• The agentic trade split in two: UiPath (PATH) entered the year priced as an AI casualty; its expansion deals with AI now run six times larger than those without. C3.ai (AI) is guiding revenue below last year through the middle of the AI boom: the doubt is conversion, not displacement.

• UiPath's 78% rally has covering behind it; C3.ai's shorts are adding into the print: PATH shorts are down 19% from their June peak; C3.ai short interest rose in both sessions before the report and sits within 2% of a 3-year high. C3.ai reports Wednesday after the close, PATH Thursday.

• Active longs outweigh shorts again in UiPath; they never have in C3.ai: the S3 Active Long-to-Short ratio (active manager long shares over shares short) is back to 1.37x after four late-June sessions below 1.0x, down from 2.9x in January; C3.ai's has never crossed 1.0x, shorts have always been larger, though active longs have grown faster this year.

Shorts pressed both names all year; into the prints, they're covering UiPath and adding C3.ai.

UiPath closed Tuesday at $18.14, up 78% from July 23, and still carries 115 million shares of short interest: 29% of float, $2.1 billion against a $9.4 billion market cap. The covering has started, not finished: short interest was 52 million shares in January, peaked at 142 million at the June Russell reconstitution, and stands at 115 million now, still more than twice where it began the year. Active managers added 8 million shares year to date, and the S3 Active Long-to-Short ratio has recovered from 0.96x in late June to 1.37x, still a fraction of the software sector’s 8.4x (Software Positioning Pivot, Aug 28).

C3.ai closed Tuesday at $10.34, 47% below October's closing high, and carries 48.4 million shares short, within 2% of May's 49.3 million high: 34.4% of float and $500 million on a $1.6 billion market cap. Active longs grew from 27 to 43 million this year, shorts from 40 to 48.4: shorts stayed bigger, through founder Tom Siebel's return as CEO, his $69 million purchase, and revenue guided below last year. Options imply a roughly 8% one-day move for both stocks after reporting, per Bloomberg.

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