Calls

Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-05-05 · generated 2026-07-26.

Latest call digest

Gartner, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00

Q1 2026 — reported May 5, 2026. The prepared remarks were upbeat: Q1 insights revenue, EBITDA, adjusted EPS ($3.32, +11%) and free cash flow (+29%) all beat, contract value growth of 1% accelerated from Q4, and management raised the full-year EBITDA, EPS and free-cash-flow guidance while buying back $535 million of stock (about a 4% share-count reduction). The Q&A reality was more guarded. Gene Hall disclosed that after a strong January and February, client decisions "slowed somewhat in March" on the geopolitical environment, worst in the GCC and transport/energy-heavy sectors, though many delayed deals closed in April. The recurring analyst push was on why CV growth (1% total, 3.5% ex-federal) sits so far below Gartner's historical high-single/low-double-digit range and how it re-accelerates from here; management leaned on the ~250 bps U.S. federal headwind lapping in Q2, engagement gains and the BTI transformation, but declined to guide CV and implied a back-half ramp. Management denied intra-quarter chatter that it had started discounting or cutting new-license ASPs, and reframed the multiyear story around a 12%+ adjusted-EPS compound target (2025 base), of which buybacks are the largest lever.

Participant coverage from the latest call.

Group	Participants	Count
Management	David Cohen — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Gartner, Inc.; Eugene Hall — CEO & Chairman, Gartner, Inc.; Craig Safian — Executive VP & CFO, Gartner, Inc.; Operator	4
Analysts	Jeffrey Meuler — Senior Research Analyst, Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division; Faiza Alwy — Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division; Andrew Nicholas — Analyst, William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division; Jason Haas — Executive Director & Senior Equity Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division; Surinder Thind — Equity Analyst, Jefferies LLC, Research Division; Joshua Chan — Analyst, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division; Toni Kaplan — Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Research Division; Keen Fai Tong — Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division; Jeffrey Silber — MD & Senior Equity Analyst, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research; Jasper Bibb — VP of Equity Research, Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division; Scott Wurtzel — Research Analyst, Wolfe Research, LLC; Ashish Sabadra — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets, Research Division; Wahid Amin — Former Research Analyst, BofA Securities, Research Division	13

Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.

Analyst	Firm	Topic	What changed in Q&A
Jeffrey Meuler	Robert W. Baird & Co.	March slowdown and new-logo vs. in-base upsell mix	Asked whether deals that slipped in March were converting in April and how new-logo compared with upselling the base; management said many delayed deals closed in April and the March softness was broad-based across both.
Faiza Alwy	Deutsche Bank	Regional spread of the slowdown and pricing strategy	Pressed for geographic color (worse in GCC and airlines/transport than in the U.S. or financials) and whether the price point needs to change; management said pricing is appropriate, tiered by service level, and rarely the deciding factor.
Keen Fai Tong	Goldman Sachs	Why CV growth is below historical highs and the exit rate	Asked to decompose the shortfall versus the old high-single/low-double range and for the year-end CV rate; management attributed it to the federal headwind plus macro, said it does not guide CV, and pointed to acceleration across the year.
Jasper Bibb	Truist Securities	Discounting speculation	Asked directly about market chatter that sellers had offered below the normal ~$50,000 new-LU ASP; management said it does not offer discounts and its pricing posture is unchanged.
Joshua Chan	UBS	Composition of the 12% EPS CAGR	Noted revenue growth is not currently near 12% and asked what bridges the gap; management pointed to margin expansion and, most of all, buybacks (about $2.4–2.5 billion over the trailing year).
Toni Kaplan	Morgan Stanley	AI as a distribution channel and consulting risk	Asked whether Gartner would distribute proprietary data through large LLM providers and whether AI is structurally hurting labor-based consulting; management said its value is proactive human-plus-digital advisory and it sees no structural AI damage.

Theme tracker

Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.

Theme	Status	Quarters mentioned	Read-through
U.S. federal government (DOGE) headwind	persisted	Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Flagged as a risk in Q4 2024, it became a real drag once DOGE actions hit in March 2025 and has been roughly a 250 bps CV headwind since. Management has rebaselined federal CV to about flat in 2026 (~$114M at March 31) and expects to lap the worst comparisons starting Q2 2026.
Tariff-affected industries and escalated/deferred decision-making	persisted	Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Emerged as an acute driver in Q2 2025, with about 35%–40% of CV tagged tariff-affected and purchase decisions escalated to the CFO or CEO. It eased through late 2025 as tariffs stabilized, then resurfaced in Q1 2026 as a broader March geopolitical slowdown with the same longer-cycle, escalated-approval pattern.
AI demand and the AskGartner rollout	persisted	Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	AI is described as the single highest-demand topic every quarter. AskGartner moved from pilot (Q2 2025) to full rollout by October 2025 to biweekly feature releases (now 25 languages, PowerPoint export) in Q1 2026, positioned as an engagement and retention driver rather than a separate charge.
AI as a substitute for Gartner	persisted	Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Analysts probe this most quarters. Management consistently says its tracked deal-level loss-reason data shows direct AI substitution is immaterial, and frames AI as a demand tailwind for its guidance on AI strategy, ROI and governance.
Business and Technology Insights transformation (impact, volume, timeliness, user experience)	emerged	Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Introduced as 'adaptations' in Q3 2025 and laid out comprehensively in Q4 2025 as a four-dimension transformation, which management calls the biggest change in its 21-year history. It is the main lever for engagement-led retention, with benefits expected to build over the next few years.
Explicit 'return to double-digit growth' timeline as the lead message	dropped	Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025	Through Q3 2025 the headline was a clear path back to double-digit CV growth by 2027. By Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 the lead metric became a 12%+ adjusted-EPS compound target and a general 'CV will accelerate,' with the 12%–16% CV objective retained but reserved for a 'normal operating environment.'
Accelerated share repurchases and balance-sheet releveraging	persisted	Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Buybacks ramped from $163M in Q1 2025 to $1.1B in Q3 2025 (aided by an inaugural investment-grade bond), about $2B for full-year 2025 and $535M in Q1 2026, cutting share count about 4% in the quarter. It is now the primary driver of the EPS-CAGR target.

