LendingTree (TREE) Q4 2025 Earnings Transcript

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Date

Mar. 2, 2026, 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

• President — Scott Peyree
• Chief Financial Officer — Jason Bengel
• Investor Relations — Andrew Wessel

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Takeaways

• VMD growth -- 14% year-over-year increase, with all three segments achieving double-digit growth.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Increased 28% year over year, double the rate of VMD growth.
• Insurance division BMD -- $74 million for the year, up 10% year over year, with segment finishing the fourth quarter at a record high.
• Insurance network revenue mix -- Carriers ranked four through ten grew revenue by 65% year over year, indicating broad-based partner growth.
• Consumer segment revenue growth -- Small business revenue rose 60% for the year, and 78% in the fourth quarter, while segment profit climbed 17% for the year, and 24% in the quarter.
• Consumer segment margin -- Remained stable at 51% for both the quarter and full year.
• Home segment revenue -- Increased 6% year over year in the fourth quarter amid higher media costs and lower conversion rates, constraining segment margin.
• AI-driven efficiencies -- Over six quarters, AI voice in the call center drove more than $10 million in quarterly revenue growth, against only several hundred thousand dollars in incremental quarterly OpEx.
• Conversion rate improvement -- 17% year-over-year increase in conversions driven by AI-enabled marketing technologies, despite legacy SEO declines.
• Brand investment guidance -- Initial planned brand marketing spend in the second half of 2026 is "probably less than $10 million," with deployment levels tied to early performance results.
• Trigger leads regulatory change -- U.S. Congress passed a bill—effective this week—banning trigger leads, which is expected to reduce unwanted calls to mortgage shoppers, and improve the quality and monetization potential of direct leads.
• Debt priority -- Management emphasized reducing total debt below $200 million, and now has flexibility to repay debt at par following expiration of a term loan soft call provision in February.
• Strategy pillars -- Four-pillar "North Star" strategy focuses on accelerating the core business, improving consumer experience, expanding product offerings, and brand repositioning.
• Insurance segment predictability -- Recent quarters evidenced increased stability, with broader carrier participation expected to support ongoing predictability in performance.
• Mortgage rate dynamics -- Management cited 5.75% as a threshold for substantial refinancing activity, with 5.50% and below expected to drive much greater volume.
• AI disintermediation risk perspective -- Scott Peyree said, there are many legal and regulatory structures in place that will make it difficult for agentic AI to overcome, not to mention partners' incentive structures that would negate the outcome.

Summary

LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE) reported double-digit growth in all business segments, with particularly strong Insurance and small business revenue expansion, and management expects continued revenue records in upcoming quarters. Brand repositioning and new product category partnerships will be tested in select geographic markets in the second half of the year to potentially drive unaided brand awareness beyond mortgage. Management highlighted a significant regulatory change banning trigger leads effective immediately, aiming to materially enhance consumer experience and direct lead quality in the mortgage segment. Executives emphasized growing margin predictability, broadened network carrier participation in Insurance, and focused AI-driven operating efficiency, while signaling deliberate debt reduction as a capital allocation priority. AI-related disintermediation risks are described as low due to proprietary partner data and regulatory constraints impeding automated bots' access to actionable consumer finance quotes.

• Scott Peyree stated Insurance carrier partners' budgets remain "robust," with Q1 expected to be another record revenue quarter, and early Q1 Insurance segment margins "materially" above Q4 levels.
• Consumer product expansion over the next 18 months is targeted in categories including commercial, pet, boat, and RV insurance, wealth management, robo advisers, and student lending, through new partnerships without internal product building.
• Bengel explained the 2026 segment outlook: Home forecast assumes "any real rate benefit" and stable margins; Consumer growth is anchored in small business, with personal loan growth approached more cautiously; Insurance guidance is prudently conservative despite strong recent performance.
• Scott Peyree described improved revenue visibility for 2026, stating that growth now depends more on LendingTree's consumer traffic generation capabilities than on client budget cycles, enhancing predictability across product lines.

Industry glossary

• VMD (Variable Marketing Dollar): Company-specific metric representing marketplace revenue net of third-party costs, used to measure the economic contribution of sold leads and offers.
• Trigger leads: Consumer leads generated and sold by credit bureaus when a hard credit inquiry is conducted (e.g., mortgage application), which are then marketed to unrelated third-party lenders; recently subject to a regulatory ban referenced in this call.
• Agentic AI: Artificial intelligence platforms capable of automating tasks such as lead comparison or shopping, potentially disintermediating traditional comparison platforms; discussed as a structural risk in the transcript.
• SMB: Small and Medium-sized Businesses, referenced in relation to LendingTree's small business loan and service offerings, including the SMB concierge sales force initiative.
• Soft call: Provision in debt agreements restricting early repayment at par for a set period; LendingTree's term loan soft call expired in February 2026, providing greater debt repayment flexibility.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Scott Peyree: Thanks, Andrew, and thanks to everyone joining us today as we discuss our very strong fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. I will first touch on some of the highlights from our earnings release and then I would like to take everyone through our 2026 strategy before opening it up for questions. First off, we had a fantastic 2025. VMD was up 14%. Adjusted EBITDA grew at double that pace, 28%. Each of our three reportable segments grew VMD at double-digit rates. Insurance again led the way as very strong demand from carriers combined with our ability to take market share from competitors generated $74 million of BMD, a 10% increase over the previous year.

We have heard some of our peers call out slowing demand from the largest insurers in Q1. I just want to tell everyone, we are not seeing that at all ourselves. Top carriers' budgets with us remain robust as they are targeting our high-quality consumers; in fact, we expect Q1 to be yet another record revenue quarter. The four through 10 insurers on our network grew revenue by 65% with us and 25% from the previous year, a testament to the strength and breadth of partners in our marketplace. Insurance gathered strength as the year progressed, finishing with record performance in the fourth quarter that just ahead of our previous record the year-ago period.

The momentum has carried through the start of 2026, and we expect another record year from the insurance division this year. Consumer segment consumer grew segment profit by 17% last year, anchored by a 60% revenue growth from our small business team. Similar to the Insurance segment, our consumer group of businesses strengthened throughout the course of the year, with segment profit increasing 24% in Q4 from the prior year, and small business revenue growing a remarkable 78% year over year. Importantly, we have not sacrificed margin to generate this growth. The segment margin for both the quarter and full year was stable at 51%.

As a reminder, we have continually invested in additions to our small business concierge sales force, allowing us as well as lenders on the network, allowing us to help a greater number of business owners find the best loan options for them while guiding them through the often complex process of completing their application through to funding. Continuing the buildout of this team is in our plans for 2026. The Home segment recorded 6% year over year in revenue growth for the fourth quarter, although increasing media costs and lower conversion rates for our lender partners pressured segment margins. The national 30-year mortgage rate just dipped below 6% for the first time since 2022.

We are hopeful lower rates will finally start to unlock what has been a historically slow mortgage market. The guidance we published today does not assume any continued improvement in rates, so we hope this means our Home segment forecast will end up being conservative. The pace of AI and AI-enabled search innovation has continued to accelerate. As I have said on previous calls, we view these new tools as fantastic opportunities for our business and are a key component of the strategy we have developed to increase the number of high-intent visitors to our sites to compare and shop for financial products.

We understand investor fears around the threat of disintermediation to our business model; there are many legal and regulatory structures in place that will make it difficult for agentic AI to overcome, not to mention our own partners' incentive structures that would negate the outcome. Instead of focusing on playing defense against these low probability outcomes, we are embracing this innovative technology. I cannot be more excited about the AI-powered improvements that we are making to our consumer experience. We have already driven results with our use of AI voice in our call center.

