CHICAGO, May 1, 2026, 10:03 CDT
- Tempus AI has scheduled its first-quarter earnings release for May 5, with the inaugural investor day set for May 29.
- This week, Merck’s chief executive pointed to Tempus as he talked up the company’s AI efforts in precision oncology.
- Tempus hovered around $55.44 early, barely budging, leaving its market cap close to $9.7 billion.
Tempus AI Inc has set May 29 for its inaugural investor day, aiming to convince Wall Street it’s more than just a genetic testing company and can break into the broader healthcare data and AI market. That showcase follows its first-quarter earnings release, which lands on May 5—about three and a half weeks earlier.
Timing’s in focus here. Investors are weighing whether Tempus is still mostly a diagnostics play with rapid growth or if it’s evolving into a data platform—one that keeps pharma clients coming back for long-haul oncology projects, as genetic and clinical insights reshape precision medicine. Tempus reported full-year 2025 revenue up 83.4% to $1.27 billion and projected 2026 revenue at around $1.59 billion.
Thursday’s first-quarter call brought Merck’s AI ambitions into sharper focus. Chief Executive Robert Davis told analysts the company’s AI drive “complements our recently expanded collaboration with Tempus AI” and forms part of the precision oncology push, which also includes projects with Google Cloud and a distinct deal with Mayo Clinic. Merck.com
Tempus traded close to unchanged early Friday on the Nasdaq, sitting at $55.44. Shares touched $55.90 at the morning high. Market cap hovered near $9.70 billion, according to available data.
Tempus kicks off its inaugural investor day on May 29, beginning at 8 a.m. Central. Founder and CEO Eric Lefkofsky is expected, along with CFO Jim Rogers, Ryan Fukushima from Data and Applications, Diagnostics CEO Tom Schoenherr, and Chief Scientific Officer Kate Sasser. The company says the agenda zeroes in on its Diagnostics and Data & Applications segments.
The core narrative comes down to those two segments. Diagnostics pulled in $955.4 million in revenue for 2025; Data and Applications brought in $316.4 million. Tempus ended the year with a net loss of $245.0 million. Adjusted EBITDA, the company’s preferred metric, narrowed to a $7.4 million loss.
Tempus is pushing investors to look beyond just how many tests it sells and focus on its drugmaker alliances. Back in March, Tempus and Merck rolled out a bigger, multi-year deal. Merck gets access to Tempus’ de-identified data, plus its Lens Platform and Workspaces, to dig into biomarker discovery and drug development. George Addona, a senior VP at Merck Research Laboratories, described the agreement as a way to leverage AI and machine learning for spotting biomarkers and understanding cancer resistance.
Tempus has been widening its partnership with Gilead Sciences, too. Back in April, the company announced Gilead would receive enterprise-wide access to Tempus’ AI-powered Lens platform, along with expanded datasets spanning several indications. Gilead’s Patrick Loerch described the effort as a move to generate insights that could support clinical decision-making in cancer.
Tempus faces stiff competition. The company’s genomic diagnostics and data offerings put it head-to-head with Guardant Health and Roche’s Foundation Medicine—two heavyweights in the space. As Reuters has noted, Guardant has taken Tempus to court over DNA-testing patents, and both Foundation Medicine and Guardant are direct competitors in cancer testing.
There’s also a governance angle here. An April 30 filing revealed that entities linked to Lefkofsky unloaded 166,250 Class A shares on April 28, executing a Rule 10b5-1 plan—one of those insider pre-set trading structures. The transactions came in at weighted-average prices of $51.03 and $51.52.
May could end up muddying the picture rather than clarifying it. Tempus has yet to prove it can turn data contracts, test volumes and acquisitions into steady profits. The company has flagged a list of risks: competition, the evolving landscape of AI regulation, its debt load and access to capital, customer retention, plus the challenge of folding in deals like Paige AI, Ambry Genetics and Deep 6 AI.
The stock is facing two immediate triggers. Investors get their first look on May 5, when the earnings call will put diagnostics growth, margins, and the 2026 outlook under the microscope. After that, on May 29, Tempus has its investor day—management needs to lay out how the data business, not just the labs, underpins the current valuation.
