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Upwork(UPWK -3.06%)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Aug 07, 2024, 5:00 p.m. ET

Upwork(UPWK -3.06%)

2024 年第二季度财报电话会议

2024年8月7日，美东时间下午 5:00

Prepared Remarks:

主要发言:

Operator

操作员

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Upwork second-quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

大家好，感谢您的耐心等待。欢迎参加 Upwork 第二季度财报电话会议。此时，所有与会者都处于听取模式。演讲结束后，将进行问答环节。

[Operator instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jacob McQuown, vice president to deputy general counsel. Please go ahead.

[操作员指示] 请注意，今天的会议正在录音。现在我想把会议交给今天的发言人，Jacob McQuown，副总顾问副总裁。请发言。

Jacob McQuown -- Vice President to Deputy General Counsel

Jacob McQuown -- 副总顾问副总裁

Thank you. Welcome to Upwork's discussion of its second quarter 2024 financial results. Joining me today are Hayden Brown, Upwork's president and chief executive officer; and Erica Gessert, Upwork's chief financial officer. Following management's prepared remarks, they will be happy to take your questions.

谢谢。欢迎参加 Upwork 关于 2024 年第二季度财务业绩的讨论。今天与我一起的有 Upwork 总裁兼首席执行官 Hayden Brown，以及 Upwork 首席财务官 Erica Gessert。在管理层做完准备好的发言后，他们将乐意回答您的问题。

But first, I'll review the safe harbor statement. During this call, we may make statements related to our business that are forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include all statements other than statements of historical fact. These statements are not guarantees of future performance but rather are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions.

但首先，我将回顾免责声明。在本次通话中，我们可能会就与我们业务相关的事项发表前瞻性声明，这些声明属于联邦证券法下的前瞻性声明。前瞻性声明包括除历史事实陈述之外的所有陈述。这些陈述并非对未来业绩的保证，而是受各种风险、不确定性和假设的影响。

Our actual results could differ materially from expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our SEC filings available on the SEC website and our Investor Relations website as well as the risks and other important factors discussed in today's earnings press release. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended September 30, 2024. In addition, reference will be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures.

我们的实际业绩可能与前瞻性声明中反映的预期有实质性差异。有关可能影响我们实际业绩的重要风险和其他重要因素的讨论，请参阅我们在 SEC 网站和投资者关系网站上可获得的 SEC 备案文件，以及今天财报新闻稿中讨论的风险和其他重要因素。有关非 GAAP 财务指标的信息，包括与其最直接可比的 GAAP 财务指标的调和，可在今天下午发布的新闻稿中的我们投资者关系网站 investors.upwork.com 找到。除非另有说明，报告的数字均与 2024 年第二季度或 2023 年第二季度进行比较时进行了四舍五入。自由现金流是一个非 GAAP 数字，所有其他财务指标均为 GAAP，除非作为非 GAAP 添加。现在，我将把电话交给 Hayden。

Information regarding non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, can be found in the press release that was issued this afternoon on our Investor Relations website at investors.upwork.com. Unless otherwise noted, reported figures are rounded in comparison to the second quarter of 2024 or to the second quarter of 2023. Free cash flow is a non-GAAP figure, and all other financial measures are GAAP unless added as non-GAAP. Now, I'll turn the call over to Hayden.

Hayden Brown -- 总裁兼首席执行官

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

欢迎大家参加 Upwork 的 2024 年第二季度财报电话会议。Upwork 强大而稳健的业务继续在营收和利润两方面呈现出引人注目的增长特征。我们第二季度的营收达到 1.931 亿美元，同比增长 15%。我们持续致力于提高盈利能力，体现在我们有史以来最高的季度 GAAP 净利润达到 2,220 万美元，而调整后的 EBITDA 为 4080 万美元，调整后的 EBITDA 利润率为 21%，较去年同期的 8.5% 有所提高。

Welcome, everyone, to Upwork's second quarter 2024 earnings call. Upwork's strong and durable business continues to deliver compelling growth characteristics on both the top and bottom lines. Our second quarter revenue reached $193.1 million, marking a 15% year-over-year increase. Our continued commitment to enhancing profitability was demonstrated by our highest-ever quarter of GAAP net income at $22.2 million, while adjusted EBITDA was $40.8 million, a 21% adjusted EBITDA margin, up from 8.5% in the second quarter of last year.

我们在实现这一营收增长并超越盈利目标的同时，在一个对大大小小企业都变得更具挑战性的动态宏观经济环境中运营。这种具有挑战性的环境在第二季度显示出比预期更软的顶部漏斗活动。我们内部跟踪的软度的一个领先指标是寻求工作的客户，这是一个衡量参与导致新合同的客户数量的指标。在第一季度，这一数字环比增长 11%，而在第二季度，这一数字环比下降 6%，特别是在五月和六月，以及活跃客户向非常小的企业的混合转变。

We delivered this revenue growth and outperformed our profitability goals while operating in a dynamic macroeconomic environment that has become more challenging for businesses, large and small. This challenging environment showed through with softer top-of-funnel activity than expected in the second quarter. A leading indicator of the softness that we track internally is client-seeking work, which is a measure of the number of clients engaging in an action that leads to a new contract. In Q1, this number accelerated 11% quarter over quarter, while in Q2, this number decelerated 6% sequentially, with particular impact in May and June, along with a mix shift of active clients toward very small businesses.

虽然我们赞赏小企业的韧性在我们平台上表现优于其他群体，但小企业在每份合同的较低支出和每位客户的较少合同的历史特征导致我们对今年剩余时间的业绩预期更加谨慎。我们认为，基于我们在第二季度观察到的宏观经济条件导致的客户活动变化，这些变化将在 2024 年余下时间内持续存在，并已将这些变化纳入降低的 2024 年全年营收指引中，同时重申我们的 2024 年全年调整后 EBITDA 指引。Upwork 的盈利市场模式和我们持续的纪律执行为我们提供了独特的竞争和财务优势，我们正在继续利用这些优势。我们先进的技术平台和全球双边市场使我们能够成为连接高技能自由职业人才与客户的唯一在线目的地，以满足他们希望工作的全部方式。

While we applaud the resiliency of smaller businesses outperforming other cohorts on our platform, small businesses' historical characteristics of lower spend per contract and fewer contracts per client lead us to have more caution about performance expectations for the remainder of the year. We believe it's prudent to assume that the changes in client activity due to macroeconomic conditions that we observed in Q2 will remain for the rest of 2024, and we have factored those changes into lowered 2024 full-year revenue guidance while reiterating our 2024 full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance. Upwork's profitable marketplace model and our continued disciplined execution provide us with a distinct competitive and financial advantage, which we are continuing to leverage. Our advanced technology platform and global two-sided marketplace enable us to serve as the singular online destination to connect highly skilled freelance talent with clients in the full range of ways they want to work.

我们的数字也证明了我们在从线下、模拟和数字招聘和人员配置来源中赢得份额方面的持续成功，我们超越了更广泛市场趋势。Upwork 受益于持续不断的朝向高质量、具有成本效益、灵活的替代传统全职和临时人员配置方法的持久性转变。无论是在绝对还是相对基础上，我们都处于持续强势地位，盈利能力和自由现金流动态反映了我们业务模式的基本优势。创新增长继续是 Upwork 的首要任务，使我们能够在宏观经济复苏后实现最佳表现。

Our numbers also evidence our continued success in winning share from offline, analog, and digital hiring and staffing sources as we outperform broader market trends. Upwork benefits from the ongoing enduring secular shift toward a high-quality, cost-effective, flexible alternative to traditional full-time and contingent staffing approaches. We are in a position of continued strength, both on an absolute and relative basis, with growing profitability and free cash flow dynamics that reflect the fundamental advantages of our business model. Innovation for growth continues to be paramount for Upwork, positioning us for peak performance once the macro rebounds.

We continue to invest in multiple revenue and GSV growth levers to maintain our position as an industry leader and translate that leadership position into top and bottom-line growth, supported by continued healthy take rate expansion. These levers include: First, continuing to leverage Upwork's intrinsic ability to shapeshift to wherever the market demand for skills is with the current focus on making Upwork the preeminent destination for AI talent and work; second, improving customer productivity, engagement, and work outcomes in our products by infusing AI-powered features and user experiences built on Uma, Upwork's mindful AI; third, our continued expansion into our enterprise TAM through the right products, partnerships and integrations; fourth, acquiring new clients cost-effectively in that scale by launching new distribution channels through partnerships; and fifth, continuing to drive marketplace quality, efficiency, and adoption of value-added services via our ads and monetization efforts. I'll touch on progress for each of these GSV and revenue-enhancing levers. Based on a long track record of serving clients with access to the talent, it is always most relevant for the skills they need today.