As mentioned in the letter, we have seen significant revenue growth to the tune of $10+ million in revenue growth per quarter over the last six quarters compared to OpEx growth of a few $100,000 per quarter over the last six quarters in our call center operations. We have also seen efficiency improvements in our marketing team, generated using AI-enabled technology to speed up design, ad testing, and funnel testing. This is shown with a 17% increase in overall conversions coming through our network year over year in the fourth quarter, and that is with the headwind of legacy SEO coming down. The North Star of our company is to be the number one destination to shop for financial products.

Everything that goes into forming our long-term initiatives is based on this aspiration. LendingTree, Inc. has the right to win, as LendingTree, Inc. has the broadest network of financial partners of any consumer finance shopping site. Sourcing millions of visitors who are in the market for these products and want the best deal is our core competency. We will use these strengths as the bedrock to scale customer volumes and improve outcomes with enhanced experiences, new tools, and better matching. Our North Star strategy has four strategic pillars. Number one, accelerate the core business. Number two, improve the consumer experience. Number three, expand product offerings. And finally, number four, rebuild and reposition our brand.

I would like to briefly hit on each of these pillars for the investors today. Number one, accelerate the core business. Initiatives in this growth area focus on our existing businesses to support ongoing double-digit growth. These strategic initiatives support driving more consumers to our network, providing more purchase options to consumers, and increasing monetization of our traffic via our distribution networks.

Examples of areas we are focusing on now include the continued expansion of our SMB concierge sales force and network of lenders in SMB; development of a concierge sales force in auto lending; investments into tech, product, and sales teams for rapid expansion of our media business development capabilities; and tech investment into major upgrades of our marketing technology platforms. Number two, improve the consumer experience. In this pillar, our CX team is systematically resolving consumer pain points, often with the use of AI technology. Initiatives in this pillar focus on making shopping easier for what are often complicated financial products. We are seeking to serve both consumers looking to transact as well as consumers who are just window shopping.

The goal of this pillar is to become a trusted partner for the consumer when seeking financial products to drive an increase in return visits and referrals. Examples of this area we are focusing on now include improving our logged-in experience, taking learnings from our Spring app to our website, such as making it easier to log in and customizing the home page for logged-in users based on products they are shopping for; and also simplifying the process to find and review offers they have previously received.

Second, develop a personal loan rate table using our proprietary rate data we gather from millions of consumers shopping for loans on our network, which will allow consumers to know what rates they should expect before applying. This tool can be provided on our website, in our app, can be embedded with our business development partners, and importantly, embedded within LLMs. Third pillar, expand our product offerings. This pillar focuses on the addition of categories of financial products offered to consumers. Our long-term strategic goal is to provide representation of all financial products that a consumer could want.

We do not have to manufacture a shopping experience for some products when we can instead identify and partner with industry-leading service providers. The focus over the next 18 months is to sign partnerships in areas such as commercial insurance, pet insurance, boat and RV insurance, wealth management, robo advisers, student lending, and others. Finally, our fourth pillar, rebuild and reposition our brand. We have strong brand resilience with aided awareness but need to rebuild the brand from an unaided awareness perspective. We are also focused on repositioning our brand to be a destination to shop for a wide variety of insurance, lending, and other financial products, whereas historically, we have been associated more specifically with mortgage products.

In Q1, we made key brand hires and have begun the redesign of our homepage. Our goal is to target brand spend in several large geographic markets in the second half of this year, introducing new customers to our redesigned experience. Thank you, everyone. I know that was a lot, but I thought it was important with North Star and our new strategic focus to really lay it out for all of our investors. It is a little bit long-winded there, so thank you for bearing with me. We will now open for questions.

