Menlo Ventures puts enterprise AI spending at $177 billion, Palantir grows revenue 96%, and more - Enterprise AI Brief #92

In this edition, covering 30 October to 5 November:

• Menlo Ventures estimates enterprise generative AI deployment spending reached $176.8 billion by September 2026, with Anthropic holding 55% of enterprise API spend.
• Palantir's third quarter revenue rose 96% to $2.313 billion, and US commercial revenue passed US government revenue for the first time.
• ADNOC will deploy OpenAI's Frontier technology across its operations, and Greg Brockman says OpenAI could be ready to go public in 2027.

This spot is open for 2027. One company puts its name on every Enterprise AI Brief, which has 1,800+ subscribers. See what's included

From our lists

Hosted speech recognition APIs that turn audio into text for applications.

Hosted Speech Recognition APIs

Enterprise AI spending and adoption

Menlo Ventures estimates enterprise generative AI deployment spending reached $176.8 billion by September 2026, up 5.4 times from $33 billion, with Anthropic's share of enterprise API spend at 55%, OpenAI's at 31% and Google's at 9%. A Further survey of 515 US AI decision makers says 69% of companies investing in AI remain in the exploration, experimentation or implementation stages. An MIT Sloan and MIT FutureTech working paper finds 32% of the world's 100 largest companies and 62% of the 1,000 largest have publicly acknowledged no AI risks. Menlo Ventures · Further · MIT Sloan

In a Miro survey of more than 9,500 workers and leaders, 83% reported higher individual productivity with AI and 56% reported better output quality. A Quickbase and Pave survey of 5,177 US employees found 24% had built an app with AI that they used for work. Precisely and the Americas SAP Users Group report 46% of organisations use AI for automated or human assisted SAP tasks, and 3% use fully automated AI processes. Miro · Quickbase and Pave · Precisely and ASUG

Trace3 says uncoordinated AI purchases can duplicate software, data preparation and operating costs, citing Gartner data that 22% of surveyed organizations had scaled AI across several business units. Trace3

The OECD says 20% of enterprises in its member economies used AI in 2025, against 52% of large firms. OECD

West Monroe's 2026 survey of 300 US executives found 74% of enterprise buyers allocate more than 10% of their IT budgets to AI, up from 23% in 2025. West Monroe

OpenAI

ADNOC will deploy OpenAI's Frontier technology across its operations, using GPT models and inference infrastructure in the UAE, under an agreement signed by G42 subsidiary Inception42. Cognizant formed an OpenAI Frontier Capability Group with more than 25,000 professionals to help enterprises use Codex and ChatGPT for software development, modernization and customer operations. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told a Wall Street Journal conference the company could be ready to go public in 2027 and now gets most of its revenue from enterprise sales. ADNOC · Cognizant · IPO

Mastercard is partnering with OpenAI to support AI shopping agents through Agent Pay, and signed a memorandum of understanding with Tencent's TenPay Global on agentic and cross border payments. Heimstaden, the European residential landlord, uses OpenAI for rental pricing, advertising, listing reviews, environmental risk analysis and procurement, with employees keeping responsibility for approvals. Mastercard · Heimstaden

Anthropic and apps that connect to AI assistants

Claude Enterprise administrators can now authorize connectors centrally through an identity provider or Claude issued authentication, and users connect automatically when they first use an enabled app. Paris based consulting firm Sia moved up to Preferred Partner in Anthropic's Claude Partner Network and received the Delivery Readiness Designation for Claude Code and Claude Cowork. Claude connectors · Sia

Adobe says CX Enterprise Coworker, its agentic system for marketing teams, is now available through ChatGPT, Claude, Databricks Genie, Gemini for business and Microsoft Copilot. FlowForma lets users build workflows through Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, while execution and approvals stay in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online. Tana's Bring Your Own Agent connects Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Mistral, Lovable and Gemini to Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls to complete approved tasks. Adobe · FlowForma · Tana

Levvy added AI tools for invoice processing, call follow ups, workflow creation and profitability analysis for accounting firms, plus connections to Claude and ChatGPT, in all plans. Levvy

