Some context

According to Marius Meiners (on LinkedIn) Semrush laid off more than 100 people.

It is important to note:

• Marius Meiners is the CEO of Peec AI, a company that does AEO (Answer Engine Optimization, basically SEO for LLMs)
• Semrush is (based on anecodtal evidence) the industry standard for SEO-optimization
• I have not found any addition confirmation of the layoffs

Although there are a ton of SEO-tools, Semrush Marius Meiners has made a few noteworthy comments:

They’ve clearly lost touch with their customers. SEO is undergoing the biggest change in its history, yet the company’s new products don’t work and are uncompetitive. People also dislike the brand. The UI is cluttered, the product is hard to understand, and you have to pay extra for every little click. They haven’t kept pace, and the company feels stuck in 2005. has fallen to $1bn and is on a downward spiral.

I do not share Meiners words:

• I am unsure if people really dislike the brand (based on anecodtal evidence and some comments on Reddit / LinkedIn I don't think that people dislike them)
• I am unsure if the stock is on "a downward spiral" (whatever that means)
• I am unsure if "They’ve clearly lost touch with their customers"

But given that Semrush had their earnings calls a month ago and AI Search is an important topic to me (see below), I wanted to dig a bit into Semrush. So here we go.

Summary of the Call

Most of my analysis is based on Semrush Q2 2025 earnings calls.

The call reflected a confident tone, emphasizing a robust 20% YoY revenue increase to $108.9M and solid operating margins, mainly powered by the surging Enterprise and AI segments. While the company announced successful launches of enterprise AI search products and a major shift of resources away from low-end, high-churn customers, management also tempered near-term expectations: Full-year 2025 revenue guidance was lowered due to ongoing softness among freelancers and unfavorable FX rates, even as the company launched a $150M share buyback to underscore long-term conviction.

That summary was AI generated and it has a few interesting points to unpack. Specifically: