Associate

Truist initiates Palantir with A buy rating. Accenture acquires rival Faculty. * REINHARDT KRAUSE * Updated 08:32 AM ET 01/06/2026 A Truist Securities analyst initiated coverage on Palantir Technologies (PLTR) on Tuesday with a buy rating and, like many other Wall Street analysts, cited its artificial intelligence prowess. But he also expects the data analytics software maker to "significantly increase capital returns over the long term" for Palantir stock. Truist Securities analyst Arvind Ramnani initiated Palantir stock with a buy rating and price target of 223. Meanwhile, Accenture (ACN) on Tuesday announced the purchase of Faculty, a U.K.-based artificial intelligence startup and rival of Palantir. Faculty's Chief Executive Officer Marc Warner will become Accenture's chief technology officer and the AI company's staff of about 400 people will join the information technology services giant. On the stock market today, Palantir stock rose a fraction to 175.15 in early trading. In the first two trading days of 2026, Palantir stock dipped over 3%. In 2025, Palantir stock rose 135% While Ramnani views Palantir as a leading artificial intelligence software provider, he also expects Palantir to significantly increase capital returns over the long term. "Now operating at a 40%-plus free cash flow margin profile, we see potential for Palantir to significantly increase capital returns over the long term," he said in a report. "While high levels of stock-based compensation had been an investor concern for some time, Palantir has shown it can operate profitably by generating positive GAAP EPS for the past 12 quarters and on track for a 13th straight quarter." As of Sept. 30, Palantir had $6.4 billion in cash and liquidity on its balance sheet. It does not currently offer a stock repurchase program or dividends. Artificial Intelligence push. Founded in 2003, Palantir provides data analytics tools to government customers for intelligence gathering, counterterrorism and military purposes. Palantir's tools are used in AI decision-making. Now Palantir aims to use generative AI to spur growth in the U.S. commercial market, such as health care and financial services. Generative AI relies on advanced reasoning models and provides novel outputs based on conversational user prompts. In 2025, Palantir hosted its eighth artificial intelligence conference for customers. Palantir initially rolled out its "Artificial Intelligence Platform" in early 2023. AIPCon showcases real-world AI use cases from customers. "We view Palantir as a best-in-class AI asset," Ramnani added. "We think Palantir is ideally positioned for increased AI adoption: Palantir holds a unique market position in our view, ideally positioned for increased AI adoption by both government organizations and enterprises. The company has provided a leading software platform that integrates large organizations' proprietary data with their operations and security to improve decision-making, which now positions Palantir to capture GenAI implementation with its AIP as organizations race to generate insights and efficiencies with the technology." Palantir stock technical ratings. Meanwhile, Palantir's Relative Strength Rating stands at 93 out of a best-possible 99. But PLTR stock holds an Accumulation/Distribution Rating of C-plus. That rating analyzes price and volume changes in a stock over the past 13 weeks of trading. A+ signifies heavy institutional buying; E means heavy selling. Think of a C grade as neutral. Also, Palantir stock holds a Composite Rating of 99 out of a best-possible 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. IBD's Composite Rating combines five separate proprietary ratings into one easy-to-use rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better. Follow Reinhardt Krause on X, formerly Twitter, @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and cloud computing.

UK defence and aerospace giant Leonardo has announced the first partnership under its newly launched SME Collaboration Partner Programme, teaming up with London-based Faculty AI to co-develop next-generation AI-powered defence technologies.The initiative marks a strategic push by Leonardo to harness innovation from the UK’s SME sector, as the government moves to increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP and encourages broader participation in national security innovation. This collaboration reflects broader trends across Europe, where large defence primes are increasingly turning to nimble, specialist tech firms to inject speed and flexibility into R&D pipelines.The Faculty partnership will focus initially on Cognitive Intelligent Sensing (CoInS) and Electronic Warfare (EW) technologies. These systems use AI and machine learning to process real-time data, with applications ranging from sensor autonomy to combat aircraft countermeasures.“Our goal is to move beyond a transactional prime-supplier relationship,” said Professor Simon Harwood, Capability Director at Leonardo UK. “We’ll be looking for opportunities where Leonardo’s expertise in defence electronics sensors and integration, military rotorcraft and cyber security can incorporate the AI expertise of Faculty to deliver something of tangible benefit to our customers.”Faculty AI, one of the UK’s most prominent independent AI companies, will bring its experience in deploying AI for operational optimisation and real-world decision-making. The firm has previously worked with the NHS and UK government departments, and its AI models are already in use in highly regulated and sensitive environments.“We’ve used AI to solve frontline problems for a decade and are world-leading experts in this field,” said Marc Warner, CEO of Faculty AI. “AI is already reshaping defence – enabling faster, more accurate decision-making, improved threat detection and greater operational efficiency

UK government education policy is being shaken up by a UK startup, which is leveraging AI to help teachers mark homework. Faculty AI is behind the government initiative, which pools data to create AI apps aimed at making a teacher's job easier.Faculty AI, which worked with Vote Leave on the Brexit Referendum, last year won a £3m Department of Education contract to build a “content store”. The store is a database of curriculum and lesson plan data, including anonymised work from pupils.From this database, developers will develop AI tools, such as AI tools for marking homework and planning lessons, to help ease the workload of teachers and innovate in the classroom. AI tools likely to be launched could help teachers with marking, planning lessons, or alleviating other time-consuming exercises.Tom Nixon, managing director, applied AI, Faculty AI, says the “content store” concept has been positively received by teachers and could be used across other government departments.For example, AI applications could be built from pooled data to help improve efficiencies across the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Nixon said the “content store’ concept had already been used as the blueprint behind the government's new National Data Library.Nixon added:“Our impression is that there are lots of other different areas of government for which that Content Store concept be applied, for either text content or potentially more numerical tabular content. “To give some examples, things like geospatial data, and energy data, not personal customer energy data, but more the data about energy systems, things like agriculture, and agri-tech, and rules and regulations around agriculture.”Faculty AI, founded in 2014, works with the UK government on different projects, including supplying data services to the NHS and providing services to the UK’s AI Institute