Short Seller Targets Verint Systems Stock As AI Threat Emerges: 'The Future Is Certainly Not Verint'

Verint Systems Inc VRNT shares are in the spotlight Thursday after The Bear Cave released a bearish report on the contact center company.

What To Know: Short-selling firm The Bear Cave has customer experience (CX) automation company Verint Systems in its crosshairs. The short seller published a report Thursday morning titled, “Problems at Verint Systems (VRNT),” arguing that the company is likely to be disrupted by AI advancement.

“Verint's management insists Verint will be an AI beneficiary as customers use Verint's AI-powered bots to improve their call centers. The Bear Cave sees things differently,” the short seller said.

Benzinga has reached out to Verint Systems for comment on the report.

The Bear Cave believes AI is going to negatively impact Verint as AI-powered competitors take share from its automated bot offerings and AI agents largely replace human agents over the coming years. The short seller believes Verint will “suffer significantly” as call centers transition away from humans.

The Bear Cave also highlighted a pair of interviews from last month in which a former sales director for Verint acknowledged that competitors have adopted AI faster than Verint, and that the company may get left behind as it continues to focus on bots. The former sales director noted that it’s not clear if Verint will still be around in another 10 or 15 years, given the amount of AI-specific startups coming into the space, according to the short seller.

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The Bear Cave highlighted some of the increasing competition including from Alphabet Inc’s GOOGGOOGL Google Dialogflow, International Business Machines Corp IBM and several startups like Yellow AI and Observe AI, which are aggressively moving into AI automation for call centers.

The firm also pointed to a recent press release from T-Mobile US Inc TMUS, announcing a partnership with OpenAI that aims to revolutionize the customer experience. The company expects the partnership to help automate tasks that would normally require a store visit or call to a customer service agent.

The short seller noted AI headwinds may be starting to show up in the company’s numbers. Last quarter, Verint missed analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines and issued soft guidance for the full year.

“The future is not bots, the future is not human agents, and the future is certainly not Verint,” the short seller said.

VRNT Price Action: Verint shares were up 0.67% at $26.38 at the time of publication Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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