Bloomberg 2026-04-07-3
What Is ARR? Behind the Least-Trusted Metric of the AI Era
ARR has no SEC definition, no audit standard, and no standardized calculation: the metric Silicon Valley uses to price AI startups is whatever the founder needs it to mean. The real problem is structural, not behavioral: consumption-based, credits-based, and outcome-based AI pricing models don't map to the subscription framework ARR was built for. Every 25-30x multiple applied to unverified AI ARR is a bet on retention data that doesn't exist yet.