Despite market discussion about how AI may reshape the software landscape and leave software firms vulnerable, Altus Group (AIF-T) is not concerned the technology will disrupt its business model, says its CEO Mike Gordon.

“We believe our position is well-protected,” he said, speaking during a Q4 2025 earnings call and webcast on Feb. 19. “From our perspective, AI reinforces our strategic direction and strengthens the advantages that already differentiate our business.”

Gordon said the Canadian commercial real estate intelligence provider stands apart in providing high-quality data and trusted CRE evaluations and that its role is becoming more strategic as AI evolves.

“We are enhancing our agentic capabilities to do more than just generate insights, but rather perform critical actions within the valuation workflow, from data ingestion and valuation to scenario analysis and recommendation engines,” he said.

On Jan. 1, Altus announced the sale of its Quebec Municipal Assessment service to the Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités Locales et Régionales and on Feb.17, Altus announced the sale of its Canadian appraisals business to an affiliate of New York-based Newmark Group. Altus will receive approximately $9.4 million from the sales, which are aimed at rationalizing its portfolio and focusing on core analytics. 

Altus has “a few additional divestitures underway that could close in the first half of the year, including the Canadian development advisory business,” Gordon said. 

“Our objective is to sharpen our focus and to simplify the portfolio as we continue our transformation and prepare for a U.S. listing in 2027.” (Sixty-four per cent of Q4 2025 revenues came from the U.S. versus 12 per cent from Canada.)

Plan to return up to $1.25B to shareholders

Gordon said Altus remains committed to returning capital to shareholders, and has board approval to return up to $800 million this year through various initiatives. 

“We’re evaluating methods to return up to an additional $450 million to shareholders within the first half of 2026. Our plan is to be in market over the next 100 days returning that capital,” he said. “We believe the current market environment presents an opportunity to allocate capital at attractive return levels and our best investment continues to be on Altus itself.”

In response to an analyst’s question, the CEO said he is not concerned about the potential of customers going in-house and using their own data.

“We’re not seeing that trend,” he said. Clients, rather, are pushing to “get their data loaded into ARGUS Intelligence so that they can collaborate with others more quickly.”

Clients “look at us as an extension of what they would see in-house” rather than as competition and are eager to use Altus’ new concepts and AI tools. 

Financial report highlights

The company’s 2025 revenue was $502.9 million, a 3.89 per cent increase from 2024. “Even in this softer market we demonstrated that demand for our solutions remain(s) resilient,” Gordon said. 

Q4 2025 revenues were up 3.6 per cent to $131.9 million, with a loss of $5.2 million from continuing operations, a 116.1 per cent drop.

Altus has a strong foundation to accelerate growth in 2026, Gordon said, noting most ARGUS Enterprise clients have upgraded to ARGUS Intelligence, including brokers JLL, Newmark and Cushman & Wakefield. (ARGUS Intelligence builds on ARGUS Enterprise and provides enhanced performance management, analytics and benchmarking tools. The software is used for cash flow and valuation modelling, performance monitoring, analysis and management across CRE.)

The company is forecasting 2026 revenue growth of four to six per cent, and a recurring revenue increase of five to seven per cent for the year. More than 81 per cent of Altus’ fiscal 2025 consolidated revenue for continuing operations was comprised of recurring solutions, as they are sold primarily on subscription contracts and benefit from solid retention.

CFO Pawan Chhabra said Altus has seen six consecutive quarters of margin expansion. “Our revenue is going to continue to steadily improve and we’re taking direct action to make sure that we’re scaling our business appropriately with our growth to drive that margin expansion.”

Providing a view of CRE market conditions, Chhabra said while rate volatility has eased, trade policy and regulatory uncertainty continue to weigh heavily. 

While transaction activity improved in 2025 and is expected to continue to be good in 2026, “the recovery is uneven across asset types. Multi-family and industrial continue to lead, retail is stable and office is bifurcated between prime space leasing and some of the older commodity stock that continues to reprice.”