Guidance ledger

Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.

Verbatim guidance	Call	Speaker	Curator outcome	Outcome note
“We now expect full year EBITDA at or above $1.545 billion, up $30 million from our prior guidance.”	Gartner, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Full-year 2026 target; raised $30M from the prior Q4 2025 guide on Q1 outperformance and FX. Not yet resolvable.
“We expect 2026 adjusted EPS at or above $13.25”	Gartner, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Raised from the $12.30-or-more introduced with the initial 2026 guide in Q4 2025; reflects higher EBITDA and a lower share count.
“we expect to deliver adjusted EPS on a compound basis above 12% over the next 3 years”	Gartner, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Multiyear commitment off a 2025 base; management identifies buybacks and margin expansion as the main levers, since revenue growth is not currently near 12%.
“We expect 2026 adjusted EPS of $12.30 or more.”	Gartner, Inc., Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Feb 03, 2026 · 2026-02-03T13:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Initial 2026 guide; only one quarter later, in Q1 2026, it was raised to at or above $13.25.
“reaccelerate over the course of 2026 into the high single-digit growth rates”	Gartner, Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 04, 2025 · 2025-11-04T13:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Referred to CV growth. Q1 2026 total CV grew only 1% (3.5% ex-federal), so a high-single-digit full-year 2026 outcome would require a steep back-half ramp; management has since stopped repeating the specific number.
“All these factors would get us to at least high single-digit growth in 2026”	Gartner, Inc., Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Aug 05, 2025 · 2025-08-05T12:00:00	Craig Safian	pending	Bridge to a 2026 CV target built on federal, tariff, tech-vendor and self-help buckets. Q1 2026 started the year at 1% total CV growth, leaving the full-year target dependent on later quarters.
“We expect 2025 adjusted EPS of at least $12.65”	Gartner, Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 04, 2025 · 2025-11-04T13:00:00	Craig Safian	kept	Full-year 2025 adjusted EPS came in at $13.17, reported on the Q4 2025 call, above this floor.

Q&A pressure map

Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.

Topic	Questions	Firms	Pressure / response
Contract value reacceleration, its drivers and the gap to historical growth	6	Wells Fargo, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, Truist Securities	The dominant line of questioning every quarter. In the Q1 2026 call analysts pressed on the exit rate, the disaggregated drivers and why growth sits below the old 12%–16% range; management declined to guide CV and pointed to a back-half ramp, U.S. federal lapping and engagement gains.
The March slowdown and the state of the selling environment	3	Robert W. Baird & Co., Deutsche Bank, UBS	Focused on whether March deals were closing in April and how year-over-year comparisons look with Liberation Day lapping; management said many delayed deals closed in April but expects longer decision cycles to persist.
AI as a distribution channel or substitute, and AskGartner	3	Robert W. Baird & Co., Morgan Stanley	Covered LLM distribution, AskGartner's evolution and whether AI structurally threatens consulting; management framed proactive advisory as the differentiated value and called direct AI substitution immaterial.
Pricing and discounting	2	Deutsche Bank, Truist Securities	Whether Gartner is rethinking price points or offered sub-$50,000 new-LU deals; management addressed both directly, saying its pricing and discounting posture is unchanged.
Sales headcount and quota-bearing headcount mix	3	William Blair, BMO Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets	The bias toward hiring business developers over account managers, the cadence of the ramp and how much headcount is needed to support the 12% EPS CAGR; management said hiring is aimed at 2027–2028 capacity.

Language shifts

Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.

Observation	Verbatim evidence	Call ID	Component
The lead multiyear metric shifted. Through mid-2025 management framed the outlook around a CV growth timeline; by Q1 2026 it anchored the story on an EPS compounding target instead.	“we expect to deliver adjusted EPS on a compound basis above 12% over the next 3 years”	1996258445	2
A more durable, less transitory framing of the macro backdrop entered the language in Q4 2025 — management now plans as if the tougher environment is permanent rather than a passing shock.	“we should assume that the world is going to be like this forever”	1978890155	16
New risk vocabulary about deferred and escalated decision-making, first used in 2025, became a standing description of the selling environment.	“Executives have responded to this by slowing and deferring everything possible.”	1978890155	1
In the latest call the caution narrowed to a specific, recent trigger — a March geopolitical slowdown — after several prior quarters of describing gradual improvement.	“Due to changes in the geopolitical environment, client decisions slowed somewhat in March.”	1996258445	1

The call history reads as a multi-quarter deceleration: total CV growth has slid from 7%–8% in 2024 to 1% in each of the last two quarters, met with the largest internal transformation in Gartner's history and heavier buybacks. Management's conviction that CV re-accelerates is consistent and its retention economics are intact, but the debate now centers on proof: the promised 2026 reacceleration started at just 1% (3.5% ex-federal) in Q1, and the multiyear pitch has quietly re-anchored on a 12% EPS compound target that leans heavily on share-count reduction rather than on the top-line growth that has yet to return.