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Samuel Wilson

Chief Executive Officer & Director, 8X8 INC

Search every verified Samuel Wilson interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Samuel Wilson, CEO of 8x8, has been discussing the company's shift from traditional seat-based subscriptions to a consumption-based billing model, which he described as a move the entire industry will eventually have to make. In interviews and earnings calls, Wilson stated that the traditional SaaS subscription model is "dying" and argued that aligning vendor and customer interests requires usage-based pricing. He noted that usage-based revenue, including CPaaS APIs and AI solutions, grew more than 70% year-over-year and represented approximately 23% of service revenue, up from 14% a year earlier. Wilson also said that by the end of fiscal 2027, the standard enterprise communication stack will be "entirely AI-centric." Wilson characterized fiscal 2026 as a turning point for 8x8, citing four consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth and the company's first GAAP-profitable full fiscal year since 2015. He stated that the company has increased its product release cadence fivefold over the past three years and is investing in partner recruitment and consumption-based deployment models. Wilson also said that the categories of UC, CC, and CPaaS were "invented by Wall Street analysts and industry analysts" and that customers do not talk that way. He described 8x8's role as providing infrastructure for AI agents to communicate, particularly via voice, and noted that the company has reduced its debt service costs by approximately 51% from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026.

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