NEW YORK, Jan 28, 2026, 18:14 EST
- ServiceNow forecast 2026 subscription revenue of $15.53 billion to $15.57 billion; shares fell in after-hours trading.
- Fourth-quarter subscription revenue rose 21% to $3.466 billion; total revenue climbed 20.5% to $3.568 billion; cRPO ended at $12.85 billion.
- The company expanded AI partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI and reiterated planned security deals, while adding $5 billion to its buyback and lining up a $2 billion accelerated repurchase.
ServiceNow forecast full-year 2026 subscription revenue of $15.53 billion to $15.57 billion on Wednesday, but its shares fell more than 2% after the bell. The company also authorized another $5 billion for share repurchases and said it plans an imminent $2 billion accelerated buyback.
The results land as investors debate whether “agentic” AI — software that can take steps and complete tasks on its own — will boost demand for workflow tools or chip away at the subscription model. Bloomberg said ServiceNow’s outlook did little to ease those disruption fears. Bloomberg Law
ServiceNow is pitching itself as the layer that orchestrates those agents, and it is leaning on model partners to do it. It said it expanded ties with Anthropic and OpenAI, and it also rolled out an integration with Microsoft’s Agent 365 aimed at coordinating and governing AI agents across customer systems.
For the quarter ending in March, ServiceNow forecast subscription revenue of $3.65 billion to $3.655 billion, while Bloomberg’s consensus estimate was $3.58 billion. It also guided for cRPO growth of 22.5% — a bookings-style metric that tracks contracted revenue due within 12 months — roughly in line with Bloomberg’s “almost 23%” read. ServiceNow Newsroom
In the fourth quarter of 2025, subscription revenue climbed 21% to $3.466 billion and total revenue rose 20.5% to $3.568 billion; net income was $401 million. Adjusted profit was 92 cents a share. cRPO ended the period at $12.85 billion, and the company said Now Assist, its AI assistant, more than doubled net new annual contract value, or ACV, from a year earlier.
ServiceNow said it signed 244 deals above $1 million in net new ACV — the yearly value of new contracts — and ended the quarter with 603 customers generating more than $5 million each in ACV. Big-deal volume and backlog trends are often read as an early signal on enterprise software demand.
On security, the company said it plans to buy cybersecurity startup Armis and expects to close the deal in the second half of 2026, and it expects to close its planned purchase of identity security firm Veza in the first half. ServiceNow said its Moveworks acquisition, which closed in December, adds about 100 basis points — one percentage point — to its 2026 subscription revenue growth outlook.
The acquisition pace has become part of the argument around the stock, which fell 28% last year, Reuters reported. “With investments in industry workflows and customer relationship management, and security and risk, ServiceNow is growing both organically and by acquisition,” said Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of analyst firm Valoir. Reuters
Chief executive Bill McDermott said the company “had substantial growth in licensed users, workflows, and transactions,” while CFO Gina Mastantuono called it “another strong quarter.” On the earnings call, McDermott also pushed back on the idea that AI will undercut software subscriptions, saying: “The speculation that AI will eat software companies is out there.” ServiceNow Newsroom
ServiceNow repurchased about 3.6 million shares for $597 million in the quarter and had roughly $1.4 billion left under its prior authorization at year-end, it said. An accelerated share repurchase lets a company retire stock quickly by buying a large block from a bank upfront, with the final price settling later.
But ServiceNow warned that its first-quarter subscription revenue growth guidance includes a roughly 150-basis-point headwind from customers shifting from self-hosted software to hosted offerings sold through big cloud providers. Even with the above-estimate outlook, investors are still wrestling with whether AI will disrupt established application software leaders, Bloomberg reported.
