Salesforce beats Palantir on value, 14.4x vs 85.5x forward P/E

The two companies illustrate opposite ends of the AI software trade. Salesforce built its business on cloud CRM tools and is now steering customers toward Agentforce, its line of autonomous AI agents, which passed $1.5 billion in annual recurring revenue on Aug. 26, 2026. Its growth is steady rather than spectacular, and it has leaned on acquisitions — Informatica, Fin (the former Intercom), and, on Sept. 29, 2026, an agreement to buy Listen Labs — to add capability.

Palantir comes from a different direction. It sells data-integration and AI platforms chiefly to government agencies and commercial customers, and government buyers supplied 54% of its 2025 revenue. That mix has produced far faster growth and a 36.3% net margin in 2025, with no debt on the books. The trade-off, per the article, is a valuation that assumes the pace continues, even as growth at this scale gets harder to sustain.

For investors, the choice hinges less on which company is more impressive and more on what kind of exposure they want. The article's own reading is that Salesforce's mid-teens forward P/E offers a cushion for a slower story, while Palantir's premium makes it better suited to a small stake in a diversified portfolio. Whether that split holds will depend on how quickly Agentforce converts its recurring revenue into overall growth and whether Palantir can keep expanding without a stumble.