Palantir Technologies

Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence

Updated 4 days ago Reviewed by 7wData

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Enterprise data integration and AI analytics platform, serving government agencies for defense and intelligence, and commercial enterprises for operational decision-making.

Palantir Technologies, founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, Alex Karp, and Nathan Gettings, has grown from a classified defense contractor into a dual-segment platform company. The company remained unprofitable for two decades before achieving positive net income in Q1 2023, a milestone that marked its transition from deep-tech startup to operating business.\n\nThe company operates through two segments: Government (Gotham platform for intelligence, defense, and law enforcement) and Commercial (Foundry for data integration and AIP, its AI Platform integrating large language models). As of March 2026, Palantir serves 1,007 customers spanning U.S. and allied government agencies, national health systems, and private enterprises.

Government contracts represented 53.7% of FY2025 revenue ($1.855 billion), though this share is declining as commercial adoption accelerates.\n\nFY2025 revenue reached $4.48 billion (no growth rate baseline given as prior disclosure was limited). In Q1 2026, revenue hit $1.633 billion, up 85% year-over-year, with U.S. commercial revenue surging 133% year-over-year. The company raised full-year 2026 guidance to $7.65–7.66 billion (71% growth) after Q1 results.

Total contract value hit a record $2.76 billion in Q3 2025. Notably, the U.S. Army awarded Palantir a $10 billion Enterprise Service Agreement in July 2025—consolidating 75 prior contracts into a single 10-year vehicle.\n\nPublic since September 2020 (direct listing on NYSE, moved to NASDAQ in November 2024), Palantir trades under ticker PLTR at approximately $135–140 per share as of May 26, 2026.

The company employs 4,429 people as of December 31, 2025 (12.5% year-over-year growth). CEO Alex Karp has led the firm since its founding and received $8.62 million in compensation in 2025.\n\nCommercial adoption is the dominant story in 2026. AIP—the company's LLM-integrated analytics engine—is now integrated into Snowflake's Data Cloud and Microsoft Azure, expanding its addressable market. AIPCon 8 (the company's user conference) featured 70+ enterprise customers including Waste Management, bp, American Airlines, Lumen, Novartis, and MaineHealth, demonstrating AIP's penetration beyond pilot stages into production deployments.

Who buys this

U.S. federal agencies (DoD, CIA, FBI, NSA, Army, Navy, USDA) for classified and unclassified intelligence, defense, and border operations
Large commercial enterprises (financial services, pharmaceutical, aerospace, utilities) using Foundry for data unification and AIP for decision intelligence
Healthcare organizations (NHS, NYC Health + Hospitals, Novartis, MaineHealth) for clinical data integration and operational analytics
Government contractors and aerospace/defense primes (Airbus) for supply chain visibility and program management

Publicly disclosed clients

U.S. Department of Defense (Gotham, AIP)
U.S. Army (Enterprise Service Agreement, $10B contract awarded July 2025)
U.S. Navy (shipbuilding supply chain modernization, $448M contract)
Morgan Stanley
Airbus
Novartis
American Airlines

Strengths and what to watch

Strengths

Dual revenue engine: government contracts (53.7% FY2025) provide stable base while commercial segment exploded 109% year-over-year, reducing concentration risk over time.
AIP adoption inflection: integration into Snowflake and Azure, plus 70+ enterprise deployments at AIPCon 8, demonstrates move beyond defense into mainstream enterprise operations and decision-making workflows.
Near-monopoly position in U.S. federal data operations: consolidated 75 Army contracts into single $10B agreement; CIA, FBI, NSA are long-term locked-in customers with high switching costs.

Watch for

Government revenue concentration: despite commercial growth, federal contracts still represent >50% of revenue and are subject to political cycles, budget cuts, and contractor consolidation pressures.
Persistent civil liberties controversies: ICE deportation tracking, predictive policing systems, NHS privacy protests, and IDF partnerships continue to generate employee departures and activist opposition; reputational risk in enterprise hiring and partnerships.
Valuation and growth expectations: stock trades at elevated multiples; Q1 2026 EPS of $0.34 reflects margin expansion but FY2026 guidance of 71% growth may be difficult to sustain if government award flow slows or commercial adoption plateaus after AIP hype cycle.

Recent moves

Key Information

Industry: Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
Founded: 2003
Headquarters: United States

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Palantir do?

Palantir Technologies provides enterprise data integration and AI analytics platforms. Its Gotham platform serves U.S. government agencies for intelligence and defense operations. Foundry platform handles commercial data unification for private enterprises. AIP integrates large language models for decision-making across both segments.

How much revenue does Palantir generate?

Palantir reported FY2025 revenue of $4.48 billion. In Q1 2026, revenue reached $1.633 billion, up 85% year-over-year. The company raised full-year 2026 guidance to $7.65–7.66 billion, representing 71% growth expected. U.S. commercial revenue surged 133% year-over-year in Q1 2026, driving expansion.

What is Palantir's largest government contract?

The U.S. Army awarded Palantir a $10 billion Enterprise Service Agreement in July 2025, the largest contract in company history. This deal consolidated 75 prior Army contracts into a single 10-year platform agreement, strengthening Palantir's near-monopoly position in federal data operations.

