The AI question analysts are settling
The most useful AI-industry argument in this week's Palantir coverage is about build versus buy. Ryan Canady upgraded Palantir to Buy after concluding that customer-built AI applications can remain complementary to Palantir's platforms rather than displace its core offering.1 Many practitioners worry that companies will assemble their own AI apps on top of general models and skip the platform vendor. Canady's view is that the two coexist.
Bernard Zambonin stays constructive too. He emphasizes customer expansion and net dollar retention as central to the bull case. He also acknowledges that the elevated forward valuation makes continued execution essential.1 Net dollar retention measures how much existing customers spend year over year. In this case it is the evidence that customers are staying and buying more. Our dossier contains no figure for it, so we cannot say how high it is.
A run of partnerships in four days
The deal flow is the other half of the technology story. On October 13, Ondas and Palantir announced Regna AI, a standalone private company to help governments, businesses and institutions develop and deploy AI models in sovereign environments. Palantir is expected to provide model-training infrastructure and engineering.2 On October 14, Customers Bank announced a collaboration with Palantir to develop an AI-oriented banking operating model. Its forward-looking statements highlight implementation risks, reliability concerns and contractual flexibility.3
The same day, Surf Air Mobility announced its fifth commercial OperatorOS agreement, with Flying Zebra, using software powered by Palantir. Surf Air receives a percentage of revenue from trips managed through the platform.4 The deals span government, banking and aviation software. In the bank deal, the partner's own filing language flags reliability concerns. That caution is worth keeping next to the enthusiasm.
The stock did not follow the headlines
Palantir (PLTR) sank more than 7% on Friday, October 16, closing at $186.03, down $14.47. It was the fifth lower close in a row, coming off a 52-week high of $212.94 set early that week.1 The decline came amid a broader technology sector selloff.1 So analyst upgrades and a burst of partnerships did not stop the slide. In that sell-off, the broader market weighed more than the company-specific news.
If you hold a broad technology fund, you may already own Palantir. Our dossier does not give its weighting in any index, so we will not guess at it.
The defense backdrop
Palantir sells to governments, so the defense mood matters. J.P. Morgan's lead aerospace and defense analyst, Seth M. Seifman, downgraded Leidos on October 8. His reasoning was that Leidos' relatively low valuation is insufficient to justify an Overweight rating when other aerospace and defense stocks also offer substantial potential returns.5 He expects most aerospace and defense companies to deliver solid Q3 results and express confidence in underlying demand. But good earnings may not reverse the sector's stock-market weakness.5 J.P. Morgan cites slowing airline traffic growth, uncertainty over U.S. military spending and lingering supply-chain constraints.5
Seifman is not bearish on everything. He expects Howmet's 2026 earnings estimates to increase and management to stay confident about growth in aerospace and industrial gas turbines.5 The weakness is about sentiment and budgets, not a collapse in demand. The November 3 congressional midterm elections could change congressional control and constrain military spending growth. Some of the uncertainty may fade after that date.6
Our knowledge graph also records that BigBear.ai Holdings competes with Leidos Holdings.7 It is a reminder that the AI-for-government field has several players. Our dossier does not say how BigBear.ai's results compare with Palantir's or Leidos'.
How far to trust each source
Both the Palantir and the Leidos articles come from NewsEOD. Our own checks found that 58% of 927 checked claims from that source held up.1,5 That is a middling record, so read the specifics, such as the closing price and the analyst attributions, as reported rather than independently confirmed. The Via News verified data in this dossier concerns Goldman Sachs' financial filings. It has no bearing on Palantir, and we do not use it here.
Not everything in the original brief is supported. The brief names Fiorillo and Zaccardi among the bullish analysts, but our source material contains only Zambonin's and Canady's positions. We also have no source text for the Armada sovereign-infrastructure announcement. We leave both out rather than fill the gap.
What to watch
- November 3: the midterm elections, which could change congressional control and constrain military spending growth.6
- Whether the Regna AI venture shows how sovereign-environment AI work gets done, given Palantir's expected role in training infrastructure and engineering.2
- Whether the Customers Bank collaboration addresses the reliability and implementation risks its own statements flag.3
- Whether Palantir's streak of lower closes ends, and whether the $212.94 high is retested. The upgrades say the business is healthy. The valuation caveat Zambonin raises says the market wants proof.1