⚠ Building Integrations Got CheapHigh threat

Text (TXT) — threat to the moat

Text's own risk factors concede that AI is eroding the advantage its twenty years of technology and experience bought.

The accumulated integration library is a twenty-year asset in a market where the cost of building the twenty-first year of it has collapsed.

LiveChat revenue, financial years to March (zl m)272,5FY2023305,4FY2024314,3FY2025275,5FY2026Text management report FY2025/26 and FY2024/25 statements
The core product fell 12,4% in FY2026, back below its FY2024 level.

Text does not dispute this. Its own risk factors state that changes related to the development and use of artificial intelligence are affecting how software is developed and marketed, and that this could erode the competitive advantage derived from the company's technology and experience1. That is a company writing down the value of its own head start.

The mechanics are unglamorous. A connector to a shopping cart or a marketing platform is a well-specified piece of work against a documented interface — precisely the category of programming that has become fastest and cheapest to produce. A rival founded in 2024 does not need twenty years to reach parity on integrations; it needs a list of the ones that matter, which Text publishes.

What does not get cheaper is the other half: being present in the marketplaces where buyers look, and being trusted enough to be installed. Text's placements in the Microsoft, Google Cloud and ChatGPT marketplaces2, and the SOC 2 Type 2 attestation it obtained in May 20263, are the parts of this that still take time and money.

So the asset is real but its composition is shifting from code, which is depreciating fast, to distribution and trust, which are not.

The signal to watch is where new customers come from. If Text's growth increasingly requires marketing spend rather than arriving through integrations and marketplaces, the connective tissue has stopped doing the work. Operating margin is the place that shows up, and it fell 11,5 points last year4.

References
  1. ReportedIts own risk factors state that changes related to the development and use of artificial intelligence are affecting how software is developed and marketed, and that this could erode the competitive advantage derived from the company's technology and experience.
    Text Group Management Board report for 2025/26, risks and key factors (currency risk arising because revenue is generated in US dollars while a significant portion of costs is incurred in Polish złoty, affecting reported results and the dividend, with the company not hedging its open foreign exchange positions; competition risk from more innovative or cost-effective solutions and from rivals allocating far greater funds to development and promotion, and from AI changing how software is developed and marketed in a way that could erode the advantage derived from the company's technology and experience; distribution risk from the loss or reduced effectiveness of channels such as Google, Shopify or BigCommerce, and from traditional search engines being replaced by LLM models or AI assistants in a way that may harm the SEO activities of the company and its affiliate partners; product concentration risk, since Text generates almost all revenue from LiveChat products; and risk from entities using patents to enforce compensation) — FY2025/26 · publ. June 2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedText's placements in the Microsoft, Google Cloud and ChatGPT marketplaces, and the SOC 2 Type 2 attestation it obtained in May 2026, are the parts of this that still take time and money.
    Text Group results for the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year, published 28 August 2026 (revenue of PLN 83,20m, down 1,9% year on year and up 4,1% on the previous quarter; net profit PLN 29,11m down 6,2%; operating profit PLN 31,36m down 11,0%; EBITDA PLN 38,56m down 7,4%; revenue in US dollars of 22,61m up 2,1%; MRR of USD 7,46m at 30 June 2026, up 4,0% year on year and 7,6% on the previous quarter, giving ARR of USD 89,52m against the USD 100m goal, with the chief executive attributing the growth largely to the completion of price grandfathering for LiveChat customers; a record PLN 77,2m of deferred revenue and net operating cash flow up 22,2% to PLN 41,5m on a high share of annual payments; margins of 69,6% gross, 37,7% operating, 46,4% EBITDA and 35,0% net; SOC 2 Type 2 attestation in May 2026; the new visual identity and Go-To-Market start in May 2026; purchase of the livechat.ai domain and a seventh US patent in June 2026; a Klaviyo integration and Google Cloud Marketplace listing in July; a MarTech Breakthrough award and an official ChatGPT marketplace listing in August; and the annual general meeting of 6 August 2026 allocating PLN 109,7m to dividends, PLN 4,26 per share) — Q1 2026/27 · publ. 28 August 2026 · source ↗
  3. ReportedText's placements in the Microsoft, Google Cloud and ChatGPT marketplaces, and the SOC 2 Type 2 attestation it obtained in May 2026, are the parts of this that still take time and money.
    Text Group results for the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year, published 28 August 2026 (revenue of PLN 83,20m, down 1,9% year on year and up 4,1% on the previous quarter; net profit PLN 29,11m down 6,2%; operating profit PLN 31,36m down 11,0%; EBITDA PLN 38,56m down 7,4%; revenue in US dollars of 22,61m up 2,1%; MRR of USD 7,46m at 30 June 2026, up 4,0% year on year and 7,6% on the previous quarter, giving ARR of USD 89,52m against the USD 100m goal, with the chief executive attributing the growth largely to the completion of price grandfathering for LiveChat customers; a record PLN 77,2m of deferred revenue and net operating cash flow up 22,2% to PLN 41,5m on a high share of annual payments; margins of 69,6% gross, 37,7% operating, 46,4% EBITDA and 35,0% net; SOC 2 Type 2 attestation in May 2026; the new visual identity and Go-To-Market start in May 2026; purchase of the livechat.ai domain and a seventh US patent in June 2026; a Klaviyo integration and Google Cloud Marketplace listing in July; a MarTech Breakthrough award and an official ChatGPT marketplace listing in August; and the annual general meeting of 6 August 2026 allocating PLN 109,7m to dividends, PLN 4,26 per share) — Q1 2026/27 · publ. 28 August 2026 · source ↗
  4. Moat Explorer calcOperating margin is the place that shows up, and it fell 11,5 points last year.
    Moat Explorer calculation - arithmetic on figures Text reports: monthly churn of 4% compounded over twelve months (1 - 0,96^12 = 38,7% of logos a year); revenue per team member (329 073 thousand złoty over 271 people = 1,21m); third-party services as a share of operating costs (159 821 of 201 291 = 79%) and employee benefits as a share (6 458 of 201 291 = 3,2%); operating cash flow against net profit (161 552 over 116 608 = 1,39); the dividend payout ratio (109,7m over 116,6m = 94%); the gap to the ARR target (100,0 less 89,52 = USD 10,5m); the fall in operating margin (50,1% less 38,6% = 11,5 points); the tax saved under the IP Box (126 680 at 19% less the 10 072 charged = about 14m złoty); the market value in dollars (1,08bn złoty at 0,2688 = USD 0,29bn); Text's share of the live-chat market (89,52 over about 1 100 = a twelfth); the largest new contract against revenue (seven figures over USD 88,2m = about 1%); and 500 dollars a month expressed annually (6 000 dollars); the price-to-earnings multiple at each financial year end (market value over net profit: 3 687 over 155,261 = 23,8 times, and 967 over 116,608 = 8,3); cost of goods sold as a share of revenue (85 588 over 354 178 = 24,2%, and 106 753 over 329 073 = 32,4%); and the effective tax rate (12 323 over 178 876 = 6,89%, and 10 072 over 126 680 = 7,95%) — FY2025/26 · publ. September 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 24, 2026