Trustpilot CEO: ‘We’re delivering something really unique for big companies’
Shares in Trustpilot have surged by 10 per cent after it reported a strong first half of 2025 and the announcement of a £30m share buyback.
Revenue grew 23 per cent to $122.8m (£90m), while bookings increased 19 per cent to $140m.
Adjusted EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation] jumped 70 per cent to $18m, lifting margins to 14.6 per cent, and pre-tax profit rose 45 per cent to $3.7m.
Adjusted free cash flow more than doubled to $15m.
Chief executive Adrian Blair said the results reflect both growth and efficiency driven by AI. “Increasingly, our growth is translating into profitability and cash for investors”, he told City PM.
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AI driving efficiency and product innovation
Blair highlighted AI’s role in Trustpilot’s content integrity team, which monitors 200,000 daily reviews.
He explained: “Our content integrity team are able to operate quicker, faster, better, cheaper as a result of using AI… We’ve removed eight per cent of reviews from the platform in H1, slightly up on what we did in the first half last year.
“And that’s partly because we’re using AI to just detect, detect content better that doesn’t comply with the guidelines”.
AI has also improved the consumer experience. Blair told City PM: “Undoubtedly, AI review summaries are being used every day by the largest number of people.
“For businesses with millions of reviews, it’s now much easier for consumers to understand the key points”.
The TrustLayer API, currently in beta, provides enterprise clients with direct access to Trustpilot’s proprietary dataset.
Growth and strategic positioning for Trustpilot
Enterprise client wins are driving momentum, with contracts secured from Barclays, Boots, Lindt, and Vimeo.
Blair explained why Trustpilot appeals to large brands: “We provide a really unique way for them to get closer to their customers and build trust with their customers”.
“Companies like Boots and Barclays, are realising is that we’re delivering something really unique for them that will help them with things that matter a lot to any large company when ultimately helping them to improve their customer experience”.
The company’s cash generation supports the expanded share buyback.
Blair said: “We have a clear capital allocation strategy which says, you know, first and foremost, we fund our operations. Secondly, where we see the opportunity to do M&A, we want to have the resources.
“And thirdly, we return cash to shareholders…The increase in the buyback is a reflection of the fact that our business is producing a lot more”.
Trustpilot’s reviews are also increasingly used by large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini AI and ChatGPT.
Blair noted: “We see LLMs as a great way for Trustpilot feedback to have an impact beyond our platform, and that exposure is increasingly important for our business”.