Why a longtime skeptic of Palantir's stock is finally saying it's time to buy

By Britney Nguyen

Palantir's total addressable market could get a lot bigger, while its business model should help it maintain its lead against competitors, an analyst says

Palantir's stock was upgraded by Goldman Sachs on Thursday.

Shares of Palantir Technologies were rising Thursday toward a nearly one-year high, as one analyst said a growing opportunity in "sovereign AI" could lift the company into another phase of growth.

The data software company has seen its revenue soar in the artificial-intelligence boom, but some investors are questioning whether it has peaked, or if there will be more room for the stock to run, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges.

For at least the past three years, Borges was in the former camp, as she's had a neutral rating on the stock. But she has swung to the latter camp and now recommends investors buy the stock.

In her view, Palantir's total addressable market could see significant growth ahead as more governments and enterprises seek to build and deploy AI systems that they can control without having to tap external AI model and cloud providers - a practice known as sovereign AI.

Palantir's stock (PLTR) rose 2.4% on Thursday toward its highest close since Nov. 3, 2025. The rally comes in the face of a selloff in the broader technology sector, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 NDX shed 1.4%.

Borges pointed to other software players who have offerings for enterprises applying AI to their proprietary data, such as CrowdStrike's (CRWD) SafeMind cybersecurity AI model. While software companies can generally depend on their own teams to build and deploy these products, Borges expects "industries with lower tech-talent density to be an opportunity for Palantir."

That opportunity is coinciding with Palantir's move toward a more vertical model that involves adapting its various products and platforms to specific industries, she added.

The market for Palantir could also expand as the focus shifts toward customized software applications. While AI helps cut the cost of development, Borges noted that many businesses have a difficult time building tools customized for their clients, given the separation between data, workflows and eventual execution.

"This is the core problem Palantir's Ontology is designed to solve," she said, referring to the company's product that builds a digital twin of an enterprise's data to map out real-world objects, relationships and types of actions.

Palantir's operational layer will become "increasingly important," she said, as AI applications move to becoming agentic systems that can work autonomously across several tasks.

Meanwhile, some investors remain concerned about the sustainability of Palantir's business model of using forward-deployed engineers, Borges said, which consists of software engineers working on-site and directly with clients to set up and operate its technology.

The strategy allows for real-time responses from customers about the technology, which has allowed Palantir to improve its product development and sustain its lead over software competitors, Borges said.

After Palantir's stock soared 340% in 2024 and 135% in 2025, it has gained a more modest 12.2% so far in 2026, to underperform the Nasdaq 100's NDX 22.7% advance. Borges believes that relative weakness, coupled with a growing market opportunity, has presented investors with an opportunity to buy the shares at a discounted price.

She set a $230 price target for the stock, which implies about 15% upside from current prices.

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10-08-26 1756ET