F5, Inc. (FFIV)
Application delivery and security systems and software. Read October 19, 2026 from the annual report for the period ending September 30, 2025, filed November 25, 2025. Ranked 91 of the 155 Technology companies read so far, by the share within reach now.
Within reach now
23%
End of 2028
59%
Employees, annual report
6,578
Leading staffing pattern
Communications Equipment Manufacturing
Share of the working time within reach, long-run pace, four times in five
- Now23%
- End of 202747%
- End of 202859%
- End of 203064%
What changes for its people by the end of 2028, by its industries' figures
- Stays with people 36%
- Becomes checking a model's work 50%
- Handed over with lighter checks 8%
F5’s 6,578 employees, 47% in the United States, build, sell and support application delivery and security systems and the NGINX and Distributed Cloud software beside them, split by description.
The figures on this page come from the company's own annual report and from BLS staffing patterns for its industries, never from a roster. They are estimates with a stated method. Nothing here says what the company will do: within reach is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
What follows from the reading
Share of working time within reach of AI, on the long-run pace at four in five: 23% now, 47% at the end of 2027, 59% at the end of 2028, 64% at the end of 2030. By the patterns, the work is about 64% desk work, 21% people work and 15% body work. These are the site's industry estimates weighted by the shares below: estimates with a stated method and range, not a forecast of what the company will do. By the same patterns, at the end of 2028 about 36% of the working time stays with people (conversation, in-person and hands-on work), 50% becomes checking a model's work and 8% could be handed over with lighter checks, from the industries' own figures, not the company's roles.
Headcount
6,578 employees as of September 30, 2025 (stated). 47% of employees are based in the United States, by the filing; employees work in 47 countries.
The filing: “As of September 30, 2025, we had 6,578 employees - over 99% of whom were full-time employees.”
The workforce as industry patterns
| Pattern | Share | Reason, from the filing |
|---|---|---|
| Communications Equipment Manufacturing | 60% | By description (c): BIG-IP application delivery and security systems, the hardware and the software sold with it, and the services around them, product revenue being 49%; networking gear is communications equipment. |
| Software Publishers | 40% | By description (c): NGINX and Distributed Cloud Services, software and cloud products of their own the filing describes beside the systems, read at software publishers. |
What the filing says about the workforce: 6,578 employees in 47 countries, 47% in the United States, over 99% full-time; sales and marketing headcount 2,186 at fiscal year end; no U.S. employees represented by a union.
Companies read with the same leading pattern
Other companies whose largest staffing pattern is also Communications Equipment Manufacturing, largest first, each read from its own annual report. Within reach now and at the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO, 82,400 employees)23% now, 59% by 2028
- Motorola Solutions, Inc. (MSI, 23,000 employees)23% now, 59% by 2028
- Ciena Corporation (CIEN, 9,080 employees)22% now, 54% by 2028
What the filing says about AI
30 sentences in the filing name AI. The filing names AI 30 times: AI and machine learning in its application delivery and security products, protection of AI-powered applications, and AI coaches in employee development.
- “We are able to deliver on this strategy through our solutions portfolio, specifically our F5 BIG-IP, F5 NGINX, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services product families, which deliver a range of integrated, application and delivery services leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities that support application performance and protect legacy, modern, and AI-powered applications a...”
- “F5 is leveraging AI to accelerate the strength of both our current and future offerings.”
- “F5 uses AI in its application delivery and security solutions to support performance and efficacy.”
- “Today, our customers are able to further benefit from our four-pronged AI strategy.”
- “First, our current portfolio is solving security and performance challenges associated with AI model training and inference and in support of AI-driven workloads.”
Its annual reports, year by year
Sentences naming AI in each annual report, counted by one rule, beside the median report in the Index that year. Each count links its filing. Every company, by year and sector
- Fiscal 20216median 0
- Fiscal 20227median 0
- Fiscal 202318median 1
- Fiscal 202423median 4
- Fiscal 202530median 10
Headcount by filing year
As reported in each year's annual report, with the filing. A year marked not read had no figure the reading could take from the report's text.
