The US software giant Palantir, known for its close ties to intelligence agencies and the military, has experienced volatile development since its IPO. With its inclusion in the prestigious S&P 500 index, Palantir is now recognized as a firmly established technology company – a significant step for the former outsider.

Since going public four years ago, CEO Alex Karp has often emphasized that the market does not understand Palantir's potential. Investors have been skeptical due to longstanding losses and the slow progress in expanding the business beyond the public sector to the corporate market. At the beginning of last year, the stock had fallen below its original issue price.

But with the hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI), the tide has turned. Palantir's stock price has almost sextupled since early 2022, and the company is now valued at 30 times the expected annual revenue. The AI boom has catapulted Palantir to the top of the tech world and inclusion in the S&P 500 now confirms this status. This development was made possible after the company recorded a 12-month profit for the first time in its 20-year history – one of the prerequisites for inclusion in the index.

Palantir achieved revenue growth in the past quarter, and the number of customers increased by 41 percent to 593 compared to the previous year. This indicates that the company's message is resonating in the business world. The introduction of large language models, which are used for generating and analyzing data, also helps strengthen Palantir's position as a driving force in the AI industry.

Palantir's software aims to assist large organizations in getting the right data into the hands of decision-makers at the right time. The path to profitability shows that Palantir has made progress in refining its business model. However, the company faces the challenge of scaling its services more broadly and building trust in AI-driven decision-making processes.