Palantir: first billion dollar quarter and amazing productivity from AI

Last week, Palantir made history with its first billion dollar Q2 revenues.

Here are links to two of the articles:

• Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI danger zone as he plans to bring superpowers to blue collar workers
• Palantir smashes expectations with 1 billion Q2 revenue as CEO boasts that skeptics have been bent into a kind of submission

My understanding is that Palantir was able to breach the 1 billion dollar mark due to winning large government deals to provide some kind of technology, maybe a kind of surveillance technology for immigrants or a kind of AI driven analysis of government data from all corners of the government.

Notable quotes (worrisome quotes?)

One of the articles – the first one in the list – had some quotes that caught my eye.

“…executives made it clear there is one main source for these new levels of productivity: artificial intelligence, blended into every layer of its business and rapidly automating tasks that once required armies of highly paid coders and IT staff.”

Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, “Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI ‘danger zone’ as he plans to bring ‘superpowers’ to blue-collar workers”, August 5, 2025.

Yep, the drive to replace workers with AI is in full force. Tech companies such as this and Meta leading the way to sweeten the bottom line will be forcing the rest of the industries to follow suit. The race to replace is on in earnest.

Here are Palantir’s plans:

““We’re planning to grow our revenue … while decreasing our number of people,””

Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, “Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI ‘danger zone’ as he plans to bring ‘superpowers’ to blue-collar workers”, August 5, 2025.

““We continue to see the astonishing impact of AI leverage.””

Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, “Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI ‘danger zone’ as he plans to bring ‘superpowers’ to blue-collar workers”, August 5, 2025.

Yes, I can see this attitude spreading throughout the business world.

Interesting take on LLM’s use

So, it sounds like Palantir does not regard LLM’s as being that useful right now. Other companies are not getting much return in their investment in AI and Palantir believes the LLMs alone are not enough. Palantir has their own models that they use to up up the LLMs capabilities.

““LLMs simply don’t work in the real world without Palantir,””

Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, “Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI ‘danger zone’ as he plans to bring ‘superpowers’ to blue-collar workers”, August 5, 2025.

““LLMs, on their own, are at best a jagged intelligence divorced from even basic understanding,””

Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, “Palantir CEO warns of America’s AI ‘danger zone’ as he plans to bring ‘superpowers’ to blue-collar workers”, August 5, 2025.

The news are dreary

Every day I see more news about some AI expert warning about the dire future where AI dominates the world. Two scenarios float around: 1) AI threatens humans and possibly kills them; or 2) unemployment rises to scary levels in a few years, creating societal pain.

I want more news that proclaim that CEOs realize that you can’t cut the humans out; AI produces mediocre or even poor quality. But that is not happening fast enough.