If you put ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) and Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) side by side, they both look like slick artificial intelligence (AI) businesses selling software as a service (SaaS) to big governments and global enterprises. The stories feel similar until you zero in on one number that really explains why their growth rates look so different: how fast U.S. commercial revenue is growing. This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again.
In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue » ServiceNow comes into this comparison as a mature cloud platform.
It already sits inside thousands of large organizations, running workflows for IT, HR, security, and customer service. The AI products it is pushing now, like Now Assist, are layered onto a foundation built long before the current AI wave. In Q2 2026, ServiceNow reported total revenue of about $3.9 billion, with subscription revenue up roughly 23% year over year in constant currency.
That is healthy growth for a company of its size and age. The more telling numbers are in the order backlog. Remaining performance obligations reached about $29 billion, and current RPO, the contract revenue due in the next 12 months, stood at about $13.2 billion with growth of a bit more than 21%.
ServiceNow's AI story fits that profile. AI annual contract value crossed $1 billion in Q2, driven by hundreds of seven-figure deals and expanding commitments from existing customers. This is AI as an accelerator atop a large installed base.
Growth is strong, but it is tied to a world where many customers already use ServiceNow and are now paying more for AI-infused workflows. Palantir lives in a different part of the curve. Historically, it was known as a government and defense contractor, selling powerful data platforms to militaries and intelligence agencies.
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