I came across an image recently — one of those chaotic military diagrams showing satellites talking to drones, drones talking to radars, radars talking to ships, and everything linked through cyber, space, land, sea and air.
And it got me thinking. How on earth does any organisation make sense of all this?
More importantly, what does Palantir actually do across all of these domains? Because if you've ever seen their name in the news, it's almost always around something massive: defence, intelligence, healthcare, aviation, national infrastructure. But most people still couldn't explain it in plain English.
So… What Does Palantir Actually Do?
The simplest way to explain Palantir is this: they build software that helps organisations make complex decisions in real time when the stakes are high.
Not dashboards. Not one app. Not just AI.
A whole decision operating system that connects data, people, models and real-world actions.
Their toolkit looks like this (in human terms):
- Gotham — the "find the threat" and "understand what's going on" platform used in defence, intelligence and law enforcement. It fuses satellite feeds, drone footage, RF signals, databases, and human inputs into one picture.
- Foundry — the "run the company" platform used in industry and government. It models the entire organisation as a living digital twin and builds apps and workflows on top.
- Apollo — the "deliver software everywhere" system that updates and maintains these tools even in places with no internet, classified networks, or contested environments.
- AIP — the AI layer that allows teams to plug in LLMs and models, build agents, and actually execute actions safely with guardrails.
Taken together, it's less like buying software and more like getting a decision infrastructure.
A Simple Case Study: Airbus and Skywise
Let's make this concrete. Aviation is one of the most complex industries in the world. Thousands of suppliers. Millions of parts. Aircraft scattered globally. A single delay can ripple through an entire fleet.
Airbus built Skywise, a massive aviation data platform, using Palantir's Foundry.
What this allowed: - Maintenance teams could see issues before they became failures - Supply chain planners could match parts to the right aircraft - Engineers could run simulations and diagnose root causes - Finance leaders could see operational impacts instantly
Skywise now connects over 10,000 aircraft, dozens of airlines, and thousands of engineers and analysts — all working from a unified source of truth.
That's Palantir in one example: turning an industry-scale mess of data into actions that actually move planes, parts and people.
The Defence Picture
The diagram I saw — satellites, radars, cyber, EW, drones — is what militaries call multi-domain operations.
It used to take hours or days for intelligence teams to fuse that data manually. Now it needs to happen in seconds.
Palantir's Gotham fuses all of this: - Space sensors - Drone imagery - Radar signals - Cyber alerts - Human reports - Battlefield conditions
And turns it into something operators can actually use, including targeting data, situational awareness, resupply decisions and route planning.
Recent programmes include: - TITAN — the US Army's next-gen ground system for fusing space and aerial sensor data - Project Maven — AI that helps analysts identify patterns and points of interest more quickly - Ukraine support — publicly documented use of Palantir tools for battlefield intelligence
Why Palantir Matters Right Now
Three trends make this moment especially relevant:
1. AI is moving from chatbots to outcomes - Everyone can build demos. Very few can deploy AI into factories, fleets, hospitals, battlefields or supply chains. Palantir has quietly been doing that for a decade.
2. Governments are consolidating decision platforms - The US Army recently set up a multi-year enterprise framework so any unit can use Palantir software without individual procurement loops.
3. Industries need operational AI, not theoretical AI - Supply chains, energy grids, transportation networks and healthcare systems all need AI that connects to real processes.
The Public-Sector Tension
Palantir is extremely powerful, and that naturally raises questions:
- What does it mean when a private company underpins national healthcare data pipelines?
- How do we ensure transparency, lawful access and good governance?
- What does AI-enabled policing or defence require in terms of oversight?
These are essential debates. The NHS FDP contract, for instance, explicitly states the NHS is the data controller and Palantir is the processor, with tight constraints. But trust grows through communication, not contracts alone.
The important thing is to engage with the nuance — not panic, not blind optimism — but informed understanding.
Where This Is All Heading
Based on the trends, here's what seems likely:
- Operational AI becomes normal — AI woven into day-to-day workflows, not isolated tools.
- Enterprise-scale government usage grows — large frameworks, not scattered pilots.
- Defence AI moves toward more human-in-the-loop systems — not autonomy, but augmentation.
- Industrial digital twins become mandatory — energy, aviation, logistics and critical infrastructure run on unified data models.
- Decision infrastructure becomes a competitive advantage — the winners will be organisations that can decide, act and adapt faster than their environments.
Palantir isn't the only player, but it is one of the few sitting at the intersection of defence, industry and government at global scale.
If AI is no longer just about models but about how decisions are made, governed and deployed, are you choosing tools — or are you choosing a decision operating system for your organisation's future?
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