Palantir's Most Important Announcement Since AIP

how big can this get...

Welcome back to DailyPalantir! Today’s newsletter will be focused on Palantir’s latest product: AIPNow. Let’s get into it!

AIPNow

So, on Friday Palantir released a brand new product: AIPNow.

Now, originally when I saw this, I didn’t think it was a product. I thought it was a centralized hub to show off use cases of Palantir’s AIP product via slideshows and videos.

It seems like it’s much, much more.

Palantir’s Problem

First, what has Palantir’s problem always been?

Alex Karp has said Palantir’s products have always been thick. The 'thick' nature of Palantir's offerings refers to the rich, intricate features designed to solve complex problems for businesses and organizations. While these features are highly valuable, they also necessitate a significant commitment from clients in terms of resources and time to integrate and fully utilize the software. This complexity can act as a barrier to entry for some potential clients, especially smaller businesses that may lack the necessary infrastructure or expertise.

Karp's critique is rooted in the need for Palantir to strike a balance between maintaining the depth and robustness of its software while also making it more accessible and easier to adopt for a broader market. The goal is to 'thin out' the product without diluting its core value proposition. By doing so, Palantir aims to expand its customer base and increase the software's widespread adoption, ultimately driving growth and revenue.

The strategic focus on making Foundry more modular involves breaking down the software into smaller, more manageable components. These components can then be offered as standalone products or services that are easier for clients to implement and use. This approach could potentially open up new markets for Palantir, including smaller enterprises and retail businesses that could benefit from specific aspects of Foundry without needing the full suite of tools.

3 reasons why Palantir modularizing matters:

Firstly, it allows the company to cater to a broader range of clients, including those who may not require the full suite of tools that Foundry or AIP offers. By breaking down the platforms into smaller, more focused components, Palantir can offer solutions that are more tailored to specific business needs, making their products more attractive to small and medium-sized businesses.

Secondly, modular components can serve as an entry point for new clients. Organizations that are hesitant to commit to a full-scale implementation might be more willing to try out individual modules. Once these clients experience the benefits of Palantir's technology on a smaller scale, they may be more inclined to adopt additional modules or even the full platform.

Thirdly, modularization can lead to easier and quicker implementation. Smaller components can be integrated with existing systems with less disruption to business operations. This can reduce the time and resources required for onboarding and training, leading to faster realization of value from the investment.

So…we know Palantir needs to modularize. We know Palantir has been scaling bootcamps massively.

How do you create a go to market strategy that scales a modularized version of Foundry/AIP?

Introducing AIPNow

I don’t fully understand this product yet. I believe we will get some updates from Palantir soon on what exactly this product is and why it’s so important.

However, my grasp on the product is informed by people I’ve talked to over the past few days and digging deeper into what Palantir is trying to do:

AIPNow could become iOS for the enterprise.

This iOS for the enterprise, or App Store model, has been talked about for the past few years. On the recent Paalantir Weekly podcast, Codestrap — someone who works in implementing Foundry daily, confirmed that he believes this is what AIP Now is going for.

To become the "iOS for the enterprise," Palantir would need to ensure that its platforms are not only powerful in terms of data integration and analytics but also user-friendly and adaptable to various business needs. This would involve creating an ecosystem where third-party developers can build and deploy their applications, much like the App Store on iOS. Additionally, Palantir would need to focus on scalability, allowing businesses of all sizes to leverage its software effectively.

Palantir's platforms would also need to be highly secure and compliant with various industry regulations, ensuring that sensitive corporate data is protected. This aspect is particularly important for enterprises that operate in regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government services. By providing robust security features and compliance tools, Palantir could position itself as a trusted platform for enterprises.

What AIPNow looks like is a way for customers around the world to sign up, put in their credit card info, and immediately download workflows on the website (there seems to be hundreds of them) and begin applying them to their own data.

A bootcamp for Palantir is basically an engineer helping a client use their own data on the workflows in AIP terminal. If Palantir could automate that in a way that is scaleable because clients can sign up for a free trial, get access to a freemium model, and then just start building….and ask Palantir’s internal AIP tool they built and showed at AIPcon how to do certain things, and then get answers since that AIP tool is trained on all the bootcamp sessions?

Yeah, this thing can scale aggressively. Millions of small businesses that need different workflows like payroll automations for example can immediately download the part of AIP they need from Palantir, just like they would signup to AWS and pay as low as $10/month to get started, and the more they use that part of AIP, the more they can pay.

The small restaurant doing $2M a year might be able to afford Palantir now, not just a Fortune 500 company.

Let’s look at Salesforce, a company with a marketcap Palantir may be able to achieve something similar to one day, if not more:

Salesforce's growth was driven by its ability to provide a versatile CRM platform that catered to businesses of all sizes, which became an industry standard. Palantir can draw lessons from this by making its data analytics platforms, such as Foundry and AIP, more user-friendly and adaptable to various industries and business needs.

To achieve this level of scalability, Palantir would need to continue evolving its products to ensure they are not only powerful but also easier for a wider range of businesses to implement. This could involve creating more modular components that can be used independently or in conjunction with other systems. Additionally, Palantir could focus on building a robust partner ecosystem, encouraging third-party developers to create applications that integrate with its platforms, similar to the AppExchange in Salesforce.

Examples of SMB’s using AIP

There’s plenty of demand from SMB’s for a software like AIP in my opinion.

Example: Ecommerce Store

Consider a small e-commerce company that wants to optimize its inventory management and customer service. AIP could be used to integrate and analyze data from various sources, such as sales transactions, customer feedback, and supply chain information, to improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

By using AIP Assist, the e-commerce company could automate the process of data pipeline creation, which would enable them to quickly integrate new data sources as they expand their product offerings or enter new markets. This would help the company maintain a real-time view of their inventory levels and sales trends without requiring extensive technical expertise.

With AIP Logic, the company could develop a proprietary LLM tailored to their specific business needs. For example, they could create an LLM that understands their product catalog and customer inquiries to provide automated, intelligent responses to common customer questions. This would enhance the customer service experience while freeing up human resources for more complex tasks.

Restaurant

A small restaurant chain could leverage Palantir's AIP to enhance various aspects of its operations, from supply chain management to customer experience and marketing strategies. By utilizing AIP's capabilities, the restaurant can analyze complex data sets to optimize its menu, manage inventory, and personalize customer interactions.

AIP Assist could be employed to automate the ingestion and integration of data from point-of-sale systems, inventory logs, supplier information, and customer feedback. This would enable the restaurant to have a real-time understanding of which menu items are popular, which ingredients are being used most, and what customers are saying about their dining experience.

With AIP Logic, the restaurant could develop a custom LLM to predict future inventory needs based on historical sales data, current trends, and even local events that might affect customer turnout. This predictive analysis could help the restaurant reduce food waste by ordering the optimal amount of fresh ingredients and ensuring that popular items are always available.

If AIPNow immediately allowed businesses to create applications or train Palantir’s built in applications on their own data within minutes…this becomes a game changer, and to me it becomes the most important announcement since Palantir announced AIP because it showcases the way Palantir is going to get AIP to scale.

Palantir has been doubted for a long time — if they can modularize their product and make it an offering that all SMB’s around the world could have access to within a few clicks, customer count will grow — which means topline revenue will grow, and that should inch us higher from the 20% projected growth rate in 2024 if this begins to scale over the coming quarters.

Thank you for reading — I’ll see you tomorrow in your inbox and as always, you can support the newsletter by signing up for a yearly subscription to hobbits.ai, a custom LLM built and trained on Palantir content.