C3.ai went public under the stock ticker AI, and on its first day the shares more than doubled. The founder was Tom Siebel, who had built Siebel Systems into a $2 billion software company in the 1990s. In December 2020, investors were piling into anything that promised the next wave of software. Artificial intelligence was still mostly a lab word for the public. C3.ai offered a way for oil companies, utilities and the military to put it to work.

Three Name Changes

Siebel founded the company in January 2009 as C3. The bet was that cloud computing, sensors and machine learning would remake how large companies ran, and that they would need one platform to build on. In 2016 the company became C3 IoT, for the internet of things. In June 2019 it changed its name again, to C3.ai. It sold large subscriptions to a short list of big customers, from its base in Redwood City, California.

Up 120 Percent

C3.ai sold 15.5 million shares at $42 on December 8, 2020, above its $36 to $38 range, and raised about $651 million. On the NYSE the next day the stock closed at $92.49. Stephen Ehikian, a Salesforce veteran, became chief executive in September 2025, after Siebel stepped back for health reasons. In May 2026 Siebel returned as chief executive and Ehikian became president. C3.ai still trades on the NYSE as AI.

Cover: Head of a Philosopher, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for the head of a philosopher (machine intelligence).