Ci&T at Citi’s 2025 Conference: AI Strategy and Market Expansion

On Wednesday, 03 September 2025, Ci&T Inc (NYSE:CINT) presented at Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference, outlining its strategic focus on AI integration and market growth. The company highlighted its efforts in reskilling its workforce and leveraging AI to enhance client services, while also addressing the challenges of transitioning pricing models and maintaining robust financial health.

Key Takeaways

• Ci&T is focusing on AI integration through its CINT Flow platform, impacting 85% to 90% of its revenue.
• The company targets market share growth by replacing underperforming competitors.
• AI is seen as deflationary for volume-based services but expansionary for value-based services.
• The US and Brazil contribute approximately 90% of Ci&T’s revenue.
• Ci&T is pursuing R&D, stock repurchase, and M&A opportunities, particularly in the US.

Financial Results

• Ci&T’s EBITDA margin follows a seasonal pattern, with higher costs in Q1 due to salary adjustments in Brazil.
• The company maintains a utilization rate between 85% and 89%.
• Stable hiring and attrition rates are attributed to its strong AI value proposition.
• Revenue guidance for 2025 is based on committed revenue, with a focus on pipeline conversion for 2026.

Operational Updates

• Ci&T Flow is a key differentiator, with 90% of teams using it daily.
• The company is actively reskilling its workforce in AI to enhance engagement and reduce attrition.
• Ci&T maintains a flexible work model and is expanding globally based on client demand.

Future Outlook

• The company sees potential in new pricing models based on outcomes and consumption, though a transition period of 2-5 years is expected.
• Ci&T is strategically expanding in the US and Brazil, with emerging markets in Europe and APAC representing 10% of revenue.
• M&A efforts are focused on acquiring companies with large customers who could become global clients.

Q&A Highlights

• CEO Cesar Gon emphasized the importance of translating AI capabilities into concrete results for large organizations.
• AI is the top priority for many clients, with no significant difference in adoption between US and LATAM clients.
• The company is committed to developing new AI-driven services and offerings.

In conclusion, Ci&T’s presentation at the conference provided a comprehensive view of its strategic direction and market positioning. For more detailed insights, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference:

Unidentified speaker: The founder and CEO of CINT. So it’s gonna be fireside chat, have some q and a for you. But before we get into that, for those less familiar with the the history of CINT, would you mind introducing yourself and CINT types of services you provide and types of clients you work with?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. So thank you for having me, and good morning, everyone. So CINT is is a global digital specialist founded, thirty years ago in Brazil. I’m Co Founder and CEO for three decades now. I’ve been growing consistently through all these three decades.

And now we have a global business, largest market is The USA, followed by Brazil. Brazil and The U. S. Represent roughly 90% of our revenue. And then we have emerging new markets in Europe and APAC represent 10% of our business.

We are specialized on end to end digital solutions from digital strategy, customer centric design and the full stack of software engineering. Now, of course, everything boosted by AI. AI is a huge tailwind for our business because companies need to embed AI in everything they do. We are basically specializing the cohort of very large companies. So typical clients of CIT are consumer large consumer good companies like Coca Cola, ABI, PepsiCo, a large retail companies in The U.

S. And Brazil, large banks and other insurance companies and different players in the financial service industry. Basically, vertically, main vertical is financial services followed by consumer goods and retail and industrial goods.

Unidentified speaker: Okay. Sure. Thank you. So you mentioned AI. So let’s just start there.

And just high level, why do you think tech services companies are necessarily beneficiaries of the GenAI opportunity compared to, say, software AI platform to your place? You know, what do services providers bring to this that others cannot?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. I think you can see this whole disruption. You have companies building the foundational infrastructure, foundational models and then specialized companies fostering specific tools. We tech service companies are in the business of translating this new technology possibilities to the specifics of the company, so to the specific platforms, workflows and also to fill the gaps between this platform, its models and tools and the reality of a large organization. So we are in this game of really turn the potential of AI in real concrete results for large companies.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. So I think that goes towards your CIT flow platform. Would you mind talking to us about what that is? And then we’ll get into some more around, you know, your usage of it, internal stakeholders versus, say, clients and percent of revenue coming from them. But let’s just start out with a overview of Flow.

