Forget SaaS: Why AI Agents Could Make ServiceNow and Palantir Technologies the Next Trillion-Dollar Platforms

The article argues that agentic AI may not be a major threat to ServiceNow and Palantir because both already operate platforms that manage and unify AI workflows. It notes their shares are down 33% and 23% this year, but also highlights elevated valuations at 61x and 154x trailing earnings, which could cap near-term upside. Overall, the piece is more of a valuation-and-competitive-dynamics commentary than a catalyst-driven market event.

Analysis

The market is starting to reprice SaaS not as a linear software growth story, but as a workflow-automation stack where the economic moat shifts from seat count to control plane ownership. That is a subtle but important regime change: companies that merely embed AI into existing products risk cannibalizing their own ARPU, while platforms that become the orchestration layer can actually gain share as customers add agents and complexity. In that framing, NOW and PLTR are less exposed to agentic AI than legacy SaaS peers because they monetize coordination, governance, and integration rather than discrete user licenses.

The second-order winner is not just the software layer itself but the surrounding implementation ecosystem: systems integrators, data engineering consultancies, and cloud infrastructure providers should see longer project cycles and higher attach rates as enterprises move from pilot to production. The risk is that current valuation already discounts a large share of this platform advantage, so even good execution may not translate into outperformance unless growth re-accelerates or multiples compress across the group. That makes this more of a relative-value than a fundamental outright long at current levels.

Consensus is likely overstating the near-term obsolescence threat while understating the margin pressure from AI-assisted efficiency inside the software vendors themselves. Over 6–18 months, the key variable is not whether agents can do more work, but whether vendors can capture a larger share of the productivity gain without reducing billable units too quickly. If enterprise buyers adopt agentic AI faster than governance and security tooling matures, budgets may temporarily flow to infrastructure and services rather than pure-play application software.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Avoid initiating fresh outright longs in NOW or PLTR at current multiples; wait for either a 15-20% pullback or evidence of re-acceleration in remaining performance obligations and net retention over the next 1-2 quarters.
• Pair trade: long MSFT / short a basket of legacy SaaS names most exposed to seat-based pricing erosion; use this as a 3-6 month relative-value expression on AI monetization versus AI disruption.
• For existing PLTR holders, buy downside protection via 3-6 month puts financed with upside calls; the stock can still rerate on contract momentum, but valuation leaves little room for multiple compression.
• Use any post-earnings volatility spike in NOW to sell cash-secured puts or put spreads 10-15% below spot, targeting a 2:1 to 3:1 premium capture versus mark-to-market risk.
• Track systems integrators and data tooling vendors for a follow-through beneficiary trade over the next 6-12 months; enterprise agent rollout should pull budget toward implementation and governance before it flows back to application software.