Upwork shares are rising after strong Q2 earnings. Hayden Brown, Upwork CEO, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss what's driving earnings, labor market trends and the integration of AI.

Upwork has reported strong second quarter earnings and raised its full-year revenue guidance, driven by significant growth in AI-related work and enterprise acquisitions. CEO Hayden Brown highlighted that the platform now hosts 250,000 AI experts globally, serving a wide range of clients from small businesses to major corporations.

Despite a softer U.S. jobs report and ongoing labor market volatility, Upwork continues to see high demand for both AI specialists and human experts in fields such as video, animation, and bookkeeping. Brown noted that Upwork offers ample labor supply, providing businesses with access to skilled talent not typically found through traditional hiring channels.

Upwork CEO on weakening labor market: We have ample labor supply

Upwork, up about 11% right now on strong second quarter earnings and a full year revenue guidance raise. So joining me now is Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork. We had two big highlights this quarter, Morgan. This is where we implement AI solutions for our customers, making it easier and faster for them to get work done. Another AI highlight for us was the growth in our AI categories of work. We see clients doing a lot of work with freelancers to get the AI experts they need. And then finally, as you mentioned, we're seeing a lot of excitement around our enterprise acquisitions. We announced this quarter that really set us up for a strong 2026 and beyond. Interesting. Can clients get enough of those AI workers that have the skills that they need? We're trying to give them all of those workers. We've got 250,000 AI experts across the globe on our website that have worked with clients just in the past year. So they're helping everyone from local small businesses to some of the biggest names out there really transform their business for this new AI era. OK. In terms of that transformation, what are you seeing from your vantage point? We just talked about it with Aaron Levy from Box, but I'd imagine you have some key insights both internally at Upwork and also as you do work with corporate America. Absolutely. Internally, of course, we're adopting AI across tons of workflows in the business. We're seeing 35 percent of our code shipped is actually generated by AI. We're seeing huge improvements in areas like customer support, finance and accounting. They're all using AI now for things like forecasting. So there's a lot going on internally. I think the bigger story, though, is what's going on in the broader market. We saw on our website categories like prompt engineering up for 51 percent in the quarter. And there continues to be just a ton of demand, not just for experts, but also in categories that people thought were going to be wiped out by AI. Things like video and animation or bookkeeping, contract law. We're actually seeing those categories grow as clients come in needing human experts who can work with AI models and work with AI to actually make those types of work more effective. So we just got this softer than expected jobs report last week. You had all these dramatic revisions lower in the months preceding it. The all in use six rate, which is sort of the all encompassing employment rate, actually ticked higher as well. How would you categorize the state of the U.S. labor market right now? You know, it's still a very volatile macro backdrop, and we've seen that for several quarters now. The most recent BLS report certainly was not a surprise to us because we've seen hiring numbers in general in the industry be lower than in a more normalized macro. I think that's why we are so pleased to be bucking that trend. You know, we had a growth quarter, record profitability, record top line revenue for Q2. And that's really against a backdrop that isn't very favorable both for full time hiring and for staffing. We keep hearing about the decline in the labor supply, too. Is that something you're watching closely? You know, I think that on our platform we have ample supply. That's actually why we're such a powerful weapon for businesses that are looking for talent that typically they cannot find to work in-house or don't have on their existing payrolls. We provide an alternative with highly skilled people that are highly sought after, but are not in the traditional places where a lot of other businesses have historically looked. Hayden Brown of Upwork, thanks for joining me. What shares about 12 percent right now?

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Washington

Ukraine Invasion

Trump says 'good chance' he'll meet with Putin soon

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Global Tariffs

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New York

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Jerusalem

Middle East Conflict

U.S. Ambassador to Israel faces questions over starvation in Gaza

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U.S. begins collecting Trump's new global tariffs

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State of Rio de Janeiro

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Fort Stewart

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Moscow

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Hiroshima

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Beijing

U.S. warns travelers as cases of chikungunya increase in China

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Kyiv

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Beirut

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Ottawa

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Geneva

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Tel Aviv-Yafo

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Breakdown