Operator: Certainly. As a reminder, please press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Our first question will be coming from the line of Youssef Squali of Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Youssef Squali: Great. Thank you for taking the question and congrats on the strong quarter. Scott, maybe can you talk a little bit about the sustainability of growth in Insurance and really just trying to understand what the main drivers are? I think you talked about how four out of the 10 insurance partners grew revenues, I think, by 60% or 65%. Maybe can you peel that onion one more layer and just describe exactly what is going on that is driving all that growth? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Scott Peyree: Yes, sure. No problem. Youssef, thanks for the question. And just to clarify what I was talking about with the insurance providers is our carriers four through 10. So, after our top three carriers, the next seven carriers combined grew by 65% year over year. I just wanted to illustrate in that statement how we are not solely dependent. The top three carriers also grew a lot year over year, but growth is broad-based. It is not just purely based off the top of the carriers, even though our top three carriers, I mean, it is fair to say they still represent an outside portion of our overall insurance revenue.

So just to discuss the sustainability of the insurance marketplace right now, the bottom line, I would start with the insurance carriers themselves remain very profitable. They had a great year last year. They have started the year well this year. After a few years of unprofitability and pulling back marketing spend amongst a bunch of other spends, for a long time, they are now all very aggressive in growing market share, especially the top carriers, and honestly, I would say over the past three to six months, they have become more aggressive, if anything, of trying to fight over market share.

We have a lot of high-quality, high-intent consumers coming through our network, and the carriers know that our network is an extremely cost-effective way for them to get their insurance products in front of targeted, high-intent insurance consumers. As the year goes on, we expect to start seeing some rate decreases more aggressively from carriers, which will bring more consumers shopping into the marketplace. Carriers have continued to open up geographies. They are getting very open at this point, but more geographies are open today than were a year ago as a general statement for carriers being willing to offer consumers product.

Finally, just internally, as I mentioned with our marketing strategy, we have done a very good job of increasing consumer traffic coming through our site. We are out there, and we are in front of a lot more consumers now than we were a year ago. Honestly, we look at our opportunities in front of us over the next year; we are very excited about continued growth in consumer traffic coming through our site for insurance products.

Youssef Squali: Thank you. That is very helpful. And then on the AI disintermediation topic, how are you currently working or integrating with some of these LLMs to try to stay visible, basically as search transitions to more of a conversational interface?

Scott Peyree: Yes. There are a number of fronts we are working on there. There is obviously the SEO front where you are getting referenced by the LLMs, driving consumers to our site. We continue to focus on that and it continues to grow. It is very high-intent consumers, as I have mentioned on previous calls. I would say, materially, it is still a pretty small percentage of our overall consumer base, but it is continuing to grow. Some of the LLMs, ChatGPT being an example, are looking to start testing some advertising, which we are excited about participating in.

Again, I do not know how material to expect it to be in calendar year 2026 as far as quantity of consumers, but being that we are very good at advertising to get in front of consumers, we are excited about the LLMs starting to open that up. Then just from a technology development standpoint, we have been working with our teams on using AI development, conversational funnels, AI bots to help get documentation necessary to finish application processes, developing comparison tools that help consumers compare their offers apples to apples. The personal loans rate table I mentioned in my opening statements is an example.

We are building a lot of technical chops on how to use AI and LLM-style technology for front-end consumer products. I would say that there has been varying levels of success on the consumer engagement at this point, but we are getting better and better at building it, and as consumer behavior starts to change, I think we will be a leader in that space.

Operator: And our next question will be coming from the line of Ryan Tomasello of KBW. Your line is open.

Ryan Tomasello: Hi, everyone. This is Juan on for Ryan. Thanks for taking the questions. Can you talk about the targeted brand investments in the second half of the year? What is driving that decision? And if you could size the amount of the investment relative to 2025.

Scott Peyree: Yes. I will start at a high level, and Jason, you can throw in the level of investments if you want to talk about that. It is just a critical part of our North Star strategy to be the number one destination to shop for financial products. As we looked at the landscape and our brand, we have a really strong brand, and we are very proud of the brand we have developed. We have not invested a ton on the pure basis of our brand over the past few years. So, whereas our brand is very good on an aided awareness perspective with consumers, it is not very good on unaided awareness.