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. Sure. So, basically, three years ago when this whole disruption started, we created our own CI and T Flow platform. It’s a end to end platform where our teams and our clients are building agents to really streamline the whole process of producing digital solutions. So a lot of use cases and agents around efficiency and also vertical use case folks on leveraging the potential of AI for customer experience, for data, for insights and so on.

So basically, we did, we create a safe, a very secure, reliable environment for our clients, more than 150 clients to play AI and to play the hard game of adoption AI. It’s a way to really foster unnecessary reskilling of the whole workforce and also evolve in creating new layers of value around AI. So CIT flow now is basically heavily used by CIT and our clients. 90% of our teams and hybrid teams with our clients are using Flow daily. That means that roughly 85% to 90% of our revenue now is somehow impacted by CI and T Flow.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. So with more 85% to 90 you’re saying, of of revenue being impacted by Flow, is there any variability in profit for those clients that are kind of more mature in the usage of Flow versus those that are not?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah. We see a lot of correlation of expanding within our portfolio and the adoption of Flow. Flow is a huge differentiator for now. And I would say in the last two years where we are turning this differentiation in growth for CINT as the main focus. Now we are experimenting new pricing models that potentially can also created some improvements in margins.

But this the whole industry is, I would say, standardized in our time mature model, especially for digital solutions. And there will be a normal transition time for I estimating two to five years when you’re going to see a more different set of pricing models, not only time material and fixed price, but outcome based and even consumption based, we are talking about Asian. So there’s a lag from the possibilities of AI driven new business and pricing models and the reality of large organizations where they have practice to this new reality. So probably we’re going to see this incremental change on this is almost mandatory because of the new possibilities around AI, but it will take a few years and probably companies that know how to play this new game of AI will have some opportunities to leverage margin scalability.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. Do you see you mentioned AI being a lot still for productivity gains. Do you see movement in the future for more revenue generation from AI? Or where is CINT inflow in that journey?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah. I think this first two to three years, basically, the main opportunity was around the efficiency companies looking for opportunities to streamline their process, to reinvent workflows based on the new AI capabilities. But now we are seeing the beginning of, I think what I think is going to be a huge source of demand. That’s the reinvention of customer experience based on AI. I think new layer will be introduced in the way we interact with the machines not only based on screens and buttons and curing paradigm, but more conversational, more intentional base customer experience.

And this is a huge transformation in the in the customer journey. So every single company will have to rethink and reinvent the whole layer of customer experience. This is a huge demand for companies like CI and T.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. Now with that, in addition to the profit side, there’s the questions around deflationary impact of AI on revenue. Now what are your thoughts on the evolution of volume versus price in like, as as AI becomes more prevalent?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. I think if you look we, you know, I say, a very macro way, we look IT services as 80% volume base and 20% value added base or value based. It’s easy to see that AI will be deflationary for the volume base, but will be expansionary for the value base and we are playing the value base. So things in the volume base BPO, help desk, system maintenance, a lot of very commoditized repetitive kind of work will be deflationary. But if you look the opportunities around customer experience, leveraging the benefits of data, AI and even the AI transformation, how you change the culture, the mindset of your workforce to embrace AI.

Everything is about leveraging value and I think we are very well positioned in the the value based part of our industry.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. And do you see differences in vertical adoption of AI that we’ve had strength in financial services, talk to us about that?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah, it’s clear that industry more heavy based on customer facing industries and industry heavily based on data and tech are early adoptions of the benefits. The time to value of Applied AI is much shorter. And when you go for more legacy industries or B2B industry, you’re going to see a different curve of adoption. It’s unavoidable for every single industry, but the pace will depend on the time to value. And clearly, financial services is probably the most aggressive adopter of AI, but you have a retail, even consumer goods with all the data, the opportunities around data and AI insights is huge.

So different opportunities in different timelines depends on how exposed the vertical are to tech and consumers.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. Switching gears to the market spend clients. So overall, how is client behavior? How is Q3 shaping up? You’ve had strong double digit growth past several quarters.

