With earnings season in full swing, investors are closely dialed into indicators of growth and sustained profitability, especially for tech companies. A trending metric among AlphaSense customers — remaining performance obligations (RPO) — is increasingly resonating as a critical measure of future demand for software and subscription-based companies: a coveted ‘crystal ball.’
Beyond revenue figures, rule of 40 benchmarks, EPS, and other traditional metrics, RPO offers a forward-looking glimpse into revenue that companies have contracted to deliver but is not yet reflected on an income sheet.
While RPO has the potential to be a powerful forecasting tool for future revenue, relying on the metric without proper context can result in significant blind spots. With expert and broker insights from the AlphaSense platform, we explore how holistic content sets overcome these blind spots to provide a complete market picture.
A View into the Crystal Ball
Many analysts agree that RPO is the ‘crystal ball’ of tech earnings. It represents the total value of revenue that a company has locked in but that is not yet reflected on their income statement. For investors and analysts, it is arguably the single most important metric for assessing the health of software and SaaS companies, as it provides a view of future demand rather than just past performance.
During earnings season, RPO is a critical indicator of tech revenue projections, growth durability and sustainability, and an anchor for valuation models. This is especially true as hyperscalers are posting historic surges in RPO, driven mostly by long-term commitments to AI infrastructure. According to broker research from AlphaSense, RPO for the leading hyperscalers (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle) surpassed $1.1 trillion in 2025, “outstripping revenues” with 113% growth year-over-year.
An acceleration in reported RPO enables analysts to develop future modeling with greater confidence, while a reduction in RPO is often an early red flag for revenue slowdown six months to a year out, making it a vital leading indicator during earnings season.
Clarity with Context
While RPO can be a critical indicator of future revenue, relying on the metric without proper context can create significant analytical blind spots. Raw RPO figures can frequently mask inflated or overstated terms as a result of contract restructuring, duration changes, and billing timing. Deciphering between RPO metrics is also crucial to identify deceleration and inflated demand.
Current RPO (cRPO) versus Total RPO
Analysts favor basing valuation modeling and revenue estimates on current RPO data rather than total RPO, as the latter has the tendency to hide the timing of revenue recognition. Current RPO provides transparency into this metric and captures revenue recognized in the next 12 months, creating a holistic snapshot of near-term health.
When a divergence between current RPO and total RPO exists, this can serve as a critical quality control signal for investors. An expanding gap between these two figures often serves as a warning that "headline" growth is being engineered through contract structure rather than driven by immediate demand.
Source: AlphaSense Deep Research
The Duration Trap
A common blind spot that can skew RPO interpretation is contract duration, which artificially inflates total RPO when customers are signed to longer deals without increasing actual contract value. Broker research suggests that sales incentives focused on renewal quotas contribute to this issue, boosting RPO figures while masking softer underlying demand.
In some instances, companies acknowledge this divergence. For example in a recent conference presentation, Okta identified that its total RPO exceeding cRPO did not translate to revenue acceleration but rather contract duration extension.
In an expert call, an IT services and consulting executive and Box partner suggested that AI monetization is still in the "early stage" and current profitability is "defensive rather than AI-led," implying that the true test of RPO durability will happen when initial contracts come up for renewal.
Source: AlphaSense Deep Research
The Full Market Picture
Having a complete market picture is critical to understanding the nuances of RPO metrics and the implications they have for future earnings and revenue projections.
AI-driven workflows such as Generative Search and Generative Grid condense the countless hours of traditional research to surface intelligence and insights in minutes. These end-to-end workflows complement static data figures like RPO and provide crucial qualitative and quantitative context to understand true market positioning and trajectory, so you can execute on portfolio decisions with confidence and speed.
To further supplement research findings, AlphaSense Channel Checks provide investors with a real-time read on how a company is doing between earnings with seamless, autonomous, one-on-one expert interviews led by AI-driven interviewers. The conversations are designed to reveal the “why” behind shifts in sentiment, pricing, or performance to deliver real-time intelligence.
Stay Ahead of Earnings Season (and Beyond)
Getting the complete market picture during and after earnings season is easier than ever with AlphaSense. Give your portfolio the edge with seamless, agentic workflows that do the heavy lifting for you, going beyond metrics to equip you with a 360 degree market perspective.
With a simple search, keep your portfolio smart and understand the narrative behind the numbers.