我们继续投资于多个收入和 GSV 增长杠杆，以保持我们作为行业领导者的地位，并将这一领导地位转化为顶线和底线增长，持续健康的收费率扩张提供支持。这些杠杆包括：首先，继续利用 Upwork 的固有能力，在当前专注于使 Upwork 成为人工智能人才和工作的首要目的地，以适应市场对技能需求的变化；其次，通过注入基于 Uma 的人工智能功能和用户体验来提高客户的生产力、参与度和工作成果，Uma 是 Upwork 的专注人工智能；第三，通过正确的产品、合作伙伴关系和整合，持续扩大我们在企业 TAM 中的份额；第四，通过启动新的分销渠道，通过合作伙伴关系以成本效益的方式大规模地吸引新客户；第五，通过广告和货币化努力，继续推动市场质量、效率和增值服务的采纳。我将介绍每个收入和 GSV 增长杠杆的进展情况。基于长期为客户提供人才访问的记录，对于他们今天所需的技能，这总是最相关的。

Clients are coming to us for professional, skilled, and knowledgeable and transforming their AI dreams into realities. From building and deploying Gen AI chatbots to training and tuning data and prompts for LLMs, to delivering marketing or back-office projects to integrate the latest AI-enabled capabilities, businesses are realizing the need to supplement their internal capabilities and know-how by looking externally to find talent and solutions that deliver on the promise of AI-driven productivity and innovation. This is where Upwork has a tremendous structural advantage. Compared to studies that show only 15% of corporate employees have the AI-related skills and training they need, more than half of freelance professionals on Upwork are already familiar with and using AI tools to deliver high-quality outcomes.

客户来找我们寻求专业、熟练和知识渊博的人，将他们的人工智能梦想变成现实。从构建和部署 Gen AI 聊天机器人到为 LLMs 训练和调整数据和提示，再到交付营销或后勤项目以整合最新的人工智能功能，企业意识到需要通过外部寻找人才和解决方案来补充他们内部的能力和专业知识，实现人工智能驱动的生产力和创新的承诺。这就是 Upwork 拥有巨大结构优势的地方。与显示只有 15% 的公司员工拥有他们所需的人工智能相关技能和培训的研究相比，在 Upwork 上超过一半的自由职业专业人士已经熟悉并使用人工智能工具，以交付高质量的成果。

It's no surprise then that a recent report from our Upwork Research Institute found that nearly half, 48%, of C-suite executives have already brought in freelancers to get delayed AI-related projects back on track. Upwork is serving a range of businesses, including leading companies like Scale AI, with the expert talent they require for their AI initiatives, and we are evolving our offerings to meet this growing market demand. While GSV from AI-related work was up 67% year over year in Q2, what excites us most is the opportunity ahead for this business and our customers. The tangible benefits for talent on our platform who are leaning into these opportunities are compelling.

因此，最近我们的 Upwork 研究所的一份报告发现，将近一半，48%，的 C 级高管已经引入自由职业者来推动延迟的人工智能相关项目。Upwork 为一系列企业提供服务，包括领先公司如 Scale AI，为他们的人工智能倡议提供所需的专业人才，我们正在不断发展我们的产品以满足这一不断增长的市场需求。虽然与去年同期相比，Q2 的人工智能相关工作的 GSV 增长了 67%，但最让我们兴奋的是这个业务和我们的客户前景。对于我们平台上利用这些机会的人才来说，实实在在的好处是令人信服的。

As just one example, freelance professionals, working on AI-related projects, earned 47% more per hour than those working on non-AI-related projects in Q2. Our second ongoing growth lever is improving customer productivity and enhancing engagement through our own AI-powered product features. During the second quarter, we announced Uma, Upwork's mindful AI, to underpin key steps in the hiring and matching process and serve as an always-on indispensable work companion. Our vision for Uma is to transform the way work is done on Upwork by more seamlessly augmenting the power of people and AI working together.

举一个例子，Q2 在从事人工智能相关项目的自由职业专业人士每小时的收入比从事非人工智能相关项目的人高出 47%。我们的第二个持续增长杠杆是通过我们自己的人工智能产品功能提高客户的生产力和增强参与度。在第二季度，我们宣布了 Uma，Upwork 的专注人工智能，用于支持招聘和匹配过程的关键步骤，并作为一个始终如一的不可或缺的工作伴侣。我们对 Uma 的愿景是通过更无缝地增强人与人工智能共同工作的力量，从而改变在 Upwork 上的工作方式。

Although this product is still in its early days and has launched only in select use cases, we've seen demand growing with a 23% quarter-over-quarter increase in users interacting with Uma in Q2. Over time, we see Uma changing the game for customers, both making our platform easier to use and improving the quality of work outcomes. We also continue to innovate our offering on behalf of our enterprise clients. The large enterprise market is not a monolith but is comprised of multiple large subsegments, with clients that prioritize their needs differently.

尽管这个产品仍处于早期阶段，仅在特定用例中推出，但我们看到需求在 Q2 与 Uma 互动的用户增长了 23%。随着时间的推移，我们看到 Uma 将改变客户的游戏规则，使我们的平台更易于使用，并提高工作成果的质量。我们还在代表我们的企业客户创新我们的产品。大型企业市场并不是一个单一体，而是由多个大型子市场组成，这些客户对其需求的优先级不同。

So, we have been strategically addressing that diversity of business needs. This quarter, we successfully began testing a new bifurcation of our solutions for enterprise clients in which we have ring-fenced existing functionality and pricing in one offering and winnowed down a more limited set of functionality and alternative pricing to target a subset of enterprise buyers. During testing, this approach yields higher total conversion for our sales team with 46 combined enterprise deals closed in the quarter, 27 for the new offering, and 19 for our traditional enterprise standard and compliance products. This dual-track approach is giving us good insights on how to move forward with modifications to our pricing and packaging to reaccelerate enterprise growth, and we will have further updates in the coming quarters.

因此，我们一直在战略性地解决这种多样化的业务需求。本季度，我们成功开始测试为企业客户提供新解决方案的新分流，其中我们在一个方案中设定了现有功能和定价，并在另一个方案中精简了一组更有限的功能和备选定价，以针对一部分企业买家。在测试过程中，这种方法使我们的销售团队的总体转化率更高，本季度共关闭了 46 笔企业交易，其中 27 笔是针对新方案，19 笔是针对我们传统的企业标准和合规产品。这种双轨方法为我们提供了关于如何修改我们的定价和打包以重新加速企业增长的宝贵见解，我们将在未来几个季度提供进一步更新。

During the second quarter, Labelbox, Builders FirstSource, and Guidepoint were among the new Enterprise Solutions clients we added. Further advancing our existing enterprise solutions partnerships, this month, we announced a new partnership with Beeline, one of the largest and most familiar BMS providers. We've also built on our MSP partnership with KellyOCG by enabling our first joint clients, including NASDAQ, to incorporate and access the high-quality talent pool we have on Upwork. These steps indicate our agility and further lay the foundation for unlocking this large market opportunity.

在第二季度，Labelbox、Builders FirstSource 和 Guidepoint 是我们新增的企业解决方案客户之一。为进一步推进我们现有的企业解决方案合作伙伴关系，本月，我们宣布了与 Beeline 的新合作伙伴关系，Beeline 是最大和最知名的 BMS 提供商之一。我们还通过使我们的首批联合客户（包括纳斯达克）能够整合和访问我们在 Upwork 上拥有的高质量人才库，加强了与 KellyOCG 的 MSP 合作伙伴关系。这些举措显示了我们的灵活性，并进一步奠定了开拓这一巨大市场机会的基础。

Historically, Upwork's primary method of acquiring and converting clients has been on our website and mobile apps, attracting them through word of mouth, SEO, and paid acquisition channels. With our broad partnership strategy, we see a new avenue for cost-effectively attracting and converting new clients at scale by embedding Upwork experts and innovative experiences for businesses in the third-party ecosystems wherein those prospective clients encounter the need for expertise in real time. Upwork is already home to huge communities of experts in everything from GoDaddy, WordPress, and website development, to Shopify, e-commerce, and other e-commerce platforms, to social media management, project management, and a massive middle and long tail of knowledge work specialties. Our strategy is to light up these communities of experts inside third-party ecosystems to places where they can enable partners and their customers to succeed.

历史上，Upwork 主要通过我们的网站和移动应用程序获取和转化客户，通过口碑、搜索引擎优化和付费渠道吸引他们。通过我们广泛的合作伙伴策略，我们看到了一种新的成本效益高的吸引和转化大规模新客户的途径，即在第三方生态系统中嵌入 Upwork 专家和创新体验，让那些潜在客户在实时遇到专业需求时能够接触到。Upwork 已经汇聚了庞大的专家社区，涵盖从 GoDaddy、WordPress 和网站开发，到 Shopify、电子商务和其他电子商务平台，再到社交媒体管理、项目管理以及大量的知识工作专业领域。我们的策略是将这些专家社区引入第三方生态系统，让他们能够在那里帮助合作伙伴及其客户取得成功。

The starting point in engagement does not need to be on Upwork for significant value to be created. In the past quarter, we more than doubled our number of partner deals and May brought the highest monthly revenue derived from partnerships that we've seen to date. Today, partnerships combined contribution to our GSV is small, but it is growing. As we further accelerate this partner program over future quarters, we will reach orders of magnitude more businesses and prime position to leverage Upwork for their work needs.

