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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights SoundHound, NICE and Five9
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For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – June 3, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks and featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: SoundHound AI (SOUN - Free Report) , NICE Ltd. (NICE - Free Report) and Five9, Inc. (FIVN - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:
2 AI Memory Stocks Outperforming NVIDIA, with Big Upside Ahead
Why SoundHound Is Investing Heavily in Proprietary AI Models
SoundHound AI is making a significant strategic push toward proprietary artificial intelligence models as it seeks to strengthen its competitive position in the rapidly evolving conversational and agentic AI market. The company believes owning the full AI stack can improve performance, lower costs and create a sustainable competitive advantage.
The clearest example of this strategy is OASYS, SoundHound’s newly launched self-learning agentic AI platform. Management describes OASYS as a system where AI can automatically create, orchestrate, evaluate and improve AI agents, reducing deployment times from months to minutes. The platform is designed to operate across voice, text, web, kiosks, vehicles and other channels, creating a unified AI ecosystem for enterprise customers.
A key reason behind this push is cost efficiency. During the first quarter of 2026 earnings call, SoundHound highlighted that OASYS will increasingly rely on Polaris, its proprietary speech foundation model, along with internally developed specialized large language models and speech synthesis technologies. Management stated that most customer interactions could eventually be powered by SoundHound’s own models rather than expensive third-party frontier models, generating meaningful long-term cost savings.
The company also believes proprietary models can deliver better performance for targeted enterprise use cases. Rather than building general-purpose AI systems, SoundHound is developing specialized models focused on customer service, order processing, financial transactions and workflow automation. According to management, these models can outperform larger frontier models in specific applications while operating at lower costs.
The planned acquisition of LivePerson further strengthens this strategy. By combining SoundHound’s voice AI with LivePerson’s digital messaging platform, the company expects to gain access to tens of billions of annual customer interactions, creating a powerful proprietary data foundation that can improve model training and automation outcomes.
With first-quarter 2026 revenue rising 52% year over year to $44.2 million and demand growing across multiple industries, SoundHound is betting that proprietary AI models will help drive faster innovation, higher margins and stronger long-term growth.
What Sets SoundHound Apart in Enterprise AI
Two notable competitors in the enterprise conversational AI space are NICE Ltd. and Five9, Inc. Both NICE and Five9 have invested heavily in AI-powered customer engagement platforms, but their strategies differ from SoundHound’s growing focus on proprietary AI models.
NICE primarily integrates advanced AI capabilities into its customer experience platform to automate service workflows and improve contact center efficiency. While NICE benefits from a large enterprise customer base and deep industry expertise, it often relies on a broader ecosystem of AI technologies. NICE continues to expand its AI offerings, but its approach is more platform-centric than model-centric.
Five9 has also emerged as a major force in cloud contact center automation. Five9 leverages AI to enhance agent productivity and customer interactions across voice and digital channels. However, Five9’s strategy centers on orchestration and workflow automation rather than building a fully proprietary AI stack.
This is where SoundHound seeks differentiation. By developing its own speech foundation model, specialized AI models and the OASYS platform, SoundHound aims to reduce dependence on third-party AI providers. As enterprises increasingly prioritize cost efficiency, customization and data control, SoundHound believes its vertically integrated AI approach could provide an edge over both NICE and Five9.
SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
SoundHound shares have lost 7.2% year to date (YTD), outperforming the industry, as shown below:
From a valuation standpoint, SOUN trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 16, above the industry’s average of 13.48.
Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2026 loss per share has widened to 18 cents, as shown below. The expected loss also remains wider than the previous year’s loss of 13 cents.
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Today you can tap into those powerful strategies – and the high-potential stocks they uncover – free. No strings attached.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights SoundHound, NICE and Five9
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – June 3, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks and featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: SoundHound AI (SOUN - Free Report) , NICE Ltd. (NICE - Free Report) and Five9, Inc. (FIVN - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:
2 AI Memory Stocks Outperforming NVIDIA, with Big Upside Ahead
Why SoundHound Is Investing Heavily in Proprietary AI Models
SoundHound AI is making a significant strategic push toward proprietary artificial intelligence models as it seeks to strengthen its competitive position in the rapidly evolving conversational and agentic AI market. The company believes owning the full AI stack can improve performance, lower costs and create a sustainable competitive advantage.
The clearest example of this strategy is OASYS, SoundHound’s newly launched self-learning agentic AI platform. Management describes OASYS as a system where AI can automatically create, orchestrate, evaluate and improve AI agents, reducing deployment times from months to minutes. The platform is designed to operate across voice, text, web, kiosks, vehicles and other channels, creating a unified AI ecosystem for enterprise customers.
A key reason behind this push is cost efficiency. During the first quarter of 2026 earnings call, SoundHound highlighted that OASYS will increasingly rely on Polaris, its proprietary speech foundation model, along with internally developed specialized large language models and speech synthesis technologies. Management stated that most customer interactions could eventually be powered by SoundHound’s own models rather than expensive third-party frontier models, generating meaningful long-term cost savings.
The company also believes proprietary models can deliver better performance for targeted enterprise use cases. Rather than building general-purpose AI systems, SoundHound is developing specialized models focused on customer service, order processing, financial transactions and workflow automation. According to management, these models can outperform larger frontier models in specific applications while operating at lower costs.
The planned acquisition of LivePerson further strengthens this strategy. By combining SoundHound’s voice AI with LivePerson’s digital messaging platform, the company expects to gain access to tens of billions of annual customer interactions, creating a powerful proprietary data foundation that can improve model training and automation outcomes.
With first-quarter 2026 revenue rising 52% year over year to $44.2 million and demand growing across multiple industries, SoundHound is betting that proprietary AI models will help drive faster innovation, higher margins and stronger long-term growth.
What Sets SoundHound Apart in Enterprise AI
Two notable competitors in the enterprise conversational AI space are NICE Ltd. and Five9, Inc. Both NICE and Five9 have invested heavily in AI-powered customer engagement platforms, but their strategies differ from SoundHound’s growing focus on proprietary AI models.
NICE primarily integrates advanced AI capabilities into its customer experience platform to automate service workflows and improve contact center efficiency. While NICE benefits from a large enterprise customer base and deep industry expertise, it often relies on a broader ecosystem of AI technologies. NICE continues to expand its AI offerings, but its approach is more platform-centric than model-centric.
Five9 has also emerged as a major force in cloud contact center automation. Five9 leverages AI to enhance agent productivity and customer interactions across voice and digital channels. However, Five9’s strategy centers on orchestration and workflow automation rather than building a fully proprietary AI stack.
This is where SoundHound seeks differentiation. By developing its own speech foundation model, specialized AI models and the OASYS platform, SoundHound aims to reduce dependence on third-party AI providers. As enterprises increasingly prioritize cost efficiency, customization and data control, SoundHound believes its vertically integrated AI approach could provide an edge over both NICE and Five9.
SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
SoundHound shares have lost 7.2% year to date (YTD), outperforming the industry, as shown below:
From a valuation standpoint, SOUN trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 16, above the industry’s average of 13.48.
Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2026 loss per share has widened to 18 cents, as shown below. The expected loss also remains wider than the previous year’s loss of 13 cents.
SOUN’s Zacks Rank
SOUN currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Free: Instant Access to Zacks' Market-Crushing Strategies
Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +7.7% average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +48.4%, +50.2% and +56.7% per year.
Today you can tap into those powerful strategies – and the high-potential stocks they uncover – free. No strings attached.
Get all the details here >>
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.