AEye, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AI Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to AI's Communications Director, Jen Deitch, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining AI's third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today are Matt Fish, Chief Executive Officer, and Connor Tierney, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we announced our financial results for the third quarter 2023. A copy of our press release can be found on our website at investors.ai.ai. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements as defined in the securities laws and regulations of the United States with reference to future events, future operating results, or financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the industry, and other conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances that are difficult or impossible to predict. Our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. We caution you therefore against placing undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements. You can find more information about the risks, uncertainties, and other factors in our reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our most recent periodic report. All information discussed today is as of November 9th, 2023, and we do not intend and undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law. In addition, today's discussion will include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are presented for supplemental information purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of the measures to the most directly comparable gap measures is available in our press release, and you should refer to our reconciliations of non-gap financial measures to the most directly comparable gap measures in our earnings release. Now, let me pass the call over to Matt.

Thanks, Jen, and thank you all for joining us. On today's call, I will provide an update on the trends we are seeing in the LiDAR marketplace, our progress with respect to quoting activities, and share some news on our Foresight Intelligent Sensing Platform, which is receiving strong industry recognition. Since we rolled out our revised strategy in May, we have been relentlessly focused on ensuring we enter the automotive market with a differentiated and superior product that integrates seamlessly into OEM solutions and carries a price point that establishes AI as a major ADAS player. Based on our ongoing work and conversations with Continental, OEMs, and other partners, we remain confident that AI has the right technology and the right model to successfully compete and win our fair share of business in the LIDAR space. Our technology, which has been endorsed by major players including Continental and NVIDIA, stands out for its ability to deliver safety with long-range detection at highway speeds. We are working closely with Continental and our subsystem vendors to continue driving down costs well below the $1,000 mark to ensure that our products are the most competitive in the market. Our long-standing partnership with Continental remains highly productive, and we are in the binding quote phase with our lead OEM, Target, with a decision still expected by the end of this year. We are still in the running for the additional five RFQs that we have previously discussed, although some of the decision timelines for those opportunities have been pushed out into 2024. With RFQs typically ranging in size from $250 million to more than a billion dollars, an award decision is a game-changing opportunity for AI. While it is no secret that the LIDAR landscape is highly competitive, AI believes the market is shifting from a battle for the best technology to a battle for the best path to commercialization. We are seeing that OEMs are now being more cautious about the pace of their capital spend and adding advanced technologies like LIDAR to the mix right now. Although, we're getting a clear signal from OEMs that LIDAR adoption will happen and it is moving forward, just at a slower pace than expected. Given the drive toward commercialization and the slight delays we're seeing with OEM quoting timelines, we made the decision to optimize our operations and cost structure around the automotive first strategy that was announced in May. We have implemented steps to further drive down costs by reducing headcount and cash burn, helping to extend our runway out to 2025. Connor will provide additional details on our go-forward expense structure shortly. On the product front, we continue to be recognized for our innovative next-generation products. I'm happy to report that last month, our Foresight platform received Reuters' prestigious Automotive Drive Honors Award for Excellence, with the judges calling Foresight high-performing, flexible, scalable, and a critical enabling technology for the next generation of vehicles. We beat out several of our LiDAR peers in being recognized as an automotive innovator that is accelerating advanced safety features and software revenue opportunities for OEMs. We are also pleased to announce that today we have released a new Foresight automotive reference design, Foresight Flex. This compact, low-power design provides high-performance LIDAR in a small form factor, giving OEMs the ultimate flexibility in bringing safety solutions to market. At half the height and one third the power consumption of our first generation Foresight design, this product offers easy integration into the windshield, roof, or grill. We anticipate AI's Foresight Flex will deliver the lowest in-cabin LIDAR cost at volume in the industry. Over the past several weeks, we have been actively engaged in an OEM customer roadshow, demonstrating the industry-leading performance enhancements of our foresight architecture. Customer feedback has been incredibly positive, underscoring that AI's technology is highly competitive. OEMs specifically note that our relationship with Continental is a key advantage, while also being impressed by our software-defined capabilities and reliability potential thanks to our superior semiconductor IP. With that, I'll hand it off to Connor for a summary of our financial performance.