TaskUs NASDAQ: TASK reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $306.3 million, up 10.3% year over year, as the company outperformed the top end of its revenue guidance by $8.3 million, according to management. Co-founder and CEO Bryce Maddock said the quarter produced $58.6 million in adjusted EBITDA, representing a 19.1% adjusted EBITDA margin.
Maddock also highlighted shareholder returns and balance sheet moves completed during the quarter, including a refinancing of the company’s credit facilities and a $3.65 per share special dividend. He said TaskUs returned more than $330 million to shareholders through the dividend and ended the quarter with $152 million in cash, with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of less than 1.4x.
Revenue drivers and client concentration
Maddock said revenue growth from TaskUs’ largest client moderated to 1% year over year, contributing to a decline in top-client concentration to 24% of total revenue in Q1, down from 26% in the prior-year period and down 2% sequentially and year over year. He said the relationship remains strong, but TaskUs expects revenue headwinds from that client’s automation efforts “throughout 2026,” before potentially benefiting from vendor consolidation in the medium term.
Excluding the largest client, TaskUs said year-over-year growth from the rest of the customer base was 13.5% in the quarter. Maddock noted that clients ranked two through 20 grew “well north of 20%,” and he added that growth rates accelerated compared with the fourth quarter. Interim CFO Trent Thrash said about 70% of Q1 growth came from clients that have been with TaskUs longer than one year.
On signings, Maddock said more than 75% of Q1 signings were driven by wins from existing clients, with strength across several verticals including mobility, logistics and travel, social media, healthcare, and technology. Thrash similarly described signings as broad-based across vertical markets in Digital Customer Experience.
Service line performance: AI Services led growth
TaskUs reported year-over-year growth across all three service lines in the quarter:
- Digital Customer Experience (DCX): Revenue of $168.5 million, up 5.4% year over year. Maddock said growth was driven primarily by technology, mobility/logistics/travel, entertainment and gaming, and healthcare clients. Thrash said more than 40% of DCX growth was attributable to clients ramped within the last year, while declines in financial services and retail/e-commerce partially offset gains.
- Trust & Safety: Revenue of $75.8 million, up 4.7% year over year. Maddock said growth was driven by financial services, technology, and social media clients, but said growth has slowed due to the largest client’s automation efforts. Thrash said contributions from new and existing clients were roughly balanced.
- AI Services: Revenue of $61.9 million, up 36% year over year. Maddock called it TaskUs’ fastest-growing service line and said growth was supported by ramps in mobility/logistics/travel and technology, including autonomous vehicle and robotics industry clients. Thrash said AI Services has now topped 30% growth for the sixth consecutive quarter and that existing clients contributed more than 80% of the segment’s growth, led by a long-term autonomous vehicle client.
Maddock said more than 40% of Q1 signings were in AI Services. He also noted that some Trust & Safety revenues have shifted into AI Services as TaskUs helps clients automate moderation workflows while still supporting “the most sensitive areas that require nuanced human intervention.”
AI strategy: physical AI, consulting, and internal automation
Management emphasized three pillars of its AI strategy: expanding AI service offerings, building an agentic AI consulting practice, and driving AI deeper into internal operations.
In AI Services, Maddock said TaskUs is seeing “high-growth opportunities within physical AI, autonomous vehicles, and robotics,” outlining work ranging from data collection and mapping to “critical remote assistance and roadside emergency response.” He said the company believes revenue from clients in this physical AI space “will more than triple in 2026.” In the Q&A, Maddock described autonomous vehicles as moving from a data-collection phase into “live remote and field operations,” while robotics remains more focused on data collection, annotation, and evaluations.
On AI consulting, Maddock cited a streaming service client engagement in which TaskUs deployed AI agents to improve time to resolution and reduce support costs. He said the agents were integrated into the client’s back-end systems to diagnose streaming and account issues and enable “instantaneous 24/7 resolution,” allowing human agents to focus on sales and retention workflows.
