CCC Intelligent Solutions in the AI stack

The business and what the filings show

CCC Intelligent Solutions sells software that connects auto insurers, repair shops, parts suppliers and carmakers around the insurance claim, from the first photo of a damaged car to the final payment. Over its latest four quarters it reported $1.1B of revenue, +11% on the year before, at a 74% gross margin and an 18% operating margin, with remaining performance obligations of $1.8B.

Its AI is built on a repair-estimating database it has developed for decades: its 10-K describes virtual inspections from consumer photos, and AI that combines machine learning with estimating logic to predict repairs, suggest estimate lines and produce baseline estimates. That is the book’s model of an AI application with proprietary data, applied to a narrow, high-volume workflow.

CCC’s position depends on being the network its participants all use: insurers, shops and parts suppliers adopt it because the others are on it. AI adds value if it lets claims settle faster and with fewer people; the risk is that insurers or carmakers build their own estimating models. Its first-quarter 2026 report did not reach SEC’s structured data, so the first quarter here is derived from its six-month figures, and quarterly cash flow is incomplete, so free cash flow is not shown.

How AI shows up in the numbers

AI shows up at CCC as estimating and claims automation sold to insurers and repair shops already on its network, priced into the products they use. Its filings do not separate AI revenue, so growth against the layer and how specific its earnings releases are about AI adoption are the read.

For scale, CCC Intelligent Solutions’s revenue over the latest four quarters equals 0% of the $566B the five largest buyers spent on capital projects over their latest four quarters. Their capex rose +81% on the year before, while CCC Intelligent Solutions’s revenue grew +11%: slower than the spending, so it is capturing a smaller share of each new capex dollar, or more of its business sits outside the build-out.

How it talks about AI

In its latest earnings release, furnished to the SEC on October 29, 2026, CCC Intelligent Solutions mentioned AI 8 times in 704 words of narrative text, about 11.4 mentions per 1,000 words. Of its 6 sentences about AI, 1 included a number: a revenue figure, a growth rate, a customer count or another measurable result. Across the 8 releases we read, back to February 25, 2025, AI mentions per 1,000 words went from 5.9 to 11.4.

Specific claims are easier to check against the numbers than general enthusiasm, which is why the share of AI sentences that carry a figure is worth watching alongside how often AI is mentioned. The sentences below are quoted from the release as published, after removing safe-harbor text and company boilerplate.

• “CCC’s AI-related revenue reached approximately $130 million in annualized run-rate in the third quarter of 2026, representing growth of 40% year over year and increasing from an annualized run rate of approximately $120 million in the second quarter of 2026.”
• “Together, we expect to accelerate the AI and agentic capabilities our customers want from us, expand the network at the center of our platform, and make long-term investments in innovation that help customers navigate growing complexity across the claims lifecycle.”

Source: earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), October 29, 2026.

The trend in the numbers

Since the start of 2023, CCC Intelligent Solutions’s largest quarter by revenue was Q3 2026 at $294M, and its highest gross margin was 77% in Q3 2024. The latest quarter set the revenue record for the period.

Quarter by quarter, CCC Intelligent Solutions’s revenue grew +13% in Q4 2025, +12% in Q1 2026, +10% in Q2 2026, +10% in Q3 2026 on the same quarter a year earlier. The pace has been steady.

Gross margin in the latest quarter was 74%, against 72% a year earlier, so it is keeping more of each dollar as it grows. Operating margin moved from 11% to 20% over the same span. It spent 3% of revenue on capital projects, against 5% a year earlier.

Where it sits in the stack

CCC Intelligent Solutions sits in the software and applications layer of the AI stack. It sits at the top of the stack, where revenue from end customers has to come from; its own spending flows to AI clouds.

Among the 27 companies in this layer on our map, it ranks number 24 by revenue and number 24 of 27 by revenue growth. Its gross margin of 74% compares with 78% for the layer as a whole, close to the layer average. The full layer analysis is on the software page.

Latest four quarters for 10-Q filers; latest fiscal year for 20-F filers. Companies under $100 million of revenue are left out.

Against the 27 US-listed companies in its layer, CCC Intelligent Solutions grew +11% over the latest year versus +19% for the layer combined. It is growing more slowly than its layer, so its share of the layer’s revenue is shrinking.

What has to go right, and what could go wrong

What has to go right. Insurers have to adopt AI estimating and automated claims widely, and buy them from the network they already use, so CCC earns more per claim.

What could go wrong. If large insurers or carmakers build their own models on their own claims data, or a competitor’s AI estimates prove better, CCC’s network advantage could weaken where its AI is meant to extend it.

These describe the conditions the business depends on, as the filings show them. They are not a view on the stock.

Through the lens of Investing in AI

Rob May’s book offers six mental models for telling AI moats from traps. The one most useful for CCC Intelligent Solutions’s layer is “AI challenges traditional SaaS assumptions”: Per-seat pricing, zero marginal cost, smooth ARR curves, and automatic land-and-expand break down when software does work on your behalf. The mistake is not using SaaS instincts. It is using them automatically.

The question it asks of any company is: What work is this product actually doing, and how does pricing map to it? Applied to CCC Intelligent Solutions, the filings on this page are the place to start: the margin trend shows whether it holds scarce value or passes it through, the customer and financing disclosures show who it depends on, and the commitments show what it has promised before the revenue arrives.

Customers and concentration

US companies must disclose any customer that accounts for 10% or more of revenue, and foreign filers usually describe their largest customers. Concentration matters because a company’s growth is only as durable as the handful of buyers behind it, and in the AI stack those buyers are often the same few companies.

• “There were no customers which individually accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue during the year ended December 31, 2025.” 10-K, February 24, 2026

Commitments and backlog

• Backlog. CCC Intelligent Solutions reports $1.8B of remaining performance obligations, 1.6 times its revenue over the latest four quarters: contracted revenue not yet earned.

What to watch

CCC Intelligent Solutions’s next quarterly report will cover the quarter ending around December 30, 2026. Large companies must file a 10-Q within 40 days of a quarter’s end and a 10-K within 60 days of the fiscal year’s end, so the new figures should arrive by about February 28, 2027 at the latest. This page, the layer pages and the next quarterly report all update from that filing.

• Revenue growth against the layer, and whether AI products lift what each insurer pays.
• Operating margin, which should rise if AI products sell into the existing network.
• Remaining performance obligations, a read on multi-year insurer contracts.
• Its place in the next quarterly AI Stack Report, which updates every company on the map from the new filings.

Figures from CCC Intelligent Solutions’s SEC filings, latest period ended September 30, 2026. Other companies: all company pages.