Palantir vs. CrowdStrike: Which AI-Powered Software Stock Will Dominate 2026?

Artificial intelligence (AI) spending has grown at an impressive pace in recent years. In fact, research firm Gartner estimates global AI spending will soar 44% year over year from around $1.7 trillion in 2025 to over $2.5 trillion in 2026.

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That surge in spending has opened opportunities for both companies building AI systems and those securing them. Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) leverages data, analytics, and AI to help governments and businesses analyze operational data and make informed decisions. CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) helps protect companies' technology systems from cyber threats.

The question for investors is which company has the stronger opportunity heading into 2026.

The case for Palantir

Palantir has emerged as one of the fastest-growing enterprise AI companies, driven mainly by the rapid adoption of its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). AIP helps government agencies and enterprises connect large language models with their internal data and business processes. This enables AI-driven decision-making across workflows and business functions.

Palantir differentiates itself from other enterprise AI companies through its ontology framework. Ontology helps relate the company's digital data to its real physical assets, relationships, and business processes. Hence, the software understands how different parts of the business work together. When AI tools work on top of that structure, they can help automate decisions rather than just analyze data.

This approach has translated into rapid financial growth. Palantir's revenues soared 56% year over year to roughly $4.5 billion, while operating income was up 32% year over year to $1.4 billion in fiscal 2025 (ending Dec. 31, 2025). Management is also guiding for fiscal 2026 revenues of $7.19 billion at the midpoint, implying 61% year-over-year growth.

In fiscal 2025, Palantir saw U.S. revenues grow 75% year over year to $3.32 billion, with U.S. commercial revenues jumping 109% year over year as companies began rolling out AIP across more departments.

Palantir is also seeing its existing customers expand usage of its products. The company closed $4.3 billion in total contract value in the fourth quarter, up 138% year over year. The company's net dollar retention rate was 139%, up 5 percentage points year over year. This metric implies that existing customers, as well as new customers acquired in the fourth quarter of the previous year, collectively increased spending on Palantir's solutions by 39% on a year-over-year basis.

Palantir's long-term relationships with government and defense agencies have also helped create a sticky customer base.

Considering all the factors, Palantir is proving to be a core AI platform for organizations globally.

The case for CrowdStrike

As companies deploy AI systems, expand cloud infrastructure, and connect more devices to the enterprise network, the potential for cyber threats is also rising.

Cybersecurity player CrowdStrike is positioned to benefit from this opportunity, as it helps organizations detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats across their digital infrastructure. The company's Falcon platform helps secure devices, cloud-based workloads, and user identities through a cloud-native system. Falcon includes a security information and event management (SIEM) solution, which analyzes security data across the organization's digital network to detect suspicious activity.

CrowdStrike has embedded AI capabilities into the Falcon platform through Charlotte AI. This virtual AI assistant acts like an AI-powered security analyst, helping teams investigate threats, prioritize alerts, and respond faster through natural language queries. Beyond Charlotte, CrowdStrike has also built an agentic security platform with 10 additional AI agents, each designed with specific security skills to perform security roles. Together, these agents act like a digital security team working alongside human analysts.

CrowdStrike's financial results show strong demand for these tools. The company reported fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 31, 2026) revenues of $4.8 billion, up 22% year over year. Subscription revenue increased 21% year over year to roughly $4.5 billion. The company also added nearly $1 billion in net new annual recurring revenue (ARR) in fiscal 2026, up 25% year over year. This is a key metric to track the pace of subscription growth.

CrowdStrike's new security products are also seeing robust traction. The company's cloud security, next-gen identity, and next-generation SIEM businesses exited fiscal 2026 with a collective ARR of over $1.9 billion, which was up more than 45% year over year. Its cloud security business alone surpassed $800 million in ARR, while next-generation SIEM exceeded $585 million in ARR in fiscal 2026.

CrowdStrike differentiates itself from the competition with its enormous data of real-world security events. The company's Threat Graph system analyzes more than 1 trillion security events daily across roughly 2 trillion data points, helping the company detect patterns and improve its AI models. Since this data is based on real events, it is helping train AI models to effectively detect and stop real-world breaches in real time.

Finally, CrowdStrike's Falcon Flex subscription model has also helped increase adoption. Customers can purchase a bundle of security tools and expand their usage over time. CrowdStrike ended fiscal 2026 with $1.69 billion in ARR from Flex customers, up more than 120% year over year.

Which will dominate 2026?

Palantir currently trades at about 82.5 times forward earnings, while CrowdStrike trades at roughly 69.1 times forward earnings (as of March 15, 2026). While both companies are trading at elevated valuation multiples, the key difference lies in how they monetize growth.

Palantir is benefiting from large, expanding deployments as enterprises adopt AI across their workflows. While such projects can dramatically propel top-line growth, they can also lead to more revenue volatility. On the other hand, CrowdStrike generates the majority of its revenue from recurring subscriptions, since cybersecurity spending is mission-critical.

Hence, both companies can emerge as leaders in 2026. Palantir, however, may appeal more to growth-focused investors with higher risk appetite, while CrowdStrike may suit those who prefer a more balanced risk-reward profile.

Manali Pradhan, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.