Internally, Maddock said TaskUs is using agentic AI to automate its HR help desk, adding that an “agentic AI HR specialist” can autonomously solve roughly 50% of general HR inquiries. He said broader use of agentic AI is intended to reduce support spending as a percentage of revenue and improve margins over time.
Margins, cash flow, and capital allocation
Thrash reported adjusted EBITDA of $58.6 million and said the 19.1% margin compared favorably with the midpoint of initial Q1 guidance. He attributed margin pressure versus prior periods to a shift toward lower-margin U.S.-based delivery and ongoing investments in emerging growth opportunities and AI capabilities.
Cost of service rose to 64.6% of revenue from 61.6% a year earlier, driven by personnel cost inflation, facility expansions, delivery mix shifts, and growth investments, partly offset by operating efficiency improvements made in the second half of 2025. SG&A was $58.3 million, or 19% of revenue, down from 20.7% of revenue in Q1 2025, which Thrash said reflected overhead optimization and lower stock-based compensation, partially offset by transaction costs tied to the special dividend and refinancing.
Adjusted net income was $32.8 million and adjusted EPS was $0.35, down from $35.9 million and $0.38 in the year-ago quarter, according to Thrash. He said the weighted average share count was relatively consistent year over year.
On cash flow, Maddock said adjusted free cash flow was $42.2 million in Q1. Thrash said cash from operations was $46.3 million through Q1, compared with $36.3 million in the year-ago period, citing working capital changes and stronger collections. TaskUs reduced its 2026 CapEx expectation to approximately $50 million, down $10 million from its initial outlook, after Q1 CapEx declined to $10.2 million from $14.5 million a year earlier.
Thrash also detailed the refinancing: a $500 million term loan maturing in March 2031 with interest at SOFR plus 2.75%, and a new $100 million revolver that remains undrawn.
Outlook: revenue reiterated, free cash flow raised
TaskUs reiterated its full-year 2026 revenue outlook of $1.21 billion to $1.24 billion. Maddock said adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to remain around 19% at the midpoint. Both Maddock and Thrash said the company increased its adjusted free cash flow outlook by about 10% to a midpoint of $110 million, with a range of $105 million to $115 million.
For the second quarter, TaskUs guided revenue to $296 million to $298 million, which Maddock said implies about 1% year-over-year growth at the midpoint and a sequential decline from Q1. He attributed the Q2 impact to automation-driven declines at the largest client. TaskUs expects adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 18% in Q2, with Maddock citing three main factors: increased onshore demand within AI Services that carries a lower margin profile, annual wage increases effective in April, and continued investments in growth and AI transformation initiatives.
In the Q&A, Maddock said the company’s assumptions around the largest client’s automation pace remain aligned with the expectations provided at the start of the year, based on the latest guidance received from that customer. He added that TaskUs still expects vendor consolidation benefits as it heads into 2027, though he acknowledged uncertainty around whether automation accelerates.
Separately, Maddock said TaskUs expects Trust & Safety revenue to decline year over year starting in Q2 and for the full year 2026, driven “primarily” by automation at its largest client, with some similar trends across other social media customers and some work shifting from Trust & Safety into AI Services for model maintenance and evaluations.
On operating scale, TaskUs ended the quarter with about 64,400 global teammates, down roughly 1,100 from the end of Q4, which Thrash said reflected seasonal revenue falloff. The company’s Q1 revenue mix was 53% from the Philippines, 13% from the United States, 13% from India, and 21% from the rest of the world, primarily Latin America and Europe.
About TaskUs NASDAQ: TASK
TaskUs, Inc is a leading provider of outsourced digital customer experience and business process solutions, specializing in high-touch services for technology and digital-native companies. The firm delivers a range of offerings including customer care, content moderation, trust and safety monitoring, back-office processing and AI operations support. By combining technology-driven platforms with human-centric workflows, TaskUs helps clients optimize operational efficiency and maintain brand integrity across digital channels.
The company was founded in 2008 by Jaspar Weir and Bryce Maddock with the goal of reimagining traditional outsourcing through a focus on culture, technology and innovation.
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