Salesforce Agentforce ARR Surpasses $1.5B, Outpaces ServiceNow

Key Takeaways

• Salesforce Agentforce ARR surpassed $1.5 billion, growing over 240% year over year
• ServiceNow's AI annual contract value exceeded $1 billion in Q2 2026
• Salesforce trades at 14.50X forward P/E, half of ServiceNow's 29.36X
• Palantir U.S. commercial revenue jumped 149% year over year to $764 million in Q2 2026
• Citigroup raised 2026 ROTCE outlook above 11% and reported AI efficiency gains of 30-40% faster product launches
• Amphenol's IT datacom market grew 89% YoY while Vertiv posted 24% sales growth
• BlackRock partnered with Meta on AI infrastructure in a ~$40 billion data center deal
• Teradata's new Elastic Python Compute cut a telecom provider's runtime from 4 hours to 20 minutes
• Evos raised $9M for autonomous AI operators, hitting $1M ARR in four weeks
• OpenAI reports EU businesses adopting agentic AI, with weekly active users growing eightfold since May 2026

Salesforce gains edge over ServiceNow in AI stock race

Salesforce and ServiceNow both benefit from enterprise AI adoption, but Salesforce has stronger earnings revisions and faster AI growth. Agentforce annual recurring revenue surpassed $1.5 billion, growing over 240% year over year. ServiceNow's AI annual contract value exceeded $1 billion in the second quarter of 2026. Salesforce trades at a forward P/E of 14.50X, much lower than ServiceNow's 29.36X, making it the more attractive choice for investors.

Citigroup raises return outlook and reports AI efficiency gains

Citigroup reported Q3 earnings of $2.85 per share, beating estimates of $2.66. The company raised its 2026 return on tangible common equity outlook to above 11%. AI-enabled processes have sped up product launches by about 30 to 40 percent. Chief Financial Officer Gonzalo Luchetti also expects net interest income growth in the mid-to-high 6 percent range for 2026.

Vertiv and Amphenol compete for AI infrastructure investment

Vertiv reported second quarter 2026 net sales growth of 24 percent year over year and expects third quarter sales between $3.65 billion and $3.85 billion. Amphenol's IT datacom market, its largest end market, grew 89 percent year over year. Amphenol expects third quarter revenues of $9.3 billion to $9.4 billion, representing 50 to 52 percent year over year growth. Both companies are benefiting from strong demand for AI infrastructure.

Palantir AIP platform drives rapid U.S. commercial growth

Palantir's U.S. commercial revenues rose 149 percent year over year to $764 million in the second quarter of 2026. The company's U.S. commercial customer count grew 35 percent to 653. Total contract value reached $2.13 billion, up 153 percent year over year. The Artificial Intelligence Platform AIP helps businesses integrate AI into their daily operations and workflows.

Telekom Srbija expands AI investment and U.S. partnerships

Telekom Srbija Group is increasing its AI investment after an October 1 agreement between Serbia and the United States. The company plans to launch mobile services in the United States in December 2026 through the AT&T network. CEO Vladimir Lučić said the company is combining AI innovation with its expanding 5G infrastructure. The group expects to reach markets representing about 700 million people across the United States, Germany and Turkey.

Telekom Srbija Group Expands AI Investment and U.S. Partnerships

Telekom Srbija Group is increasing its investment in AI after an October 1 agreement between Serbia and the United States. The company is working with U.S. agencies and banks to fund technology projects. It plans to launch mobile services in the United States in December 2026 through AT&T, reaching about 700 million people across the U.S., Germany and Turkey.

ECMR Improves Multi-Agent AI Reasoning With Evidence Tracking

ECMR is a new controller that helps multi-agent AI systems avoid flawed group decisions. It checks how evidence is shared and whether answers are truly supported. In tests on 9,000 records from MedQA, CaseHOLD and FinQA, ECMR-Full raised accuracy from 62.1% to 84.9% and cut false consensus from 40.7% to 17.0%.