| Period | Employees | Filed | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 6,578 | 2025-11-25 | 10-K |
| 2024-09-30 | 6,557 | 2024-11-18 | 10-K |
| 2023-09-30 | 6,524 | 2023-11-14 | 10-K |
| 2022-09-30 | 7,089 | 2022-11-15 | 10-K |
| 2021-09-30 | 6,461 | 2021-11-16 | 10-K |
| 2020-09-30 | 6,109 | 2020-11-19 | 10-K |
| 2019-09-30 | 5,325 | 2019-11-15 | 10-K |
| 2018-09-30 | 4,409 | 2018-11-21 | 10-K |
| 2017-09-30 | 4,366 | 2017-11-03 | 10-K |
| 2016-09-30 | 4,395 | 2016-11-04 | 10-K |
| 2015-09-30 | 4,178 | 2015-11-06 | 10-K |
| 2014-09-30 | 3,834 | 2014-11-26 | 10-K |
| 2013-09-30 | 3,356 | 2013-11-22 | 10-K |
| 2012-09-30 | 3,029 | 2012-11-21 | 10-K |
| 2011-09-30 | 2,488 | 2011-11-22 | 10-K |
| 2010-09-30 | 2,012 | 2010-11-23 | 10-K |
| 2009-09-30 | 1,646 | 2009-11-20 | 10-K |
| 2008-09-30 | 1,694 | 2008-11-21 | 10-K |
| 2007-09-30 | 1,582 | 2007-11-19 | 10-K |
| 2006-09-30 | 1,068 | 2006-12-14 | 10-K |
| 2005-09-30 | 792 | 2005-12-13 | 10-K |
| 2004-09-30 | 613 | 2004-12-07 | 10-K |
| 2003-09-30 | 507 | 2003-10-30 | 10-K |
| 2002-09-30 | 467 | 2002-12-19 | 10-K |
| 2001-09-30 | 490 | 2001-12-28 | 10-K |
| 2000-09-30 | 496 | 2000-12-13 | 10-K |
| 1999-09-30 | 187 | 1999-12-28 | 10-K |
Limits of this reading
- No count by product line; the split between the systems and the software products is by description.
- The 2,186 in sales and marketing are a function count recorded in the notes and stay inside the patterns.
Source: the company's annual report on EDGAR, accession 0001048695-25-000157, the filing. Read by Claude Fable 5.1 under rubric version 1, by the method. A company can write to info@stratussc.com to have its reading checked against its filing.
The report on F5, Inc., $29
This page as a document to keep, with what it does not show: the share within reach at every date on three paces and two reliabilities, a typical workforce of this shape at the stated headcount role by role and task by task (the industries' staffing, never the company's roster), where to start, what changes for the people and what they would learn, every sentence in the filing that names AI, the headcount by year, the companies read with the same leading pattern, the method and a citation line. To print or save as a PDF, open again in your browser for a year.
See the report, $29See the sample first: Walmart's report is free
Questions about this company
- How much of F5, Inc.'s working time is within reach of AI?
- An estimated 23% now and 59% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five, from the workforce F5, Inc.'s own annual report describes and BLS staffing patterns for its industries, never from a roster. It is an estimate with a stated method. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings, and it says nothing about what the company will do.
- How many people does F5, Inc. employ?
- 6,578 as of September 30, 2025, as its annual report for the period ending September 30, 2025 states. About 47% in the U.S.
- What kinds of work make up F5, Inc.'s workforce?
- Read from its annual report as a blend of 2 industry staffing patterns, the largest Communications Equipment Manufacturing; by those patterns the work is about 64% desk work, 21% people work and 15% body work. Each share has a one-sentence reason on this page that can be checked against the filing.
- What does F5, Inc.'s annual report say about AI?
- 30 sentences in the filing name AI. Its annual reports for fiscal 2021 to 2025 name it in 6, 7, 18, 23 and 30 sentences, year by year. They are counted and quoted on this page, never judged: a count says how much a filing talks about AI, not what the company does with it.
- How is this estimated?
- Claude Fable 5.1 read the annual report under the Index's written rubric (version 1) on October 19, 2026: the stated headcount, the share in the U.S. when stated, and the workforce as a blend of industry staffing patterns. The estimates are the site's industry estimates weighted by those shares, from O*NET tasks with estimated lengths and METR's measurements of how long a task AI models can finish. A company can write to info@stratussc.com to have its reading checked against its filing.
Embed these figures on your site
A small card with the share of working time within reach now and at the end of 2027, 2028 and 2030, the date and a link back. Free under CC BY 4.0; the card carries the credit.