What is Palantir AIP?

AIP is Palantir's AI Platform integrating large language models into its analytics engine for decision-making workflows. It's embedded in Foundry for commercial customers and has been integrated into Snowflake's Data Cloud and Microsoft Azure, expanding reach beyond traditional government clients.

Is Palantir growing commercially?

Yes, commercial adoption is accelerating rapidly. U.S. commercial revenue surged 109% year-over-year in FY2025 and 133% in Q1 2026. AIPCon 8 featured 70+ enterprise customers including Waste Management, bp, American Airlines, and Novartis, demonstrating production-stage deployments beyond pilot phases.

What controversies has Palantir faced?

Palantir faces persistent civil liberties criticism: ICE deportation tracking, predictive policing systems, NHS privacy protests, and partnerships with IDF have generated employee departures and activist opposition. These reputational concerns pose risks to enterprise hiring and partnerships despite strong government contracts.

How Palantir Technologies compares

Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.

Positioning: Enterprise data integration and AI analytics platform, serving government agencies for defense and intelligence, and commercial enterprises for operational decision-making.
Customer segments: U.S. federal agencies (DoD, CIA, FBI, NSA, Army, Navy, USDA) for classified and unclassified intelligence, defense, and border operations
Strengths: Dual revenue engine: government contracts (53.7% FY2025) provide stable base while commercial segment exploded 109% year-over-year, reducing concentration risk over time.
Watch for: Government revenue concentration: despite commercial growth, federal contracts still represent >50% of revenue and are subject to political cycles, budget cuts, and contractor consolidation pressures.
Recent moves: Palantir Q1 2026 earnings: revenue surges 85% to $1.633B, company raises FY2026 guidance to $7.65–7.66B (71% growth)

Positioning: Enterprise AI application vendor repositioning as agentic AI platform for federal and industrial use cases.
Customer segments: U.S. federal agencies, defense contractors, large industrials. Buyer: CIO or agency digital transformation lead.
Strengths: Pre-built industry-specific AI application packages deployable on LLM-agnostic infrastructure, proven in DoD predictive maintenance.
Watch for: Sales org disruption from 2025 restructuring (26% staff cut, CEO health absence) caused self-described "completely unacceptable" revenue results.
Recent moves: May 2026: founder Thomas Siebel returned as CEO following health-related absence and a major global sales restructuring.

Positioning: Structured enterprise AI platform with explicit governance, data lineage, and bias monitoring tooling across three discrete product layers.
Customer segments: Regulated enterprises (banking, federal government), IT and compliance buyers in organizations with SR 11-7 or FedRAMP obligations.
Strengths: FedRAMP Moderate authorization across 11 solutions on AWS GovCloud, quadrupling authorized federal offerings within one year.
Watch for: Consulting revenue declined in Q4 2025 as clients paused AI spend pending ROI proof. Full-year 2025 consulting growth was under 1 percent.
Recent moves: Acquired Seek AI (June 2025), a natural-language-to-SQL startup, and simultaneously launched Watsonx AI Labs in New York City for agentic AI co-development.

Positioning: End-to-end AI infrastructure platform combining lakehouse architecture, ML tooling, and data governance for enterprise AI at scale.
Customer segments: Large enterprises and mid-market data engineering teams. Primary buyer: VP of Data or CDO managing cloud-native AI pipelines.
Strengths: Unified lakehouse plus governed ML in one platform, reducing the need for separate data warehouse and AI tooling vendors.
Watch for: DBU-based pricing stacks on top of cloud bills, creating unpredictable total cost of ownership that strains mid-sized enterprise budgets.
Recent moves: Acquired serverless Postgres startup Neon (June 2025, approx. $1B) to launch Lakebase, an OLTP database layer targeting AI agent workloads.

Sources

en.wikipedia.org — Founding date (2003), founders (Thiel, Cohen, Lonsdale, Karp, Gettings), product portfolio (Gotham, Foundry, AIP, Metropolis), government and commercial customers, controversies (ICE, surveillance, NHS, IDF)
finance.yahoo.com — Q1 2026 earnings: $1.633B revenue (85% YoY), U.S. revenue 104% growth, U.S. commercial 133% growth, EPS $0.34, FY2026 guidance raised to $7.65–7.66B (71% growth)
www.cnbc.com — Q4 2025 earnings: $1.407B revenue (70% YoY), FY2025 revenue $4.48B, U.S. commercial revenue 109% YoY growth to $1.465B, U.S. government revenue 55% YoY to $1.855B
www.cnbc.com — U.S. Army Enterprise Service Agreement $10B contract (July 31, 2025), consolidation of 75 contracts
www.macrotrends.net — Employee count: 4,429 as of December 31, 2025 (12.5% YoY growth of 493 employees)
www.investing.com — AIP adoption, Snowflake and Microsoft Azure integration, AIPCon 8 with 70+ enterprise customers, commercial segment acceleration
fortune.com — CEO Alex Karp compensation: $8.62M in 2025
www.agtechnavigator.com — USDA blanket purchase agreement $300M (2026)