SoundHound AI: Could the Stock 10X by 2030?

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN), a developer of speech and audio recognition services, went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) four years ago. Its stock started trading at $8.72, but it's trading below $8 as of this writing.

Could this out-of-favor AI stock bounce back and generate a ten-bagger return by 2030? Let's review its business model, growth rates, and valuations to see where its stock is headed.

Image source: Getty Images.

What does SoundHound do?

SoundHound's namesake app can identify songs by hearing just a few seconds of recorded audio or a few hummed bars. However, most of its revenue and growth comes from Houndify, its developer platform for creating customized AI-powered voice recognition services. It's a popular choice for restaurants, automakers, retailers, and other companies that want to build their own voice-activated services without sharing their data with a tech giant like Microsoft or Alphabet's Google.

After going public, SoundHound expanded its ecosystem by acquiring the AI restaurant services provider SYNQ3, the online food ordering platform Allset, the conversational AI company Amelia, and the customer service AI company Interactions. It also recently agreed to buy LivePerson, a developer of conversation AI tools for companies. All of those acquisitions increased its exposure to the restaurant sector and the growing AI chatbot market.

From 2022 to 2025, SoundHound's revenue rose more than fivefold, from $31 million to $169 million. Yet much of that expansion was fueled by acquisitions rather than organic growth in its core business. The integration of those lower-margin businesses, along with intense competition from bigger companies, reduced its gross margin from 69% in 2022 to 42% in 2025.

On the bright side, SoundHound's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) improved from negative $73 million in 2022 to negative $58 million in 2025. It's trying to narrow those losses by streamlining its cloud infrastructure costs (especially across its acquired companies), replacing third-party software with its own in-house software, and increasing its mix of higher-margin subscription and royalty-based revenues.

Could SoundHound AI generate a ten-bagger gain by 2030?

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect SoundHound AI's revenue to grow at 16% CAGR to $265 million, while its adjusted EBITDA turns positive in the final two years. That's a decent growth rate, but it would represent a significant deceleration from its previous years.

Much of SoundHound's early growth was driven by big enterprise contracts, which generate uneven revenues, and acquisitions, which only provide temporary gains. As it gains fewer enterprise customers and acquires fewer companies, its growth will cool off.

It's trying to expand into a "one-stop shop" for agentic AI solutions, but that expansion will require it to increase its headcount and ramp up its data center spending. That pressure will make it harder to stabilize its margins and narrow its losses. Those issues could cause it to underperform its AI peers as more investors focus on profits instead of breakneck sales growth.

The messy macro headwinds will also drive investors away from pricier, more speculative AI stocks. With a market cap of $3.3 billion, SoundHound doesn't seem like a bargain at 14 times this year's sales. It's also more than doubled its share count since its public debut, and its insiders haven't bought a single share over the past three months.

If SoundHound matches analysts' estimates, grows its revenue at a 15% CAGR from 2028 to 2030, and trades at a more modest 10 times sales, its market cap would only rise 6% to $3.5 billion over the next five years. But if it trades at a more generous 15 times sales, its market cap would increase about 60% to $5.3 billion. Either way, SoundHound probably won't come anywhere close to delivering a ten-bagger gain by the beginning of the next decade.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Microsoft, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.