参与的起点并不一定要在 Upwork 上，也能创造重要价值。在过去的一个季度中，我们的合作伙伴交易数量翻了一番，五月带来了迄今为止我们见过的合作伙伴带来的最高月收入。如今，合作伙伴的贡献对我们的总服务交易总额贡献虽小，但正在增长。随着我们未来几个季度进一步加速合作伙伴计划，我们将触及数量级更多的企业，并处于利用 Upwork 满足他们工作需求的最佳位置。

Finally, a critical lever for us as we continue to lean into building more value-added sources for customers that improve the overall quality and efficiency of the marketplace, while also expanding our take rate, are our ads and monetization features, including subscriptions. Q2 was a quarter of record experimentation velocity for us in this area, and we saw a notable success and updates to our pricing and packaging. In the marketplace, we added more connects and our AI-powered Upwork Chat Pro app to the Freelancer Plus subscription, while increasing our price point to one with the additional value we are delivering. These changes contribute to our highest take rate ever.

最后，作为我们继续努力为客户构建更多增值来源、提高市场整体质量和效率、同时扩大我们的收费率的关键杠杆，我们的广告和变现功能，包括订阅服务，发挥着重要作用。第二季度对我们来说是记录性实验速度的一个季度，在这一领域，我们看到了显著的成功和定价和打包的更新。在市场上，我们增加了更多的连接和我们的 AI 驱动的 Upwork Chat Pro 应用到自由职业者 Plus 订阅中，同时将我们的价格定位提高到一个能够体现我们提供的附加价值的水平。这些变化导致了我们有史以来最高的收费率。

75% year-over-year revenue growth in asset monetization products and a 68% quarter-over-quarter increase in Upwork Chat Pro daily active users in Q2. Asset monetization products continue to be one of our fastest-growing revenue streams. This is another area where the progress made is significant and yet the runway ahead is even more promising. UpWork is demonstrating our position to capture long-term growth from secular tailwinds, even while navigating a choppy environment in the near term, staying the course and executing unwaveringly on our profitability goals.

资产变现产品的年增长率达到 75%，第二季度 Upwork Chat Pro 每日活跃用户环比增长 68%。资产变现产品继续是我们增长最快的收入来源之一。在这一领域取得的进展显著，但前景更加光明。即使在短期内面临波动的环境，Upwork 正在展示我们抓住长期增长机遇的位置，坚定地执行我们的盈利目标。

We are excited to drive this business to tremendous scale, building on our formidable assets and momentum, continuing to invest in growth, and creating meaningful leverage increases every year toward our 35% five-year adjusted EBITDA target. We are thrilled to be in a position to innovate work with and for our customers using our distinct differentiators of talent, technology, and know-how. With that, I will turn it over to Erica to review our financials.

我们对将业务发展到巨大规模感到兴奋，借助我们强大的资产和势头，继续投资增长，并每年创造有意义的杠杆增长，朝着我们的 35% 五年调整后 EBITDA 目标迈进。我们很高兴能够利用我们的人才、技术和专业知识这些独特优势，与客户一起创新工作。现在，我将把话题转给 Erica 来审查我们的财务状况。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Thanks, Hayden. As Hayden outlined, we're excited about the strength of our business model, the opportunities ahead for Upwork, and our ability to generate durable, profitable growth in a tough macro. Our model is highly profitable, with gross margins over 77% in the second quarter, expanding adjusted EBITDA margins, and increasing free cash flow. We are steadfast in our goal to reach 35% adjusted EBITDA margin in the next five years while increasing our operating leverage every year along the way.

谢谢，Hayden。正如 Hayden 所概述的，我们对我们的商业模式的强劲性、Upwork 未来的机遇以及我们在艰难宏观环境中实现持续盈利增长的能力感到兴奋。我们的模式非常盈利，第二季度毛利率超过 77%，扩大了调整后 EBITDA 利润率，并增加了自由现金流。我们坚定地致力于在未来五年内达到 35% 的调整后 EBITDA 利润率目标，同时每年增加我们的营运杠杆。

Now, I'll review a few highlights from our most recent results. Revenue grew 15% year over year to $193.1 million in the second quarter and was driven in part by the flat fee pricing structure we started last year as well as sustained momentum from our ads and monetization products. Marketplace revenue was $166.8 million and grew 17% year over year. In our enterprise business, total enterprise revenue remained flat at $26.3 million in Q2.

现在，我将回顾我们最近业绩的一些亮点。第二季度收入同比增长 15%，达到 1.931 亿美元，部分原因是去年开始的固定费用定价结构，以及我们的广告和变现产品持续的势头。市场收入为 1.668 亿美元，同比增长 17%。在我们的企业业务中，第二季度总企业收入保持在 2630 万美元的水平。

Within our Enterprise Solutions products, customer spend and behavior remained consistent with Q1 trends, and with the current high interest rate environment, which is impacting corporate spending. Managed services revenue showed strength in the quarter, growing on a year-over-year basis, reflecting increasing demand for work product delivery and the signing of six new managed services MSAs in the past few quarters. While Q1 of this year saw strengthening top-of-funnel activity on Upwork, in Q2, we saw a softening of these trends as well as a mix shift to very small businesses, which affects our average contract size. This activity is a flow-through from broader macroeconomic trends.

在我们的企业解决方案产品中，客户支出和行为与第一季度的趋势保持一致，受当前高利率环境影响，这影响了企业支出。托管服务收入在本季度表现强劲，同比增长，反映了对工作产品交付的需求增加，以及在过去几个季度签署的六份新的托管服务协议。尽管今年第一季度在 Upwork 上的顶部活动有所增强，但在第二季度，我们看到这些趋势有所减弱，同时也出现了向非常小型企业的转变，这影响了我们的平均合同规模。这种活动是更广泛宏观经济趋势的反映。

As a result, Upwork's GSV declined 2.7% and GSV per active client declined 5% year over year. In spite of these temporal macro-related challenges, we're pleased with our ongoing ability to perform better than many traditional staffing, temp services, and job board companies due to our differentiated tech-enabled marketplace business model. Even with these pressures, active clients were up 6% year over year to $868,000, with both new acquisition and retention benefiting us on a year-over-year basis. Our marketplace take rate was at an all-time high of 18% in Q2, up 30 basis points from Q1.

因此，尽管受到暂时的宏观相关挑战，Upwork 的总服务交易总额同比下降了 2.7%，每个活跃客户的总服务交易总额同比下降了 5%。尽管面临这些压力，活跃客户同比增长了 6%，达到 868,000，新客户获取和留存都使我们受益。我们的市场收费率在第二季度达到历史最高水平，为 18%，较第一季度提高了 30 个基点。

We are confident we have additional capacity to grow our take rate, and our approach to this is focused on pricing to value. We continue to test and experiment with a wide variety of monetization strategies on the platform, and these tests are supporting our belief that we have significant opportunities to increase our take rate in the future. As we do this, we will always balance the opportunities we see to monetize the unique platform experiences we enable with marketplace health and growth. In Q2, we saw sustained momentum from our ads and monetization products, with Freelancer Plus subscriptions growing 28% year over year, contributing to what continues to be our highest growth revenue stream.

我们有信心拥有额外的增长空间来提高我们的收费率，我们的方法是专注于定价与价值相匹配。我们继续在平台上测试和尝试各种各样的货币化策略，这些测试支持我们的信念，即我们在未来有显著增加收费率的机会。在这个过程中，我们将始终平衡我们看到的货币化机会与市场健康和增长之间的关系。在第二季度，我们从广告和货币化产品中持续看到动力，Freelancer Plus 订阅同比增长 28%，为我们持续增长的最大收入来源做出了贡献。

Non-GAAP gross margin continued to improve, both on a year-over-year and sequential basis to 77.6%. Non-GAAP operating expense was $112.2 million in the second quarter, representing 58% of revenue compared to $115.7 million, or 69% of revenue, in the prior year as we continue to successfully reduce operating costs. For the second quarter, non-GAAP R&D expense was $44 million, increasing 21% year over year as we continue to accelerate our pace of innovation and invest in technology. We expect R&D to be higher in absolute dollars year over year but decline as a percentage of revenue throughout 2024.

