AI’s Software Winners and Losers Are Becoming Clearer

After last week’s earnings onslaught, things will likely quiet down this week. Aside from neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius, no major tech earnings announcements are scheduled, which gives us a chance to assess what we learned in the past week. One big takeaway is that the enterprise software sector has bifurcated between those firms that are getting something out of AI and those that are not. 

It’s no secret Palantir is a winner—its revenue leapt 89% in the first half of this year. As we wrote, Palantir has succeeded in winning lots of business with AI agents and human consultants that help clients make AI work for them. Then there’s Shopify, whose software powers online storefronts for merchants. The company last week reported 34% revenue growth for the quarter, in line with the first quarter—but an improvement on last year’s growth rate, which in turn was faster than 2024’s. Shopify is benefiting from AI chatbots that are giving shoppers recommendations on what to buy, pulling in many cases from its catalog of merchant products.