Palantir, the data and AI software company best known for its government contracts, now earns more from US businesses than from the US government. In results for the three months to 30 September, published on 2 November, its US commercial revenue rose 148% from a year earlier to $984m, edging past US government revenue of $953m, which grew 96%.
Total revenue rose 96% to $2.31bn, the first quarter above $2bn, and net income was $1.13bn. The company raised its forecast for 2026 revenue to between $8.530bn and $8.534bn, and now expects US commercial revenue of more than $3.559bn, growth of at least 143%.
In his remarks, chief executive Alex Karp pointed to the company’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) and what it calls “Sovereign AI”, and said US commercial revenue “has surpassed our U.S. government revenue for the first time in our company’s history.”
Why it matters: Palantir is one of the clearest public measures of whether companies are paying for AI software that runs on their own data, rather than just experimenting. A shift in its sales towards private businesses suggests that this spending is growing faster outside government than inside it, though the figures are the company’s own and one firm cannot speak for the whole market.