So what are you seeing today?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: We see a year of budget and demand stability. That is a very good scenario for playing our main game that is replacing low performance competitors and getting more client share based on the differentiation we could achieve with CI and G Flow and a new set of offerings we are creating around AI like legacy modernization, customer experience renovation and so on. So I see a good scenario for growth, basically, not because the budgets are increasing, but there is a lot of much more stability Mhmm. Around budgets than last year.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. And are you seeing any difference between those US clients and the LATAM clients around, you know, spending patterns or the project types or AI adoption?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think Brazil and The US are are are similar. I don’t see a huge difference relate to adoption. I see more more meaningful difference based on vertical, not on geographies. Got it.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. And and same for tariffs, is there any difference between how the two regions are are addressing, you know, potential tariff impact or just generally macro environment?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: So far, we we see, of course, a lot of discussions and and and expected volatility regarding the macro environment. But I think mainly because we are playing this specific AI opportunity. Somehow, we see that things continue to move on because AI is is, I think, number one priority for every single client that we are talking to.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. Got it. And regarding the sequential improvement in LatAm, are your views on the IT budgets there and just the industry overall, maybe some folks who are less familiar with that market?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah. What we see is stability. Maybe we’re going to see a small increment for next year following the natural demand that companies need to continue to modernize their infrastructure, their tech infrastructure, they need to continue to evolve in the data strategy and so on, if they want to leverage the huge potential for artificial intelligence. So basically, there is a lot of value also to be captured by efficiency. If you apply AI in the right way, you can open a space for innovation based on savings, you can collect in the short term.

So it’s an equation of applying AI for efficiency and leveraging investment space for more aggressive innovation.

Unidentified speaker: Are you able to give us any examples of type of work you’re doing with companies? You know, call it specific verticals, just general and specific verticals or take a client, don’t need to disclose them?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah, we basically, we see two kinds of demand. Part of is horizontal demand, basically legacy modernization, speed up moving systems to the clouds, improve the overall security and customer experience layer and so on. This is, I would say, half of our demand. And then there is vertical opportunities where we are getting specific kind of province relate to the market or B2B or B2C opportunities to really speed up customer adoptions, consumer experience that we will leverage through using a new kind of customer service experience based on chatbots or improving the e commerce experience based on the new possibilities around capturing the intention of the consumers and turn it in a streamlined way to convert sales. So basically, this is what we call vertical demand.

This is more specific to the industry, to the customer. And everyone is doing the run off, preparing the whole digital infrastructure for this new game.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. You you mentioned winning share from competitors. And are there specific types of competitors that you’re you’re running into a lot in winning share from? You’ve seen more digital pure plays or are these the big system integrators? What type of companies are you winning share from?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think companies that were not prepared to to play the the adoption of AI their workforce. I think we were very pioneered since day one, we started reskilling 8,000 people to be heavy users of AI, reshaped our workflows, our daily activities, not only our tech teams, but our non tech teams, our designs, our leaders, our project and product managers. And this is paying off in a very strong way, because now we see that the kind of methodology we create for this reskilling is now being requested by our clients. Everyone is now seeing the potential of AI, but facing the challenge of how you leverage your workforce capabilities engagements around AI. So we have also a specific offering around adoption.

It is based on our own experience on reshaping our own team capabilities.

Unidentified speaker: Are you training your teams by vertical or, like, does flow go by vertical? Or how are you thinking about this in terms of, like, go to market and industry focus versus, say, like, a horizontal capability?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I would say that the reskilling is very horizontal, and our go to market is very vertical based. So this is a combination of creating the foundational capabilities and also convert or translate that for specific industries and clients.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. And, you know, what’s working well with your top client? Obviously, it’s growing very nicely. So talk to us about talk to us about them, types of work you’re working on for them generally, if if possible.

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. Our main client is a huge financial service company in several different business, and they are executing a huge AI based digital transformation across the board, and we are the main partner for that. So we are leveraging our methodology and CI and T flow as a way to really translate the new possibilities in speeding customer value in a very concrete way and going from one business unit to another. And this is sequentially improved the way we are supporting them in this huge transformation.