We feel it is important to get out there, especially now that we want to reposition ourselves as a destination for all financial product shopping, whereas historically, a lot of consumers really associate us specifically with mortgage and mortgage shopping. The goal is to get to the point where an average consumer on the street, we are one of the first companies that comes to their mind if they are thinking about shopping for financial products. That is really what we want to start.

We want to go in the second half of this year with the redesigned homepage experience, a couple of pages with some different messaging, some different types of messaging from a brand advertising perspective, and go into some large markets where we have good positioning with all of our financial products, some geographic markets where we can test different messaging, and see what sticks and lands with consumers well before we really roll it out on a national basis. That will probably start happening mid Q3 to mid Q4. Jason, do you want to hit on the investment levels we are looking at?

Jason Bengel: Yes. Like Scott said, this is probably more in the second half, and the amount that we spend is going to be a function of how well we are performing, I guess, is thing one, and then also how well that brand spend itself is performing as well. So if it performs and exceeds our expectations, then we may wind up leaning into it. The guidance does contemplate at least an initial investment where we are starting to roll this out and starting to do some testing. But the investment itself is, at least initially, probably less than $10 million as we are thinking about it in guidance.

Ryan Tomasello: Got it. That is very clear. And just a quick follow-up. In terms of the outlook, can you provide a bit more granularity at the segment level for revenue and VMD growth as well as VMD margins.

Jason Bengel: Yes, sure, happy to. I will just talk through segment by segment how we are thinking about the guide. First, Home. The backdrop for Home, we are not assuming any real rate benefit for Home. We have seen some rate decreases coming through, but we are not assuming any going forward. That would be upside to the guide. Generally, Home equity should have support with record home equity balances. But at the end of the day, there are still not a lot of consumers out there shopping, and we have seen some increase in competition causing media cost to increase. Margin-wise, I would say we expect Home to be roughly where it was landing in Q4.

We are investing in quality to win a prominent space in our marketing channels, and we are investing in expanding our small lender network, which will provide some margin support. Going on to Consumer, the real driver is small business. The merchant cash advance market is a strong market that is growing. We have been investing in our concierge experience, the staffing, the marketing channel placements to drive high-quality traffic. We expect all of that to continue into 2026. That is a model that is really working well for us. Personal loans, we move on to personal loans. Record credit card balances provide a great use case for debt consolidation in 2026.

But 2025 did see quite a bit of box expansions, which we are not expecting to repeat. In 2026, we are being a little bit more measured when it comes to PL growth expectations, and we are focused on better matching consumers with lenders and finding additional sources of traffic to feed those lenders. Margin-wise, generally where we had it in Q4 is probably fair. It will bounce around, but I think Q4 is generally a decent starting point. Then Insurance. When it comes to Insurance, the backdrop is very favorable, for all the reasons Scott said. Carriers are becoming more competitive for market share and policies. They really want to grow policies. Their profitability is extremely strong.

With selective rate decreases coming through, that should spur additional traffic, which should support the CPL side of the house, the cost per lead. The backdrop is really strong. Things we are doing: we are really focused on improving our margin. We are making some key investments in martech to make sure we grab more margin, and we are seeing a lot of that come through already. In January and February in Q1, we have noticed material increases in margins versus where we were in Q4, and we expect that generally to continue throughout the year. Candidly, we are running hotter than we expected in Q1 in Insurance. The backdrop is favorable.

We have no indications that it is going to slow down, but when it comes to the guide, we are also being a little bit cautious. It has only been two months. We do not want to bake in this very strong performance for the rest of the year yet. To be totally candid, we are pulling that down a little bit and being a little bit more conservative just to be prudent when it comes to the Insurance segment. Then, like we said, we do want to allow ourselves room to spend in brand as it relates to the strategy. I think that is generally some color on each of the pieces there. Hopefully, that is helpful.

Ryan Tomasello: Yep. Got it. Appreciate all the detail, and congrats on the print.

Operator: And our next question will be coming from the line of Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer and Co. Your line is open.