非通用会计毛利继续改善，同比和环比均达到 77.6%。第二季度非通用运营费用为 1.122 亿美元，占收入的 58%，而去年同期为 1.157 亿美元，占收入的 69%，我们成功地继续降低运营成本。第二季度非通用研发费用为 4400 万美元，同比增长 21%，因为我们继续加快创新步伐并投资于技术。我们预计研发费用在绝对金额上将同比增加，但在 2024 年全年将随着收入比例下降。

Non-GAAP sales and marketing expense of $43.9 million declined 22% year over year, and we expect to maintain a similar level of spend as a percentage of revenue for the remainder of the year. Our provision for transaction losses, or PFTL, remains low at $1.8 million for Q2, approximately 1% of total revenue. Adjusted EBITDA was $40.8 million in the second quarter, representing adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.1%. Our profitable business model generated our highest quarter of GAAP net income ever and continued to generate GAAP earnings-per-share growth, which includes the impact of stock-based compensation.

第二季度非通用销售和营销费用为 4390 万美元，同比下降 22%，我们预计在今年剩余时间内保持类似的支出水平占收入的比例。我们的交易损失准备（PFTL）在第二季度仍然很低，为 180 万美元，约占总收入的 1%。调整后的息税折旧及摊销前利润（Adjusted EBITDA）在第二季度为 4080 万美元，代表 21.1% 的调整后 EBITDA 毛利。我们盈利的商业模式创造了有史以来最高的季度 GAAP 净收入，并继续产生 GAAP 每股收益增长，其中包括股权报酬的影响。

For the second quarter of 2024, GAAP net income was $22.2 million and fully diluted GAAP earnings per share was $0.17. Free cash flow for the second quarter was $33.5 million, the result of the high free cash flow yield inherent in our business model. We also returned $33.1 million to shareholders through share repurchases, representing nearly 100% of the free cash flow generated during the second quarter. Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were approximately $497.7 million at the end of the second quarter.

2024 年第二季度，GAAP 净收入为 2,220 万美元，全摊薄 GAAP 每股收益为 0.17 美元。第二季度的自由现金流为 3350 万美元，这是我们商业模式固有的高自由现金流收益的结果。我们还通过股票回购向股东返还了 3310 万美元，几乎相当于第二季度产生的自由现金流的 100%。截至第二季度末，现金、现金等价物和可市场化证券约为 4.977 亿美元。

Turning to guidance. We are providing a more tempered revenue outlook for the remainder of the year based on the data points we have seen since May and no expectations of improvement to the current macro environment. By maintaining our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year, we are increasing our margin outlook. This is due to the strong focus on cost discipline across our business.

关于展望。我们根据自 5 月以来看到的数据点和对当前宏观环境没有改善的预期，为今年剩余时间提供了更为谨慎的收入展望。通过保持我们全年调整后 EBITDA 的指引，我们提高了我们的毛利展望。这是由于我们在业务各个环节上强调成本纪律。

Our ability to produce growing margins in this environment gives us confidence in our long-term adjusted EBITDA margin goal. We believe our balanced focus on growth and profitability and growing margins with a high free cash flow yield will produce strong shareholder returns over time. For the third quarter of 2024, we expect to produce revenue in the range of $179 million to $184 million, representing 3% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. For adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter, we are guiding to a range of $36 million to $39 million, which represents an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20% at the midpoint.

在这种环境下产生增长的毛利能力使我们对我们的长期调整后 EBITDA 毛利目标充满信心。我们相信我们在增长和盈利能力上的平衡关注，以及高自由现金流收益的毛利增长，将会随着时间的推移产生强劲的股东回报。对于 2024 年第三季度，我们预计收入范围在 1.79 亿美元至 1.84 亿美元之间，中间值代表同比增长 3%。至于第三季度的调整后 EBITDA，我们指导范围为 3,600 万美元至 3,900 万美元，中间值代表调整后 EBITDA 毛利率为 20%。

For the full year 2024, we anticipate revenue between $735 million to $745 million, representing 7% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Contemplated in our revenue guidance are some near-term headwinds from anti-circumvention initiatives, which we expect will help to improve customer experience and platform quality while stimulating long-term growth of our marketplace. We expect our take rate for the rest of the year to remain stable with what we saw in Q2. As a result of our ongoing cost discipline and the strength of our model, we expect full-year adjusted EBITDA to be within a range of $140 million to $150 million, increasing our adjusted EBITDA margin outlook.

对于 2024 全年，我们预计收入在 7.35 亿美元至 7.45 亿美元之间，中间值代表同比增长 7%。在我们的收入展望中考虑到了一些近期的反规避举措带来的阻力，我们预计这将有助于改善客户体验和平台质量，同时刺激我们市场的长期增长。我们预计今年剩余时间的收费率将与第二季度保持稳定。由于我们持续的成本纪律和我们模式的强劲性，我们预计全年调整后 EBITDA 将在 1.4 亿美元至 1.5 亿美元的范围内，提高了我们的调整后 EBITDA 毛利展望。

As a reminder, GSV and revenue growth, and consequently adjusted EBITDA margins, are affected in the fourth quarter of this year by the fact that there are fewer Sundays in the quarter this year versus last year. Because of the timing each week when our clients are billed, the number of Sundays in any set period affects our revenue and GSV recognition in that period. Excluding the structural impact, our GSV growth rate for the year would be approximately one point higher. We expect full-year 2024 non-GAAP diluted EPS to be between $0.90 and $0.94, up from our guidance last quarter of $0.88 to $0.92.

作为提醒，由于今年第四季度的星期日较去年较少，GSV 和收入增长，因此调整后 EBITDA 毛利受到影响。由于每周客户结算的时间，任何一段时间内的星期日数量都会影响该时期的收入和 GSV 认定。排除结构性影响，我们全年的 GSV 增长率将约高出一个百分点。我们预计 2024 全年非通用摊薄每股收益将在 0.90 美元至 0.94 美元之间，高于上一季度的指引范围 0.88 美元至 0.92 美元。

For the full year, weighted average shares outstanding will decline to a range of $139 million to $143 million, down from our previous guidance last quarter of $140 million to $144 million. Our profitable marketplace enables us to achieve durable profitable growth in the near and long term. We can increase profitability and free cash flow while continuing to invest in innovative solutions that will unlock new S-curves of growth for Upwork. Regardless of the macro environment, we will continue innovating and strengthening our position as a market leader, while producing steady and significant operating margin and free cash flow on an ongoing basis.

全年，加权平均流通股数将下降至 1.39 亿至 1.43 亿股，低于我们上一季度的指引范围 1.4 亿至 1.44 亿股。我们盈利的市场使我们能够在短期和长期内实现持续盈利增长。我们可以在继续投资于创新解决方案的同时增加盈利能力和自由现金流，这将为 Upwork 开启新的增长曲线。无论宏观环境如何，我们将继续创新并巩固我们作为市场领导者的地位，同时持续产生稳定且显著的运营利润和自由现金流。

As always, I want to close by thanking our incredible team at Upwork for their contributions this quarter and their unparalleled creativity, focus, and pace of execution. I am proud to be a part of this great team. With that, we would be happy to take your questions.

最后，我要感谢我们在 Upwork 的不可思议团队在本季度的贡献，以及他们无与伦比的创造力、专注力和执行速度。我为能成为这个伟大团队的一员感到自豪。有了这些，我们将很乐意回答您的问题。

Questions & Answers:

问题与回答：

Operator

运营商

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from Andrew Boone of JMP Securities. Your line is open.

谢谢。[运营商指示] 请稍候，我们正在整理问答名单。我们的第一个问题来自 JMP 证券的 Andrew Boone。请发言。

Andrew Boone -- Analyst

Andrew Boone -- 分析师

Thanks so much for taking my questions. Hayden, in your prepared remarks, you talked about the health of the platform in terms of balancing take-rate initiatives and monetization products. Can you just speak to that in terms of how you are viewing things like Connects and pushing more monetization on to freelancers as well as also making sure that there is plenty of liquidity for the platform as well as supporting more first-time freelancers?

非常感谢您提问。Hayden，在您的开场发言中，您谈到了平台的健康状况，涉及到平衡收费率倡议和货币化产品。您能否就此谈一下，您如何看待像 Connects 这样的项目，以及如何推动更多的货币化给自由职业者，同时确保平台有足够的流动性，支持更多首次自由职业者？

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hayden Brown - 总裁兼首席执行官

Thanks, Andrew. I'd say the work we've done so far has been incredibly successful and provides the blueprint for how we want to continue driving in balancing the factors that you're outlining because we are laser-focused on expanding take rate while making these initiatives accretive from a marketplace health and quality perspective. What we look at here is things like Connects and subscriptions and value-added services that we're enhancing the platform with really are ways for us to improve signal quality in the marketplace for us to also give talent and clients more control over when, where, and how they want to engage and to be featured or propose themselves with more priority for work, things like that. And so, really, these are features and functionality in a large part or are in service of our marketplace health goals.