Apple

Apple acquired the data engineering firm Ascend.io from Ascension Labs; an EU listing says the deal closed on 30 June 2026 and gave Apple a nonexclusive license to its patents. Apple reduced daily AI spending limits for some engineers from $300 to $200 and is considering further cuts, Bloomberg reports. Ascend.io · Spending limits

Quarterly results

Palantir's third quarter revenue rose 96% to $2.313 billion, US commercial revenue rose 148% to $984 million, and it raised full year revenue growth guidance to 91%. Fractal reported Q2 FY27 operating revenue of INR 9,565 million, up 20%, its first quarter above $100 million, with net income up 139%. MercadoLibre raised its AI investment by $30 million from the previous quarter and says AI search revenue more than covers model costs. Palantir · Fractal · MercadoLibre

Sinch reported third quarter net sales of SEK 7.085 billion, up 5% organically, and joined the SpaceX Super Intelligence Partner Network with a plugin for apps built with Grok Build. Sinch results · Grok Build

EPAM reported third quarter revenue of $1.426 billion, up 2.3%, launched Frontier AI Services and raised its full year guidance. EPAM

Applied Optoelectronics reported record third quarter revenue of $269.9 million and forecast $385 million to $420 million for the fourth quarter on AI datacenter demand. Genpact reported third quarter revenue of $1.385 billion, up 7.3%, as Advanced Technology Solutions revenue rose 30.3% to $405 million, and raised its 2026 outlook. Teradata reported third quarter revenue of $399 million, down 4%, while public cloud ARR rose 11% to $700 million, and released Teradata Factory with new AI capabilities. Applied Optoelectronics · Genpact · Teradata

Deals and funding

Salesforce agreed to acquire Rune Technologies, whose software helps US military and allied frontline teams manage logistics with limited or no connectivity, for its Missionforce portfolio. DocuSign acquired Seattle based Suplari, which analyzes corporate spending and supplier data, for undisclosed terms. Chord acquired Zenlytic, which doubles Chord's revenue and adds customers including Verizon, J.Crew, Domino's and Stanley Black & Decker. Salesforce · DocuSign · Chord

Larridin raised $30 million in a Series A led by Pelion Ventures for its platform that measures AI spending, adoption and business value, bringing total funding to $47 million. Berlin based Conlio raised €6.4 million led by Piton Capital for AI that checks freight documents. London based Ares Intelligence raised €2.9 million from Creandum, Lakestar and angels to find AI adoption opportunities through confidential voice interviews with employees. Larridin · Conlio · Ares Intelligence

EnterpriseDB bought Altinity to bring ClickHouse analytics into EDB Postgres AI. EnterpriseDB

Ocient raised $100 million in a Series C led jointly by BOKA Capital and OCA Ventures, bringing total funding to $260 million, to expand its OcientAIQ platform. Israel based Priority Software acquired Fireberry, adding AI powered CRM, sales, marketing automation and customer service tools to its cloud ERP and business management portfolio. Hexaware Technologies signed a five year framework to support the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's global technology operations with AI, data analytics and automation. Ocient · Priority and Fireberry · Hexaware and EBRD

Data platforms and agent tools

Snowflake expanded Cortex AI Gateway controls for monitoring, tracing, model routing, cost management and tool access, and opened a public preview of Cortex Training for open weight models. Confluent, an IBM company, introduced Streamhouse, an architecture that gives AI agents governed, continuously updated business data, and made Lightning Tables generally available on AWS. PhoenixAI launched Contextbase, one database for the semantics, knowledge, memory, traces and evaluations of AI agents, in private preview. Snowflake · Confluent · PhoenixAI

Sema4.ai released version 3.0 of its agent platform and says verified queries use 80% fewer LLM tokens and return results up to four times faster. Kyndryl combined its Agentic Modernization services with AWS Transform to help organisations modernise applications, infrastructure and core systems. Xebia is integrating CAST's software intelligence into Xebia Ace to map application estates and plan modernization with agentic AI. Sema4.ai · Kyndryl and AWS · Xebia and CAST

NTT DATA Business Solutions became an SAP Business AI Platform validated partner and says one agent automates more than 90% of supplier confirmations at Lemvigh Müller. NTT DATA

Mondelēz International and Accenture are applying agentic AI across Mondelēz's global order to cash process. Mondelēz