Jed Kelly: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Can you hear me okay?

Jason Bengel: Yes.

Jed Kelly: Okay. Great. I was cutting in and out. In your shareholder letter, can you explain more of what is going on with these trigger leads and how that benefits? And then, taking the last comments around the guidance, are we coming into an environment when the Insurance segment is just now a lot more predictable and easier for you to forecast than it has been the last five years? Then I have a follow-up.

Scott Peyree: Alright. I will start with trigger leads, Jed, and then we can go on to Insurance. For those that do not know the trigger leads, the very basic version of that is when, for example, we develop a lead and sell to our mortgage providers and then they do a hard credit pull to provide a firm offer to the consumers, the credit bureaus will trigger them—this is what they call trigger leads—to sell it off to a bunch of third-party buyers that we have no association with, our clients have no association with.

It is basically saying, hey, this consumer just got a hard pull on their credit from a mortgage company, so maybe you might want to call them. It turns into a really horrible consumer experience where they are about to close a mortgage, and then all of a sudden, they are getting another 50 or 60 calls from who knows who. Long story short, Congress passed a bill that basically said that can no longer happen, and that is coming in.

Andrew Wessel: This week.

Scott Peyree: That is coming out this week. So it helps us on the front end with the quality of our traffic, because now you do not have our clients, when they are giving their firm offers to the consumers, triggering 50 calls on the back end. That will really help the consumer experience and the quality of our leads to our direct clients. Secondly, how it helps us: there are a lot of buyers of these trigger leads that will no longer be able to buy these leads. We think that will drive many companies to come to buy these consumers on the front end from the likes of us, which should help our monetization. And I am sorry, Jed.

What was your second question around Insurance?

Jed Kelly: Just the predictability following the last five years of a decent amount of volatility?

Scott Peyree: Yes. I think the short answer there is yes. Not that there is no change—there will always be some level of carriers leaning in and leaning out, and that is why we manage a large network. But the past two quarters have had a lot more stability than maybe the previous eight quarters, and I expect that to continue. I expect the changes in geographic targeting, demographic targeting, total ad spend to be a lot lower swings than they have been in recent history. Jason, do you have anything to add to that?

Jason Bengel: Yes, I agree. I would just add the market will be less defined by two carriers, I think, as we progress throughout 2026. As we said, we saw a lot of strong growth from the next seven carriers. As it becomes more competitive, as more carriers really start to come into the market and play a more prominent position in our market, we will be less defined by a smaller number of carriers. That should help the predictability.

Jed Kelly: And can I just sneak one more in? We have had a drawdown in valuations in most of this sector. Can you talk about, I get wanting to get your debt down below $200 million, potentially maybe do buybacks, but can you talk about the acquisition landscape where you have seen valuations come in quite a bit with what has been going on over the last couple of months?

Scott Peyree: Sure. I will start on that, and Jason, feel free to add in. It is a big priority for us to bring down our total debt load and especially as a multiple. We are very focused on continuing to do that. As you said, with valuations coming down pretty significantly across the board, there is no denying that makes opportunities out there become a lot more interesting. It is always the classic: it takes two to tango. You deal with a scenario where some others out there view that their value is way below where it should be, and that makes them less interested in M&A activity, which I totally understand.

Could it potentially drive consolidation if it sustains over a longer period of time? I think absolutely it could. Are we interested in it? Yes. Are we aggressively pursuing it at this point in time? No.

Jason Bengel: I would just tack on, we have a 101 soft call on our term loan that was up in February, so we are free now to pay down debt at par. But the uncertainty is significant out there. Right now, when you have that much uncertainty, let us just hold on to cash for at least the short term. We are not going to pay down debt. We are going to accumulate cash and maintain flexibility, just given how dynamic things are at the moment.

Jed Kelly: Thank you. Nice job.

Operator: Our next question will be coming from the line of Mike Grondahl of Northland. Your line is open.

