Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	9 Months Ended
Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	Sep. 30, 2021
Accounting Policies [Abstract]
Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	Description of Business and Basis of Presentation LivePerson, Inc. (“LivePerson”, the “Company”, “we”, “our” or “us”) makes life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted Conversational AI. Conversational AI allows humans and machines to interact using natural language, including speech or text. During the past decade, consumers have made mobile devices the center of their digital lives, and they have made mobile messaging the center of communication with friends, family and peers. This trend has been significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and can now be viewed as a permanent, structural shift in consumer behavior. The Company's technology enables consumers to connect with businesses through these same preferred conversational interfaces, including Facebook Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, Google Rich Business Messenger, and Alexa. These messaging conversations harness human agents, bots, and Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) to power convenient, personalized, and content-rich journeys across the entire consumer lifecycle, from discovery and research, to sales, service and support, and increasingly marketing, social, and brick and mortar engagements. For example, consumers can look up product info like ratings, images and pricing, search for stores, see product inventory, schedule appointments, apply for credit, approve repairs, and make purchases or payments - all without ever leaving the messaging channel. These AI and human-assisted conversational experiences constitute the Conversational Space, within which LivePerson has strategically developed one of the industry’s largest ecosystems of messaging endpoints and use cases. The Conversational Cloud, LivePerson's enterprise-class cloud-based platform, enables businesses to become conversational by securely deploying AI-powered messaging at scale for brands with tens of millions of customers and many thousands of agents. The Conversational Cloud powers conversations across each of a brand’s primary digital channels, including mobile apps, mobile and desktop web browsers, short message service (“SMS”), social media, and third-party consumer messaging platforms. Brands can also use the Conversational Cloud to message consumers when they dial a 1-800 number instead of forcing them to navigate interactive voice response systems (“IVRs”) and wait on hold. Similarly, the Conversational Cloud can ingest traditional emails and convert them into messaging conversations, or embed messaging conversations directly into web advertisements, rather than redirect consumers to static website landing pages. Agents can manage all conversations with consumers through a single console interface, regardless of where the conversations originated. LivePerson’s robust, cloud-based suite of rich messaging, real-time chat, AI, and automation offerings features consumer and agent facing bots, intelligent routing and capacity mapping, real-time intent detection and analysis, queue prioritization, customer sentiment, analytics and reporting, content delivery, Payment Card Industry (“PCI”) compliance, cobrowsing, and a sophisticated proactive targeting engine. An extensible application programming interface (“API”) stack facilitates a lower cost of ownership by facilitating robust integration into back-end systems, as well as enabling developers to build their own programs and services on top of the platform. More than 40 APIs and software development kits are available on the Conversational Cloud. LivePerson’s Conversational AI offerings put the power of bot development, training, management and analysis into the hands of the contact center and its agents, the teams most familiar with how to structure sales and service conversations to drive successful outcomes. The platform enables what LivePerson calls “the tango” of humans, AI, and bots, whereby human agents act as bot managers, overseeing AI-powered conversations and seamlessly stepping into the flow when a personal touch is needed. Agents become ultra-efficient, leveraging the AI engine to serve up relevant content, define next-best actions and take over repetitive transactional work, so that the agent can focus on relationship building. By seamlessly integrating messaging with our proprietary Conversational AI, as well as third-party bots, the Conversational Cloud offers brands a comprehensive approach to scaling automations across their millions of customer conversations. LivePerson’s consumer services offering is an online marketplace that connects independent service providers (“Experts”) who provide information and knowledge for a fee via mobile and online messaging with individual consumers (“Users”). Users seek assistance and advice in various categories including personal counseling and coaching, computers and programming, education and tutoring, spirituality and religion, and other topics. LivePerson was incorporated in the State of Delaware in November 1995 and the LivePerson service was introduced in November 1998. In April 2000, the Company completed an initial public offering and is currently traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. LivePerson is headquartered in New York City. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Company’s strong performance working remotely, the Company has adopted an “employee-centric” workforce model that does not rely on traditional offices. During the second quarter of 2021, the Company decided to reoccupy some of its leased space to provide its employees with the option of working in an office space environment if they choose to do so. Basis of Presentation The accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements as of September 30, 2021 and for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 are unaudited. In the opinion of management, the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared on the same basis as the annual financial statements and reflect all adjustments, which include only normal recurring adjustments, necessary to present fairly the consolidated financial position of LivePerson as of September 30, 2021, and the consolidated results of operations, comprehensive loss, and cash flows for the interim periods ended September 30, 2021 and 2020. The financial data and other information disclosed in these notes to the condensed consolidated financial statements related to these periods are unaudited. The results of operations for any interim period are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations for any other future interim period or for a full fiscal year. The condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2020 has been derived from audited consolidated financial statements at that date. Certain information and note disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) have been condensed or omitted pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). These unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company’s audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto for the year ended December 31, 2020 included in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 8, 2021. Principles of Consolidation The condensed consolidated financial statements include the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated. Use of Estimates The preparation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting period. These estimates are based on information available as of the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements; therefore, actual results could differ from management’s estimates. Many of the Company’s estimates require increased judgment due to the significant volatility, uncertainty and economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Company continues to monitor the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its estimates and judgments may change materially as new events occur or additional information becomes available. Foreign Currency Translation The Company’s operations are conducted in various countries around the world and the financial statements of its foreign subsidiaries are reported in the applicable foreign currencies (functional currencies). Financial information is translated from the applicable functional currency to the U.S. dollar (the reporting currency) for inclusion in the Company’s consolidated financial statements. Income, expenses, and cash flows are translated at weighted average exchange rates prevailing during the fiscal period, and assets and liabilities are translated at fiscal period-end exchange rates. Resulting translation adjustments are included as a component of Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) in stockholders’ equity. Foreign exchange transaction gain or losses are included in Other income (expense), net in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations. Recently Issued Accounting Standards Debt - Debt with Conversion and Other Options (Subtopic 470-20) and Derivatives and Hedging - Contracts in Entity's Own Equity (Subtopic 815-40): Accounting for Convertible Instruments and Contracts in an Entity’s Own Equity. In August 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) 2020-06 which simplifies the accounting for convertible instruments by eliminating existing accounting models that require separation of a cash conversion or beneficial conversion feature from the host contract. Accordingly, a convertible debt instrument will be accounted as a single liability measured at its amortized cost and a convertible preferred stock will be accounted as a single equity instrument measured at its historical cost, as long as no other embedded features require bifurcation as derivatives and the convertible debt was not issued at a substantial premium. The ASU also simplifies the derivative scope exception for accounting for contracts in an entity’s own equity by: •removing certain conditions required to meet the settlement criterion •clarifying that instruments that are not indexed to the issuer’s own stock must be remeasured at fair value through earnings at each reporting period •clarifying the scope of reassessment guidance and disclosure requirements in Subtopic 815-40. The ASU also makes targeted improvements to the disclosure requirements for convertible instruments and earnings-per-share guidance. For SEC filers, excluding smaller reporting companies, the ASU is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2021, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The ASU specifies that the guidance should be adopted as of the beginning of the annual fiscal year. The Company is assessing what impact ASU 2020-06 will have on its condensed consolidated financial statements. Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements Income Taxes (Topic 740): Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes. In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU 2019-12, which is intended to simplify the accounting for income taxes by removing certain exceptions and by updating accounting requirements around franchise taxes, goodwill recognized for tax purposes, the allocation of current and deferred tax expenses among legal entities, among other minor changes. The ASU is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2020, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted. The Company adopted ASU 2019-12 in the first quarter of 2021 and determined that the ASU had no material impact on its condensed consolidated financial statements.