谢谢，Andrew。我想说，我们迄今为止所做的工作非常成功，并为我们继续推动平衡您所概述的因素提供了蓝图，因为我们专注于扩大收费率，同时使这些倡议从市场健康和质量的角度具有增值性。我们在这里关注的是像 Connects 和订阅以及增值服务这样的项目，我们正在通过这些方式改善市场的信号质量，让人才和客户更多地控制他们想何时、何地以及如何参与，并提供更多优先权进行工作或提出自己的方式。因此，实际上，这些功能在很大程度上是为了实现我们的市场健康目标而提供服务。

And monetization is, in some cases, just a byproduct of how these work most effectively and really can be capitalized on for customers and for us. Stepping back and looking more broadly at the ads and monetization opportunity we have, we know that given where we are today and when we compare our opportunity to other two-sided marketplace businesses, there is a lot of run room here. And we also know specifically about features and functionality, whether it's in value-added services or further enhancements to subscriptions that there's a long road map here that we can execute on. So, we feel great about the opportunity to continue to expand and build on what we've done and really continue to expand take rate in a way that is really valuable and healthy for the marketplace and for customers.

在某些情况下，货币化实际上只是这些项目如何最有效运作的副产品，并且确实可以为客户和我们所利用。回顾并更广泛地看待我们在广告和货币化机会方面，我们知道，鉴于我们今天的位置，以及当我们将我们的机会与其他双边市场业务进行比较时，这里有很大的发展空间。我们也明确知道，无论是在增值服务方面还是进一步增强订阅方面，都有一个我们可以执行的长期规划路线图。因此，我们对继续扩大和建设我们所做的工作感到非常满意，并且真正继续扩大收费率的机会，这对于市场和客户来说非常有价值和健康。

Andrew Boone -- Analyst

Andrew Boone - 分析师

That's helpful. And then I wanted to ask about partner deals. Hayden, as you roll out more of these deals, can you talk about what's been successful and how that paints the picture for where you guys want to pursue additional deals going forward? Thanks so much.

这很有帮助。然后我想问一下关于合作伙伴交易的事情。Hayden，在您推出更多这些交易时，您能谈谈哪些方面取得了成功，以及这如何描绘了您们未来希望追求额外交易的情况吗？非常感谢。

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hayden Brown - 总裁兼首席执行官

We view the partnership opportunity as very large, and there's certainly a lot of ways to look at this. OpenAI was our launch partner for this bigger program and really provided the starting point for the momentum that we've been building in that now we have. I'd say what success looks like for us is really using this partnership muscle that we've been building over the last few quarters to build this highly scalable, very cost-effective, new way for us to bring client demand to our talent. And the unlock for us is that we don't need all of these clients to come and know about our brand or register and start with an account on Upwork for them to find success and for them to find our talent.

我们认为合作伙伴机会非常广阔，而且肯定有很多看待这个问题的方式。OpenAI 是我们这个更大项目的启动合作伙伴，实际上为我们目前所拥有的势头提供了起点。我想说，对我们来说，成功的定义实际上是利用我们过去几个季度一直在打造的这种合作伙伴关系力量，建立这种高度可扩展、非常具有成本效益的新方式，让我们将客户需求引入我们的人才。我们的突破在于，我们不需要所有这些客户都来了解我们的品牌，或者注册并在 Upwork 上开户才能找到成功，找到我们的人才。

So, we're really turning our model around and bringing our talent out into the ecosystem through these partners and leveraging some of these marquee partnerships like the OpenAI one to generate what has become a very successful and fast-moving funnel here of partners who are coming to us and saying, "Hey, can we get in on some of this action?" Because these partners have ecosystems of clients and customers who themselves have needs that these partners have not always had a good way to service. So, this is what's contributed to May being the highest monthly revenue partnership month we've seen to date and the fact that in the past quarter, we doubled the number of partner deals and are still building from there. So, it is still early in the opportunity, but we do see that this could be a very exciting trajectory around client acquisition and a different model for us to go forward.

因此，我们真的正在改变我们的模式，并通过这些合作伙伴将我们的人才引入生态系统，并利用一些像 OpenAI 这样的知名合作伙伴，产生了一个非常成功且快速发展的潜在合作伙伴渠道，这些合作伙伴来找我们，说：“嘿，我们能参与其中吗？” 因为这些合作伙伴拥有客户和顾客生态系统，这些生态系统本身有需求，而这些合作伙伴并不总是有很好的方式来满足这些需求。因此，这就是导致五月成为迄今为止我们看到的最高月度收入合作伙伴月份的原因，以及在过去的一个季度中，我们将合作伙伴交易数量翻了一番，并且仍在继续发展。因此，这个机会仍处于早期阶段，但我们确实看到这可能是一个非常令人兴奋的客户获取轨迹，并且对我们前进的不同模式有所帮助。

Andrew Boone -- Analyst

Andrew Boone - 分析师

Thank you.

谢谢。

Operator

运营商

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bernie McTernan of Needham and Company. Your line is open.

谢谢。下一个问题来自 Needham and Company 的 Bernie McTernan。您可以发言了。

Bernard McTernan -- Analyst

Bernard McTernan - 分析师

Great. Thank you very much. Just a couple for me. And maybe we know the answer just based on the guide, but I just wanted to clarify.

非常感谢。我只有几个问题。也许我们已经根据指南知道答案了，但我只是想澄清一下。

If the trends that you saw in June continued into July and August on -- at the bookings level, and then the guidance for take rate to be flat sequentially or for the remainder of the year relative to 2Q, is that just thinking about in this kind of top-line bookings environment is not right to be leaning in a monetization, or is there anything else we should be thinking of? And then sorry, one last clarification, just the 100-basis-point impact to GMV growth given the one last Sunday in the fourth quarter, is that for the full year or just the fourth quarter thinking about the year-over-year growth?

如果您在六月看到的趋势持续到七月和八月的预订水平上，以及指导中提到的收费率在剩下的一年中相对于第二季度保持不变，这是否只是考虑在这种顶线预订环境中不适合依赖货币化，或者我们应该考虑其他因素？然后抱歉，最后一个澄清，只影响 GMV 增长 100 个基点的因素是因为第四季度最后一个星期日，这是针对全年还是仅针对第四季度考虑的？

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert - 首席财务官

Yeah. Sure, Bernie. So, in terms of the -- back on the line there. In terms of the trends that we saw on top-of-funnel, first and foremost, we actually saw very strong top-of-funnel demand signals in Q1, and we really saw that that starting to turn in kind of mid-May and then into June and July.

是的，Bernie。关于那里的情况。在顶部信号方面，首先，我们实际上在第一季度看到了非常强劲的顶部信号需求，我们确实看到这种情况在五月中旬开始转变，然后进入六月和七月。

We did see those trends get slightly worse in June and July. And so, this is really what we're basing our guidance on. We fully contemplated this impact in our guidance and in fact, are now contemplating no improvement to these trends going forward. So, in that way, I think we feel like we've fully derisked our guidance for the year.

我们确实看到这些趋势在六月和七月略有恶化。因此，这确实是我们指导的基础。我们在指导中充分考虑了这种影响，事实上，我们现在正在考虑这些趋势不会有所改善。因此，在这方面，我认为我们感到我们已经为今年的指导完全消除了风险。

On your question in terms of the take rate trends, yes, I mean, I think we're just being prudent, again, kind of anticipating the trends that we're seeing and just looking at top-of-funnel trends, both on kind of the demand side as well as this mix shift and expecting that we'll see a little bit lighter usage in some of the ads products as well. And then on the Sunday effect question, yes, that's -- the one-point impact is for the full year.

关于您提到的收费率趋势问题，是的，我认为我们只是谨慎行事，再次预期我们所看到的趋势，并且仔细观察顶层趋势，无论是需求方面还是这种混合转变，并且预计我们也会在一些广告产品中看到一些轻微的使用减少。至于周日效应的问题，是的，这一点影响是全年的 1 个百分点。

Bernard McTernan -- Analyst

伯纳德·麦克特南 -- 分析师

Got it. Thanks, Erica.

明白了。谢谢，Erica。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Sure.

当然。

Operator

运营人员

Thank you. Our next question comes from Maria Ripps of Canaccord. Your line is open.

谢谢。下一个问题来自 Canaccord 的 Maria Ripps。请发言。

Maria Ripps -- Analyst

玛丽亚·里普斯 -- 分析师

Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. First, sort of understanding that you're breathing in a tough macro environment, can you maybe just talk about your ability to sustain your EBITDA guidance? And as we look at your P&L, sort of what are some areas that you can optimize here in the near term without sort of impacting future growth as the environment improves? And then I have a quick follow-up.