Mike Grondahl: Hey, thank you. Scott, could you talk about the visibility you have in the business today for revenue versus maybe six months or a year ago?

Scott Peyree: Yes, sure. I think the visibility for revenue in 2026 is pretty solid. I do not expect massive pendulum swings. I think our ability to drive more consumer traffic at an outsized pace will continue to drive revenue growth, because I would say pretty much every industry we are in right now, if we have the ability to drive more quality consumers at the existing monetization levels, our clients will keep buying those consumers and wanting to get their products in front of those consumers. I would almost argue our revenue is much more dependent now on our ability to continue driving more and more consumers to our network than it is on clients opening up a lot more budget.

That does create more predictability in the revenue.

Mike Grondahl: Got it. And on the mortgage side, not Home Equity now, but mortgage purchase and refi, how close are we to a tipping point? I think last quarter, you talked about maybe 5.75%. What are your thoughts there? How should we handicap that?

Scott Peyree: It is nice seeing a five handle on the 30-year rate right now. That feels good. It is still too high to really drive a lot of consumer traffic on the refi side. Home purchase can be a lot more around bigger affordability issues, more than just pure interest rates. When people are sitting on a 2.5%–3% interest rate, it is hard to convince them to go and buy a new house at a 6% rate or 5.98% or whatever it is. 5.75%, as we have mentioned on previous calls, is where you really start to see the snowball start to build.

The mortgage industry has some metrics that you can look at as well, but 5.75% is really where you have more and more homeowners “in the money” on a cash-out refi. Then 5.50% really starts to build, and if you get below 5%, it can really start being a tidal wave. I think we are ways away from that. Hopefully, that answers your question.

Mike Grondahl: Thank you.

Operator: And our next question is a follow-up from the line of Youssef Squali of Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Youssef Squali: Thanks. Scott, I think in the letter you mentioned something to the effect that partners were not incentivized to provide actionable quotes for automated bots, and I think you singled out Insurance. Can you expand on that a little bit, please?

Scott Peyree: I want to just, Insurance is a big one; I do not want to just single out Insurance. I think that there are a number of levels where there is incentivization to do it, and I would also say there is capability to do it. Starting on the incentivization front, you do not need AI or agentic AI. For example, these Insurance companies could have made their actuarial tables available as a commodity 20 years ago to Google if they wanted to. There was nothing stopping it from being embedded, but they have built big brands. They consider their rate information probably the most proprietary thing that they have as a company.

They have always been, not just recently, extremely resistant to any sort of bot, agentic or not, accessing their rate information. All indications in our conversations are they are very profitable. They are offering rates direct to consumers that they want to and writing a lot of policies, and there is no real incentive or desire for them to really open the kimono there. Then there are a lot of Insurance carriers that just simply are not able; you go to their website today, you could not get a rate online. I would say the majority of carriers are that way.

They will basically say, hey, we are going to connect you to an agent or a call center rep, but you have to talk to someone over the phone or in person to get a rate. A lot of that is just simple capabilities, technical capabilities of providing rates. You go on to the lending world, there are a lot of similarities. A lot of our small business lenders, for example, they do not even write direct to merchant. They write loans through brokers like us. Deep API logged-in access for us to get their loan information, these consumers do not even know that these companies exist, outside of talking to us to get a loan.

There are a bunch of hurdles from that side where I just do not think an agentic AI overlay on going out, filling out a bunch of forms is really going to solve any consumer's problems anytime soon in these industries specifically. In real estate, there is a lot of publicly available information there, so it is a little easier to implement, like a ChatGPT app there.

Youssef Squali: Very helpful color. Thanks, Scott.

Operator: I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the conference back to Scott for closing remarks.

Scott Peyree: Thank you, everybody, for joining and for all of your questions today. I hope we have given you helpful context around some of the incredible opportunities we are working on to enhance the marketplace. We are very excited about our path ahead and look forward to connecting with you again soon when we report our first quarter earnings.

Operator: This concludes today's program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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