" for Voice AI, with significant volume still to come. He highlighted high ROI for customers (revenue uplift, cost reduction) and reduced token spend through Twilio's context-driven conversational suite. He expects significant durability for many years due to early stage and clear ROI.

“I would say it's pretty early innings, very early innings, as a matter of fact. I mean, like one way to kind of conceptualize it is that if you just think about like the number of Voice AI interactions that you yourself have had. My guess is it's like probably less than 5 or 6 over the last year or so. That's certainly the case for me. And so I think the reality is that while we're seeing pretty good growth right now, like a lot of this volume is still very much on the come.”

asked by Carolyn Valenti · answered by Khozema Shipchandler

How does Twilio view OpenAI (customer, partner, competitor) given their new product, and what new opportunities exist?

Khozema largely views OpenAI as a partner, emphasizing Twilio's neutral party positioning. Customers prefer flexibility to integrate with various LLMs and data models. Thomas added that Twilio is integrating with AI model providers (Codex, Claude Code) to make it easier for agent builders to use Twilio's communications infrastructure.

“I would say this is not unique necessarily to OpenAI, but a number of folks that we work within the ecosystem, they probably fit all of those descriptions based on different characteristics at different times. I think, by and large, partner in this case.”

asked by Derrick Wood · answered by Khozema Shipchandler

Will Twilio's long-term opportunity scale more with AI agent-driven actions or traditional human-driven actions at higher monetization?

Khozema believes it will be both. Currently, it's mostly human-oriented, augmented by AI. The future anticipates a shift to human-to-agent and agent-to-human interactions, especially for high-value, high-stakes transactions where a human-in-the-loop is needed. This provides durability for the business.

“I think it's going to be both. I mean, again, the reality of like where we are today, and I'm going to say probably for the next couple of years, it's going to be mostly human-oriented.”

asked by Koji Ikeda · answered by Khozema Shipchandler