非常感谢您回答我的问题。首先，我们知道您在一个艰难的宏观环境中运营，您能谈谈您如何保持调整后的 EBITDA 指引的能力吗？当我们审视您的损益表时，有哪些领域可以在短期内优化，而不会影响未来增长？然后我有一个简短的追问。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Yeah. Just in terms of maintaining the adjusted EBITDA guidance, I mean, look, this is an inherently profitable business, and we've made a tremendous amount of progress with the cost discipline muscle that we've implemented as a business. We're obviously continually making progress both on the gross margin line as well as on the opex line. And so, we feel really, really confident that we can continue to do so.

是的。关于保持调整后的 EBITDA 指引，我认为，这是一个固有盈利的业务，我们通过实施的成本纪律机制取得了巨大进展。我们显然在毛利线和运营支出线上不断取得进展。因此，我们非常有信心能够继续这样做。

We're at 77.5% gross margin now. And we do still have some continued optimization that we can do that we're working on, on rates with hosting costs, other things like that. And then just as a reminder to everyone, we're continuing to invest in growth. Our R&D expense was up 21% year over year in Q2, and we are very, very focused on investing in the growth levers that will grow GSV into the future.

我们现在的毛利率为 77.5%。我们仍然可以继续优化一些方面，比如与托管成本等费率的工作。并且只是提醒大家，我们继续投资于增长。我们的研发支出在 Q2 同比增长了 21%，我们非常专注于投资于将来增长 GSV 的增长杠杆。

So, we think we know we can do both. We can continue to optimize in areas that are kind of lower ROI spend for us, optimized on the G&A line and other places, and produce that growing operating margin while investing in growth.

因此，我们认为我们可以做到两者兼顾。我们可以继续优化一些对我们来说回报较低的领域，在 G&A 线和其他地方进行优化，并在投资增长的同时产生增长的运营利润。

Maria Ripps -- Analyst

玛丽亚·里普斯 -- 分析师

Got it. That's very helpful. And then secondly, could you maybe talk about any recent developments as it relates to AI tools and functionality? And I know you highlighted a few in the press release. And is there any way to sort of quantify the impact of AI on your overall business?

明白了。非常有帮助。其次，您能谈谈最近与 AI 工具和功能相关的任何进展吗？我知道您在新闻稿中强调了一些内容。有没有办法量化 AI 对您整体业务的影响？

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

海登·布朗 -- 总裁兼首席执行官

Sure, Maria. In terms of the AI tools and functionality, I'd say we're very pleased with how the features and functionality we're launching, including things like our Uma, AI work companion, as well as Upwork Chat Pro, which is an AI-enabled feature for freelancers in particular, to leverage that throughout the work journey on Upwork, these are all getting very strong adoption and continue to be advancing even though they're still in their early stages. We've seen a 23% increase between Q1 and Q2 in users interacting with Uma. We also saw a 68% increase in freelancers using Upwork Chat Pro on a daily basis.

当然，玛丽亚。关于 AI 工具和功能，我可以说我们对我们正在推出的功能和功能感到非常满意，包括我们的 Uma AI 工作伴侣，以及 Upwork Chat Pro，这是一个专门为自由职业者设计的 AI 功能，可以在 Upwork 的工作过程中利用，这些功能都得到了很强的采用，并且即使它们仍处于早期阶段，也在不断发展。我们在 Q1 和 Q2 之间看到 Uma 与用户互动增加了 23%。我们还看到自由职业者每天使用 Upwork Chat Pro 增加了 68%。

So, these are kind of positive signals that this is an effective strategy for us that is going to continue to enhance the experience and our metrics and really is giving us confidence in the road map that we're executing. In terms of AI impact on the overall business, here's one way to think about ring-fencing the negative impact, which I think we get a lot of questions about. As the world is undergoing an AI transition, and inevitably on that journey, some of the old ways of working will get left behind. The segment of jobs in our marketplace that are less complex and hypothetically, most easily disrupted over time by AI, are jobs and Upwork with less than $300 of spend, which comprised just under 5% of our GSV today.

因此，这些都是积极的信号，表明这对我们来说是一种有效的策略，将继续增强体验和指标，真正让我们对正在执行的路线图充满信心。关于 AI 对整体业务的影响，这是一个思考消除负面影响的方式，我认为我们收到了很多关于这方面的问题。随着世界正在经历 AI 转型，不可避免地，在这个旅程中，一些旧的工作方式将被抛弃。我们市场中那些不太复杂、理论上最容易被 AI 随着时间推移所取代的工作部分，是在 Upwork 上花费不到 300 美元的工作，这部分目前仅占我们 GSV 的不到 5%。

To be clear, we are not yet seeing a broad-based AI impact overall in this small job segment. Now, if you look within the small job segment, the current impact from AI is much more limited and is most visible in a couple of categories. Writing and translation is obviously where it's most evident, and that's just as we've expected and seen over multiple quarters now. In writing and translation and elsewhere, we continue to see, at this point, a positive AI-driven mix shift away from simple, very low-effectiveness jobs, to complex, more valuable, higher-paying work.

明确一点，我们还没有在这个小工作部分整体上看到广泛的 AI 影响。现在，如果您看看小工作部分，AI 目前的影响要小得多，主要集中在一些类别上。写作和翻译显然是最明显的领域，这正如我们多个季度以来所预期和看到的。在写作和翻译以及其他地方，我们继续看到，目前，由于新的工作出现，编辑和翻译人员的每份合同工作时间、每份合同支出都在增加，因为他们实际上正在与 AI 合作并补充 AI 提供的成果。因此，这些因素真正证明了 AI 相关机会，我们期望通过提供人类专业知识来受益，这种专业知识在我们市场中的所有类别中都受到重视，因为人类正在与 AI 工具在生态系统中合作。我们看到的是 AI 更多地增强人类，而不是取代他们。

And this transition has started in the past. In the past quarter, we saw hours per contract in writing, we saw spend per contract in translation, all increasing because of the new work that's emerging for editors and translators who are actually working with and supplementing the outputs delivered by AI. So, these factors are really a testament to the AI-related opportunity that we expect to benefit from by offering the human expertise that is so valued across all of our categories in the marketplace as humans are working with AI tools in the ecosystem. And what we see is AI augmenting humans much more so than replacing them.

玛丽亚·里普斯 -- 分析师

Maria Ripps -- Analyst

非常感谢。非常有帮助。

Great. Thank you so much. That's very helpful.

海登·布朗 -- 总裁兼首席执行官

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

谢谢，玛丽亚。

Thanks, Maria.

运营人员

Operator

谢谢。下一个问题来自瑞银的 Josh Chan。请发言。

Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Chan of UBS. Your line is open.

乔希·陈 -- 分析师

Josh Chan -- Analyst

您好。下午好。感谢您回答我的问题。我想知道您在 Q2 中看到的轨迹能否再详细谈一下。

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the trajectory that you saw through Q2.

是五月或六月出现了一次性下降，然后从那里保持平稳，还是缓慢放缓？我想澄清一下您的指引，这是否意味着从当前水平保持平稳，还是意味着随着您谈到维持当前趋势，继续放缓？谢谢。

Was it kind of like a one-time step-down in May or June and then kind of flat from there, or was it like a slow easing? And then I guess just to clarify on your guidance, I guess, does that imply a flat-lining from current levels, or does it imply kind of continuing slowing as you talk about maintaining the current trends? Thank you.

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, maybe to take a step back and talk about kind of the transition from Q1 to Q2, we saw a really promising top-of-funnel demand signals in Q1, our client-seeking work metric, which is a leading indicator for us on overall demand on the platform and growth on the platform was up 11% in Q1. And that trend really started to reverse around mid-May, and then we saw a declining trend into June and July. And again, we saw a couple of factors here.

是的。因此，也许可以退后一步，谈一谈从第一季度到第二季度的过渡，我们在第一季度看到了一些非常有前景的顶层需求信号，我们的客户寻求工作指标，在我们平台整体需求和增长方面是一个领先指标，在第一季度增长了 11%。这一趋势在五月中旬开始逆转，然后我们看到在六月和七月出现了下降趋势。再次，我们在这里看到了一些因素。

We saw overall demand signals decline. And then we also saw a mix shift to -- we saw strong growth from very small businesses and lower demand from larger customers, which is really understandable given the high interest rate environment that we're operating in. Since smaller businesses tend to have lower spend characteristics overall, this mix shift impacts our GSV per active, which is what's making us more cautious about the outlook for the rest of the year.

我们看到整体需求信号下降。然后我们还看到了一个混合转变，我们看到来自非常小型企业的强劲增长，以及来自较大客户的需求下降，这在我们所处的高利率环境下是可以理解的。由于较小企业通常具有较低的整体支出特征，这种混合转变影响了我们每活跃用户的总交易价值，这让我们对今年余下时间的前景更加谨慎。

Josh Chan -- Analyst

Josh Chan -- 分析师

Thank you. Thanks for the color. And then in terms of your expense management, very impressive in this environment, when demand eventually returns, will you need to undergo like a period of added spend, or how are you thinking about that trajectory as demand eventually bottoms and gets better? Thank you.

