What Are Palantir Stock Bulls Not Worried About?
Palantir Technologies (PLTR) stock has returned 46% over the three months through October 5, 2026, against 3.9% for the S&P 500. Buyers at this price appear to expect the company’s sales to businesses to keep growing as fast as they have. But Palantir is no longer alone in chasing those customers, and its own management described one such contest on its latest earnings call. So who is Palantir now up against?
Palantir Now Competes With The AI Labs
Palantir is up against the labs that build the large AI models, and those labs now want the same corporate customers. Management raised the subject on the August 3 call for the second quarter of 2026. It told investors that a shift in AI models the company had warned about for years “is now here.”
Management also gave an example. A major tech company had tested one of those labs, and the lab’s deployment team, against Palantir’s AI platform. Palantir won, and the work became a contract worth $10 million a year.
Palantir uses the labs’ models as well, so the labs are both a supplier and a rival. The Information reported on September 14, 2026, that Palantir was among large technology companies that could restrict or stop using advanced AI models. Those companies want Anthropic and OpenAI to guarantee that the companies’ intellectual property will not be misused.
How Much Of Palantir’s Revenue Comes From Companies?
Companies supplied 46% of Palantir’s revenue in fiscal 2025, or $2.1 billion from its Commercial segment. Commercial sales grew 60.0% that year, faster than the 53.1% growth of the Government segment.
The U.S. part of that business is growing fastest. Palantir’s U.S. commercial revenue was $764 million in the second quarter of 2026, up 149% from a year earlier. Management forecasts more than $3.424 billion from that business in 2026, which would be growth of at least 134%.
Palantir’s share price leaves little room for that growth to slow more than management expects. Buyers pay about $74 for each dollar of Palantir’s sales over the past twelve months, against about $3 for the S&P 500. The shares are also about 9% below their 52-week high, so the price appears to assume the labs will not slow Palantir down.
Is Palantir Losing Customers To The AI Labs?
No, there is no sign of it in the customer numbers Palantir reported for the second quarter. Palantir had 653 U.S. commercial customers at the end of the second quarter of 2026, up 35% from a year earlier. It also signed U.S. commercial contracts with a total value of $2.132 billion in that quarter, up 153% from a year earlier.
So the threat is real, but it had not shown up in those numbers, and Palantir won the one contest management described. Holders still have a lot to lose if that changes. Palantir stock has fallen much further than the market before: it fell 63.8% from peak to trough in the 2022 inflation shock, against 24.5% for the S&P 500.
Palantir’s results for the third quarter of 2026 are the next place to look. Management forecast revenue of $2.16 billion to $2.164 billion for that quarter, up from the $1.935 billion it reported for the second. Management’s full-year forecast of at least 134% U.S. commercial growth already implies that growth slowing from the 149% of the second quarter. A slowdown sharp enough to put that forecast in doubt could be an early sign that the labs are winning business from Palantir. The number alone would not show why.
How To Act On PLTR?
Now you know PLTR better. And that’s our purpose: to make you informed before you invest your money. However, making a bet on a single stock carries its own risks.
There is a smarter choice. Since its inception, the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio has beaten the benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. And it did so without taking the concentrated risk that comes with do-it-yourself stock picking.
If you’d rather act on PLTR itself:
| Play Offense | Play Defense |
|---|---|
| Learn More About PLTR & Invest | Save Taxes On Capital Gains |
| Earn From PLTR Cash Secured Puts | Covered Call Against PLTR |