Unidentified speaker: Have you seen other success with other top 10 clients or maybe even smaller kind of getting that initial proof of concept and then moving forward with more land and expand opportunities?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yes, I think we have a very good penetration of CNG flow in our AI driven services in our top 10 clients. We are growing the current even if we remove the top one, our top 10 the rest of our top 10 clients are growing 10% year over year, that’s huge. And this is basically because we are showing them concrete ways to getting efficiency and improve their value capture around AI.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. What are you seeing in terms of pricing environment with clients today?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think it’s stable. We see opportunities around new pricing models, but as I mentioned before, it will depend on, let’s say, a reeducation of the procurement areas of our clients of huge clients to understand the new possibilities of evolving from time material or fixed price to different models, especially outcome based consumption based models.

Unidentified speaker: Do you have clients using outcomes Yes. Based? Got

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: We have several clients. It’s not relevant yet, but it’s clearly a curve that we will continue to evolve along the next years.

Unidentified speaker: In terms of growth for the year, in terms of visibility, are you able to break down kind of contractually committed for fiscal ’twenty five versus, say, what’s still in the pipeline and go get and need to achieve?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: For for 2025, basically, our guidance is based on our in committed revenue. Pipeline is conversion of pipeline would add on top of that. But conversion of pipeline from now on is really important to allow us to project a very strong 2026.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. And in terms of switching gears from growth in clients to profitability, can you just talk to us about your EBITDA margin drivers that you have at your disposal?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think our EBITDA margin is following the seasonality curve that is normal for CINT with a higher cost into Q1 based on salary readjustments in Brazil. And then along the year, we have price adjustments, especially in our Brazilian real contracts. And also we have the incremental dilution of our G and A based on our incremental growth. So we are following the same pattern this year and aiming the midpoint of our guidance.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. Are you in terms of utilization or say attrition in terms of utilization, how is that shaping up? Do you think your bench is adequate for your growth thereafter? Are you do you think you have additional capability to increase utilization?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: We we we are keeping our utilization rate in the healthy range of 85% to 89%. We like to play in this space and we continue to increase our headcount based on basically meeting the curve of revenue. So we don’t see any meaningful difference in terms of utilization or headcount increase along the next quarters.

Unidentified speaker: Got it. In terms of attrition, I know historically, you’ve always been pretty low. So how is that faring today, both I know you typically talk about kind of senior management and then the broader employee base, how is that trending?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think the market is, let’s say, comfortable in terms of supply. We have been able to hire and retain people in a very good fashion. This is a combination of, I would say, less aggressive environment, but also our value prop for our teams is very strong around AI. We are turning every single CI and tier in AI boosted profession. And I think this is helping keeping our attrition very low and also very high level of engagement.

Unidentified speaker: Can you talk to us about your hiring? Like, do you use, a lot of kind of more junior talent that you can attract with CI and T Flow and have this opportunity to work on interesting AI opportunities? Or is there like a push for more mid management or senior management? Just talk to us where you’re at with the pyramid of employees.

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: We are playing both. We are reskilling our most senior CI and tiers to be very strong AI players, but we also invest a lot on fresh grad and trainees, because we believe that there is a huge opportunity around creating a new generation of native tech and coders. So we had a lot of good results on speed up careers of juniors and mid term engineerings. And so we are playing both. I think it’s part of our long term strategy of developing our own people.

Of course, combining with some specific hiring for specific skills that we need.

Unidentified speaker: Can you talk to us about your hiring in terms of, you know, where are you seeing the talent come from or maybe the attrition? Like, where are the people going if they do leave?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: I think we we in terms of geography for our two main markets that is U. S. And Brazil, we count a lot on Brazil and Colombia. Colombia will be is growing a lot. It will be a second source of talent for CIT, especially to support our largest market that is The USA.

In terms of we have a new strategy of creating partnership with the best universities in every single geography we are playing and fostering long term relationships with them and creating a reputation inside these schools. So we can have access to the best talent. And also we I think we evolve a lot, really we apply a lot of AI in our hiring process. I can say we reinvent the whole workflow of hiring in the last two years. So now we have a very effective way to really screen the market and find the right talent we need in the right moment.