谢谢。感谢您的解释。关于您的费用管理，在这种环境下表现非常出色，当需求最终恢复时，您是否需要经历像增加支出这样的时期，或者您是如何考虑需求最终触底并改善的轨迹的？谢谢。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Yeah, sure. I mean, we're very, very proud of the cost discipline that we've implemented. I think we're doing a great job at it, and I'm really proud of the team here for working so hard. We are very committed to continuing to grow operating leverage as we continue down this path.

是的，当然。我们为我们实施的成本纪律感到非常自豪。我认为我们在这方面做得很好，我为这里的团队如此努力工作感到自豪。我们非常致力于在继续这条道路的同时继续增长运营杠杆。

And even as demand returns, I think we'll be very moderated in the way that we invest. We've built a very, very good, for example, performance marketing engine, with very kind of clear parameters in terms of yield and ROI, and we'll continue to invest that way as we go forward. So, I don't necessarily see the need to ratchet up significantly our spend as demand returns, but we'll assess it as we go.

即使需求回升，我认为我们在投资方面会非常谨慎。例如，我们建立了一个非常出色的营销引擎，具有非常明确的收益和投资回报率参数，我们将继续以这种方式投资。因此，我并不认为在需求回升时有必要显着增加支出，但我们将随着情况的发展进行评估。

Josh Chan -- Analyst

Josh Chan -- 分析师

Perfect. Thank you for your time and the color.

非常感谢您的时间和解释。

Operator

运营人员

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Farrell of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

谢谢。下一个问题来自 Piper Sandler 的 Matt Farrell。请发言。

Matt Farrell -- Analyst

Matt Farrell -- 分析师

Thanks for taking my question. I'd love to understand a little bit more about the bifurcation of the enterprise pricing strategy. What kind of went into that? You obviously hit on some early results, but how should we be thinking about that helping to drive an acceleration in the enterprise business over the next couple of quarters?

感谢您回答我的问题。我想更多地了解企业定价策略的分化。是什么导致了这种情况？您显然提到了一些早期结果，但我们应该如何考虑这有助于在未来几个季度加速企业业务的发展？

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hayden Brown -- 总裁兼首席执行官

Sure, Matt. Our view on this is the enterprise TAM is so attractive, and we're really positioned well to work aggressively to keep unlocking it. With the pilot we ran in the last quarter, you're right, we saw some promising signals, and we're still in testing and really using the learnings from those signals to inform where we go next from here. I'd say because of where we are with that work, the insights have been really strong, but we're not yet expecting the same level of performance every quarter in terms of the type of new logo conversion that we saw in the last quarter carrying forward.

当然，Matt。我们对此的看法是企业 TAM 非常有吸引力，我们定位良好，积极努力不断开拓。在上个季度我们进行的试点项目中，您是对的，我们看到了一些有希望的信号，我们仍在测试中，并且真正利用这些信号的经验教训来指导我们接下来的方向。因为我们在这方面的工作进展，洞察力非常强大，但我们还没有预期到每个季度都会看到与上个季度相同水平的新标识转化带来的业绩持续增长。

But we do think it's critical in this environment and every environment to remain really agile in unlocking the market opportunity. And that's really what we're focused on doing because we see opportunities both to increase conversion and expand the number of logos in the enterprise space that we have as well as unlock share of wallet. And that's where we're focused. So, I think it's too soon to say more specific than that, but that is actually where we're laser-focused, and the results, I think, are showing that from the agility.

但我们认为在这种环境和任何环境中，保持在开拓市场机会方面非常灵活至关重要。这正是我们专注于做的，因为我们看到增加转化、扩大我们在企业领域的标识数量以及开拓市场份额的机会。这是我们专注的地方。因此，我认为现在说得更具体还为时过早，但这确实是我们聚焦的地方，而结果也表明我们在灵活性方面表现出色。

Matt Farrell -- Analyst

Matt Farrell -- 分析师

And then kind of following up on some of the questions on the full-year guide. Based on my math, it assumes a pretty significant deceleration in GSV as you move through the rest of the year. I guess, how does the macro, both on the small and the enterprise customers, different? How is it different than previous cycles of slowing? It seems like it's much more intense this time around than it has been in the past, but would love just any more clarity on spending patterns and the assumptions that are embedded in GSV. Thanks.

接着是关于全年指引的一些问题。根据我的计算，它假设在年底时 GSP 会出现相当大的减速。我想知道，无论是对小型客户还是企业客户，宏观经济情况有何不同？与以往的放缓周期有何不同？这次似乎比以往更加严重，但希望能更清楚地了解支出模式和嵌入在 GSP 中的假设。谢谢。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Maybe I'll start, and Hayden, feel free to add on. So, a couple of things here. Like I said, the guidance is based on essentially bringing forward the kind of lower trends that we saw exiting Q2 and even into Q3 for the rest of the year. So, that's what we're basing it on.

也许我先说一下，Hayden，随时可以补充。这里有几点。就像我说的，指引基本上是基于我们在第二季度结束甚至进入第三季度看到的较低趋势。这是我们基于的。

It's kind of the June and July trends, and we really wanted to make sure that we were not anticipating any improvement to the macro from what we've been seeing in the last couple of months. And so, like I said, to that effect, we do think we've effectively derisked the back half of the year. Just in terms of how macro is impacting kind of spending on the platform, I would say, look, writ large, high interest rates impact demand on the large and medium business customer spend, inflation impacts demand on the small business and consumer side. And these both impact GSV and they have compounding effects, right, over time.

这是六月和七月的趋势，我们真的希望确保我们不会预期到宏观经济会有任何改善，与我们在过去几个月看到的情况相比。因此，正如我所说，为此效果，我们认为我们已经有效地降低了年底的风险。就宏观经济如何影响平台支出而言，我想说，总体而言，高利率影响大中型企业客户支出的需求，通货膨胀影响小型企业和消费者方面的需求。这两者都会对 GSP 产生影响，并且随着时间的推移会产生复合效应。

And I think we've been able to weather the storm really well for the past few years as we've been going through this, and now we're starting to see some of those compounding effects, I think, really effect on the demand on the platform. But we've been able to grow revenue in this environment due to some of the investments we've made in high-growth categories and our ads and monetization strategy, and we do anticipate that some of those things will also get share with benefits in 2025 and beyond.

我认为我们过去几年在经历这一切时表现得非常出色，现在我们开始看到一些这些复合效应，我认为这确实对平台上的需求产生了影响。但由于我们在高增长类别、广告和货币化策略方面的一些投资，我们已经能够在这种环境中实现收入增长，我们也预计其中一些因素在 2025 年及以后也会带来收益。

Operator

运营人员

Thank you. And our next question comes from Marvin Fong of BTIG. Your line is open.

谢谢。下一个问题来自 BTIG 的 Marvin Fong。请发言。

Marvin Fong -- Analyst

Marvin Fong -- 分析师

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. So, I guess just to kind of maybe round out the whole discussion about the state of the world. Anything you could add in terms of categories or even geography areas that might be trending particularly weak or maybe even relatively stronger relative to kind of the overall marketplace? And then I have a follow-up.

晚上好。感谢您提问。我想总结一下关于世界形势的讨论。您能否就可能在某些类别或地理区域方面趋势明显疲弱或相对较强的问题进行补充？接着我有一个后续问题。

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

海登·布朗 - 总裁兼首席执行官

Marvin, what we're seeing is from a category standpoint, the tech industry broadly in the macro at large is being hit harder from a job openings perspective. So, we are seeing that that is flowing through to some extent in terms of demand for tech jobs on our own platform being a bit weaker. And that's consistent with the macro trends. We also know that that impact, however, is not totally uniform.

马文，从类别的角度来看，整体宏观范围内的科技行业在职位空缺方面受到了更严重的打击。因此，我们看到这在一定程度上影响了我们平台上对科技工作的需求有所减弱。这与宏观趋势一致。我们也知道，这种影响并不是完全均匀的。

There are some subcategories within our own tech category on our platform that are performing better. So, it's a bit uneven, but that's, I'd say, one theme. The bright spots in terms of categories definitely are the strength in AI-related work. That grew 67% year over year.

在我们平台上的科技类别中，有一些子类别表现更好。因此，情况有些不均匀，但我想说的是，一个主题是明显的。在类别方面，明显的亮点是与人工智能相关的工作实力。这一领域的增长率达到了 67%。

And we're seeing emerging growth in subcategories even within these AI-impacted slices of the business like rating and translation, whereas even as automation is happening, new growth shoots are popping up. So, that's the category story. To the question of geos or other segments, I'd say we saw U.S., Germany, and U.K. as a bit more impacted than other countries globally in terms of client demand.