EU Business AI Use Turns Agentic, OpenAI Report Shows

OpenAI reports that EU businesses are increasingly using agentic AI tools that complete tasks. Among ChatGPT Enterprise customers, Codex and ChatGPT Work make up more than half of output tokens in the EU. Weekly active users among small and medium EU businesses grew more than eightfold since May 2026. EU frontier firms use AI much more than typical firms but still trail global leaders.

Giant Raises $8m to Create AI Kids Content Against YouTube

Giant, a startup co-founded by John Kobs, raised $8 million to build generative AI entertainment for children. The company wants to give kids interactive stories they help shape instead of passive YouTube watching. Giant is COPPA certified, flags unsuitable content and does not run ads. The goal is to encourage children to create rather than just consume content.

Las Vegas Startup Uses AI to Watch Casino Tables

EagleSight.ai uses Vision AI to turn casino cameras into smart monitoring agents. It detects dealer errors and cheating in real time for Resorts World and other casinos. Founder Trevor Outman started the company in 2024. A pilot program reached nearly 90% accuracy and may expand to almost 30 tables. The company says casinos lose 1% to 2.5% of table game revenue each year to undetected errors.

Teradata launches Elastic Python Compute for AI workloads

Teradata announced general availability of Elastic Python Compute in AI Studio, built on the Ray framework. The tool supports parallel Python execution for data engineering, model training and custom applications. A telecom provider cut feature engineering runtime from four hours to twenty minutes. The service is available on AWS, Microsoft Azure and on-premises, with Google Cloud expected in Q4 2026.

BlackRock forecasts strong Q4 amid AI investment growth

BlackRock reported third-quarter revenue growth of 19% year-over-year to $7.75 billion and adjusted earnings of $15.93 per share. The company repurchased $550 million in shares in Q3 and plans to buy back at least another $550 million in Q4. BlackRock raised $68 billion in private markets over the past 12 months and partnered with Meta Platforms on AI infrastructure. Its AI infrastructure partnership completed the Align Data Center transaction valued at roughly $40 billion in enterprise value.

Evos raises $9M for autonomous AI factory operators

Evos raised $9 million in pre-seed funding co-led by Uncork Capital and Field Ventures. The company hit $1 million in ARR four weeks after going live with autonomous AI operators for industrial businesses. One operator at MyFreightWorld audited nearly 3,500 LTL carrier invoices at 97% accuracy. Evos plans to formally launch its Platform, Workhorse, in the coming weeks.

CyberXero uses AI tools to run two cyber campaigns

CyberXero, a Russian-speaking hacking group, used AI tools including Claude Code agents and PentAGI to run two parallel cyberattack campaigns. The group scanned over 56,000 WordPress and ecommerce URLs and targeted seven Ukrainian energy and utilities organizations. Attackers stole more than 564,000 subscriber records from Ukrainian critical infrastructure groups. They also grabbed over 213,000 access-log entries with timestamps and IP addresses.

Sources

• Salesforce vs. ServiceNow: Which AI Software Stock Has the Edge?
• Citigroup Q3 Earnings Call Highlights Higher Return Outlook and AI Gains
• Vertiv vs. Amphenol: Which AI Infrastructure Stock Has an Edge Now?
• Is Palantir's AIP Platform Fueling Explosive U.S. Commercial Growth?
• Telekom Srbija Group Expands AI Investment and Strengthens U.S. Technology Partnerships
• Telekom Srbija Group Expands AI Investment and Strengthens U.S. Technology Partnerships
• ECMR: Evidence-Aware Deliberation Control for Multi-Agent LLM Reasoning
• The EU’s next chapter in AI is agentic
• We’ve raised $8m to use generative AI to save our kids from YouTube
• Las Vegas startup brings AI to the casino eye in the sky
• A telecom provider cut AI data prep from 4 hours to 20 minutes
• BlackRock Expects Strong Fourth Quarter as AI Investment, Fundraising Grow
• Evos raises $9M to bottle shop-floor know-how
• CyberXero Uses AI Orchestration Layer to Run Two Cyber Campaigns