Tell us a bit about that.

Yeah.

So a year ago, we launched Archer.

Archer is an AI agent that works for both sides of hiring.

So job seekers sign up, have a 10 minute conversation with Archer and Archer will help them find their next role.

And And then on the employer side, companies will brief Archer on what they're hiring for.

Archer will go out, find talent, engage them, qualify them, and then introduce them if it's a good fit on both sides.

From the work you're doing, is that true? Are you seeing the kind of results that would indicate that this is the way we're going?

okay So when did the Archer come into the process here? Talk me through the initial stages of that and walk me through where you are now with it.

Yeah, so about 18 months ago in our monthly company All Hands, I did this presentation called Reinvention.

And I was like, if we are going to succeed in this AI world, we are going to have to reinvent ourselves as a company.

And it's going to feel super uncomfortable.

And we're going to have to challenge a lot of long held beliefs around our philosophy on hiring and how we think hiring should be done.

And then you listen to customers.

right, is ultimately we are very lucky we get to serve some of the largest customers or companies in the world in both the UK and the US.

Start at the beginning here.

Uh, th-there's obviously a change in what you're bringing to market, an exciting change, and not to bury the lead for everyone, but, but let's start with, you know, so what's been happening in the market that led to, uh, you know, the, the conversation we're gonna have today? What, what, what, what is the shift and what led to it?

Yeah.

So, you know, I think this will be no surprise to anybody, but in, you know, the second half of twenty twenty-three, twenty twenty-four, and twenty twenty-five, the demand for software engineers fell through the floor.

I still get a report sent to me every Monday morning, which looks at the volume of roles being advertised for software engineers, and it's down like seventy-five percent from the peak of twenty twenty-one, um, or twenty twenty-two.

Interestingly, it's recovered over the last 12 months, which, you know, is a, is a conversation for another day around, uh, what might actually happen, AI impacts labor.

But what that meant was, like, the demand for our core marketplace product fell.

You know, at that point, we were still predominantly just focused on software engineering.

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