我们看到在这些受人工智能影响的业务领域内，甚至在自动化进行的同时，新的增长点也在涌现，比如评分和翻译等子类别。这就是类别的情况。至于地理位置或其他细分市场，我想说，我们看到美国、德国和英国在客户需求方面受到的影响要比全球其他国家更大一些。

And again, I think that's indicative of kind of what's going on broadly in those economies.

而且，我认为这反映了这些经济体整体上正在发生的情况。

Marvin Fong -- Analyst

马文·方 - 分析师

Yeah. OK. Perfect. That makes total sense.

好的。好的。这完全合理。

And I did want to also follow up on the bifurcated enterprise. So, I'm just curious exactly what is it about -- or how should we sort of think about the less -- the lower feature version? I mean, what is it that makes it more palatable? Is it some of maybe the upfront cost, or is it a take rate being lower? What exactly is it that's going to draw these more on the fence kind of enterprises? And then just part B of that question, is there any risk in your mind that some of your existing enterprise customers that are on the full-feature version, that they might opt for the less full-feature version? Thanks.

我也想就分化的企业进行跟进。我只是好奇，究竟是什么让较低功能版本更具吸引力？也许是一些前期成本，或者是佣金率较低？到底是什么会吸引那些摇摆不定的企业？然后问题的第二部分，您是否认为您现有的全功能企业客户可能会选择较低功能版本？谢谢。

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

海登·布朗 - 总裁兼首席执行官

Yes. I understand the concern. I can tell you there's no risk of cannibalization here. What we are doing is really leveraging the art of getting the packaging, the pricing, the whole structure absolutely right to meet the different subsegments that exist within enterprise.

是的。我理解您的担忧。我可以告诉您，这里不存在 cannibalization 的风险。我们正在充分利用包装、定价和整体结构的艺术，以完全满足企业内存在的不同子细分市场。

And previously, we had more or less like one offering to target with, and now we have more tools in our toolkit. And again, we're not -- this was one first iteration at this, really aimed at optimizing landing these new customers and expanding their share of wallet, which is something that we want to be absolutely best-in-class at. So, we learned a bunch of things. I would say we're not compromising margins or take rate or kind of the effectiveness of our overall business and its profitability.

以前，我们更多地是针对一个目标提供一种产品，现在我们在工具箱中有更多工具。而且，我们并没有——这是我们第一次尝试，真正旨在优化吸引这些新客户并扩大他们的市场份额，这是我们希望在绝对最佳水平上做到的。因此，我们学到了很多东西。我想说的是，我们并没有牺牲利润率、佣金率或整体业务的有效性和盈利能力。

But we are determined to nail how we get these packages and pricing absolutely right to unlock this market.

但我们决心要确保我们如何完全正确地制定这些套餐和定价，以开拓这个市场。

Marvin Fong -- Analyst

马文·方 - 分析师

That's great. Thanks for the color, Hayden.

太好了。谢谢您的解释，海登。

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

海登·布朗 - 总裁兼首席执行官

Sure.

当然。

Operator

运营商

Thank you. [Operator instructions] And our next question comes from John Byun of Jefferies. Your line is open.

谢谢。[运营商指示] 我们的下一个问题来自 Jefferies 的 John Byun。请发言。

John Byun -- Analyst

约翰·边 - 分析师

Hi. Thank you. This is John Byun on behalf of Brent Thill. On the macro and GSV growth, I mean, what sort of actions could you take, or what could help resume the growth there? I mean, will it require a low interest rate or some other either external or specific factors to you? And then on the EBITDA margin further expansion, I think in the past, you've mentioned that there was still room to optimizing R&D.

您好。谢谢。我是代表 Brent Thill 的约翰·边。关于宏观和 GSV 增长，我想问一下，您可以采取什么样的行动，或者什么可以帮助恢复增长？是需要低利率还是其他外部或特定因素？此外，在调整 EBITDA 边际进一步扩张方面，我记得您过去提到过仍有优化空间的研发。

Wondering how you still view that. If not, then where are there still big pockets we can optimize more between the different opex lines? Thank you.

想知道您对此仍然持何种看法。如果不是的话，那么我们在不同运营支出线之间仍有哪些大的领域可以进一步优化？谢谢。

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

海登·布朗 - 总裁兼首席执行官

John, we don't have to wait for a better macro to return for our GSV investments to pay off. We expect the levers we're investing in now based on the early stages they're in now to have impact in 2025, even if a challenging macro persists. And certainly, they will perform better when the macro improves. So, our growth will come from enterprise initiatives, including the pricing and packaging work, which unlocks logos and wallet share as well as amplification from the VMS and MSP program.

约翰，我们不必等待宏观环境改善才能让我们的 GSV 投资产生回报。我们预计我们目前正在投资的杠杆，在目前的早期阶段将在 2025 年产生影响，即使挑战性的宏观环境持续存在。当宏观环境改善时，它们肯定会表现更好。因此，我们的增长将来自企业倡议，包括定价和包装工作，这将解锁标识和市场份额，以及来自 VMS 和 MSP 计划的放大效应。

The AI and Uma-powered performance improvements we're making on our platform, from partnership efforts that drive new client acquisition at scale, from the scaling of AI talent and work-related GSV in our marketplace, which is growing at a rapid pace. These efforts are all in their early execution this year, and we never expected them to have a significant 2024 impact. In 2025, they will be beneficial. And they will also be enhanced by the asset monetization work, which will be an additional tailwind, as well as anti-circumvention efforts, which will be favorable next year on GSV and revenue.

我们正在进行的 AI 和 Uma 动力性能改进，从推动规模化新客户获取的合作努力，到在我们的市场上扩大 AI 人才和与工作相关的 GSV，这一切都在今年的早期执行阶段，我们从未指望它们在 2024 年产生重大影响。到 2025 年，它们将是有益的。它们还将受益于资产变现工作，这将是一个额外的助推力，以及反规避努力，这将在明年对 GSV 和收入产生积极影响。

So, we feel great about our portfolio of opportunities and the ongoing strong execution we have behind every single one of them.

因此，我们对我们的机会组合和我们在每一个机会背后的强劲执行感到非常满意。

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

艾瑞卡·盖瑟特 - 首席财务官

And I'll just answer on the adjusted EBITDA margin expansion question. Yes, we absolutely do have more optimization to go in the R&D line. We are continuing to grow that line. And I think you can expect that we are going to continue to invest on -- in innovation on the platform.

我只想回答一下关于调整后的 EBITDA 边际扩张问题。是的，我们在研发领域还有更多的优化空间。我们将继续在创新平台上投资。

We think that that ongoing innovation and investment in technology are the ways to grow this business. And so, you will see that line continue to grow some on a year-over-year basis but not nearly to the extent that it has in the past. So, we've been growing over 20% of the year for the past few years in R&D. And we're taking a really surgical approach.

我们认为持续创新和对技术的投资是推动业务增长的途径。因此，您会看到这一领域的增长在逐年增加，但远不及过去的程度。因此，过去几年我们在研发方面的增长超过了 20%。我们采取了非常精准的方法。

We're going kind of project by project and looking through and cutting back where we're not seeing the ROI profile that we want along the time horizons that we want. And again, we also have optimizations that we can take in continuing to improve on our gross margin line. And then I think there's definitely a way to go in G&A as well.

我们逐个项目地进行审查，削减那些没有达到我们期望的投资回报率且时间跨度不符合要求的项目。此外，我们还可以优化继续改善毛利率。我认为在一般行政和管理费用方面还有很大的改进空间。

John Byun -- Analyst

John Byun -- 分析师

Thank you.

谢谢。

Operator

运营人员

That concludes Upwork's second quarter 2024 earnings call. [Operator signoff]

以上是 Upwork 2024 年第二季度收益电话会议。 [运营人员签退]

Duration: 0 minutes

时长：0 分钟

Call participants:

与会者:

Jacob McQuown -- Vice President to Deputy General Counsel

Jacob McQuown -- 副总顾问

Hayden Brown -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hayden Brown -- 总裁兼首席执行官

Erica Gessert -- Chief Financial Officer

Erica Gessert -- 首席财务官

Andrew Boone -- Analyst

Andrew Boone -- 分析师

Bernard McTernan -- Analyst

Bernard McTernan -- 分析师

Bernie McTernan -- Analyst

Bernie McTernan -- 分析师

Maria Ripps -- Analyst

Maria Ripps -- 分析师

Josh Chan -- Analyst

Josh Chan -- 分析师

Matt Farrell -- Analyst

Matt Farrell -- 分析师

Marvin Fong -- Analyst

Marvin Fong -- 分析师

John Byun -- Analyst

John Byun -- 分析师

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Upwork (UPWK) 2024 年第二季度财报电话会议实录