Unidentified speaker: That that brings me to work from home. What is your you know, do you see your staff working a lot on-site? Is there a work from home component still? How does that look like for CIN today?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: It’s it’s a combination of of remote and in person. We have a very flexible model. It varies from geography and business units. There’s a lot of flexibility. Believe it’s the possibility of hybrid work is a value to our team.

So we and we learn since the beginning of the pandemic, we learn how to do that. I think we do in a very streamlined way. So we are comfortable and the way we operate give us a lot of scalability in terms of expanding new geographies and combining in person moments, rituals and to create the kind of relationship we think is necessary to preserve the culture, but also with the flexibility and scalability that remote remote work can give us. So we are very comfortable with our very flexible model.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. In terms of locations, both for clients and employees, know that, you know, The US and Brazil are your core markets, but you have some exposure to other markets. Can you just talk to us about, you know, CINT’s ambitions to grow? We see competitors, you know, growing globally. What what is your plan and your strategy towards this?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. Despite Latin America that we are serving with Brazil and Colombia now and and North America also counting on on Colombia. We have Canada. We also have a good team in Portugal, basically folks on supporting UK, our business is UK. Recently, we start Philippines as a wage support Australia and we have China and Japan and as locations to support our global clients around the world.

So I think we are expanding based on our client demand and the way we see our business evolve.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. Understood. Are these mostly clients like local clients champions or say like a global Pepsi operation that you’re working with globally? Is it It’s clients

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: than heavily based on global players where we are supporting these companies in different geographies and time zones.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. We have about five minutes left. I’ll pause in case any any questions in the crowd. Else, we’ll move on to capital allocation as our final section. If none, one one more question on capital allocation.

Sure. Can you just talk to us about your priorities for the year, specifically M and A and R and D? We’ll start there, then maybe talk about some past acquisitions.

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Sure. I think our very strong cash flow generation allow us to focus on continue to invest on R and D team to develop CINT flow and the capabilities of our teams, especially around AI. Secondly, we continued our stock repurchase buyback program. I think it’s also a way to generate value to our stakeholders, our shareholders. And we are ready for M and A opportunities that we continue to screen the market, especially in The U.

S. And if we find opportunities that will add on top of our organic growth, we will execute. So basically, CI and T flow, the buyback program and be ready for some M and A opportunities.

Unidentified speaker: In terms of M and A, are there specific like areas that you’re focused on? Is it say specific verticals you want to bolster? Is it specific capabilities or maybe a geography?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Our main criteria is basically companies that are working with very large customers, customers that we see expanding to become CINT global typical clients. So and the main geography is The US, where we see, especially in short and midterm, the largest opportunity for high growth.

Unidentified speaker: And I know, like, post IPO, you went through that whole phase of certain set of number four or so acquisitions. And then, you know, you made it clear that you’re going to work on, you know, integrating those correctly and then perhaps looking again. So we seem to be in that kind of phase two stage. You know, is there you know, are you seeing opportunities that you like? Is it kind of like, why might you not be acquiring right now?

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: Yeah. I think I think we we were after the initial wave of acquisition we did after the IPO, we decided to focus on our own AI transformation. I think this risk in the whole CIT creating new offerings evolve our positioning was the main priority. I don’t I didn’t want any distraction from that. Now that I think we are very comfortable with the way our AI strategy is evolving.

We are again open for opportunities. And with that one additional, I think pricing, it’s a good moment for pricing in terms of M and A, but now there is a new factor we need to check if this target companies, they have the kind of relationship, Siente can leverage in terms of AI transformation. So it’s an additional criteria we are adding on top of the typical ones. So but we continue to see screening the market and we probably we consider M and A a good way to speed up our main source of value creation that is organic growth and but basically careful regarding if we are finding the right profile.

Unidentified speaker: Understood. All we had today. So thank you so much, Cesar, for your insights, and hope everybody enjoys the rest of the

Cesar Gon, Co Founder and CEO, CINT: conference. Thank you, Gab.

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