Palantir's tech chief says businesses are not using AI enough

Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar says the industry is not focused enough on getting AI into everyday use at companies. He made the case in a long interview with Ben Thompson of Stratechery. The term for this is AI diffusion, meaning how widely and how well businesses actually put the technology to work.

What he said

Sankar has worked at Palantir for 20 years and wrote the book Mobilize. In the interview, he also argues that companies focused on the top line, meaning sales and revenue, have more success adopting AI. He says he is frustrated that the AI labs refuse to take a systems engineering approach to AI safety. The published excerpt does not include his full reasoning on either point.

What else the interview covers

• What Palantir has learned from AI
• Whether the world needs more AI models
• What a forward-deployed engineer does
• Why he says tech is in a religious war
• His look back at Anthropic's fight with the U.S. government

The excerpt also covers his background. He was born in India, lived in Lagos until age three, then grew up in Orlando. He later worked on money transfers at Xoom before joining Palantir. Stripe presented the interview.

What is not known from this material is the evidence behind his claims. For business owners, the practical reading is that a strong AI tool alone may not be enough, and that tying AI to growth may matter.