Litera partnered with filerskeepers to bring global legal retention rules into its FileTrail records management and added a SharePoint connector for FileTrail. Litera and filerskeepers

Box announced Content Retrieval, built with Nvidia Nemotron embeddings, which it says could make agent queries four times faster with 90% fewer tokens, for Enterprise Advanced customers in early 2027. Box also introduced Box Architect for building and managing AI agent workflows with existing content, permissions and tools, and made agent security controls generally available to eligible customers. Box Content Retrieval · Box Architect

Google Cloud introduced AI.AGG in preview, a BigQuery GoogleSQL function that uses Gemini models to aggregate and summarize text and multimodal data across millions of rows. Reducto made its r-1 document parsing model generally available and launched r-1 mini at a listed price of $1 per 1,000 pages. VAST Data says 14 customers each committed more than $100 million, over $10 billion in total, to systems using its software in the first nine months of its fiscal year. Google AI.AGG · Reducto · VAST Data

Mistral added managed agents, workflows, apps, observability and evaluation tools to Mistral Studio, with cloud, private VPC, on premises and hybrid deployment options. Citrix expanded SecurSpaces into centrally governed workspaces for employees and AI agents, added a free Community Edition and released an open source Knowledge Worker Agent. Smartsheet introduced AI agents and agentic workflows at ENGAGE 2026 that use live project data and existing permissions for status reports, data checks and project setup. Mistral Studio · Citrix · Smartsheet

Leah launched Harness Builder, which lets business users create governed AI systems in natural language, with its Maestro platform coordinating agents across legal, procurement, finance and shared services. San Francisco based GC AI now syncs completed Docusign agreements into its Contract Intelligence platform, so legal and business teams can search terms, renewal dates and obligations without moving files. Expedient added a multitenant model to its Cloud Powered by Nutanix service across its 14 US data centres and says its AI CTRL Platform offers governed managed AI services. Leah · GC AI and Docusign · Expedient

Microsoft

Estée Lauder Companies formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft for its cloud, data and AI work and is extending Copilot to more than 14,000 office based employees. Microsoft and NVIDIA opened applications for Frontier Launchpad, a programme for UK and Irish software companies building AI products, from 3 to 27 November. Estée Lauder · Frontier Launchpad

Microsoft says EU and EFTA organizations can use Anthropic's Claude models across Copilot, with data processed inside the EU Data Boundary, by the end of 2026. US based Blitzy will work with Microsoft Frontier Company to help enterprises modernize large software systems, with integrations into Microsoft Foundry, Azure and GitHub Copilot. Claude in the EU Data Boundary · Blitzy

Telecom

Ericsson introduced an Integrated Sensing and Communication system that uses existing 5G radios, edge computing and AI to detect and track drones, with commercial pilots planned for 2027. Verizon will roll out the Ericsson Intelligent Controller across its US network in 2026, after field tests showed downlink throughput gains of up to 8.9%. National University Health System, Singtel and Ericsson signed an MOU on connected healthcare, and the two companies become founding partners of the NUHS XG AI Centre. Drone detection · Verizon · NUHS

India's Telecom Regulatory Authority issued draft AI guidelines for telecom entities that require board approved AI policies, human oversight and reporting of serious AI incidents, with comments due by 27 November 2026. Virgin Media O2 plans thousands of job cuts in an £800m annual savings plan by 2029 and will use more AI in customer service, network planning and fault management. Omantel signed MoUs with WPS and Huawei for an Arabic WPS software package hosted in Oman and Huawei Ascend NPUs in its national cloud. TRAI · Virgin Media O2 · Omantel

Orange Group is deploying Algolia Agent Studio for billing and account support in more than 26 countries. Orange Cyberdefense gets early access to a cybersecurity variant of Mistral Large 4 as Mistral AI's first European MSSP design partner, for penetration testing, audits and incident response. Algolia · Mistral AI

Cerillion released version 26.2 of its billing and service suite with AI agents for customer care and service configuration and predictive churn. Cerillion

Vodafone plans to expand Witbe's AI testing framework across Vodafone TV in eight countries, with a longer term target of more than 5 million test executions. Vodafone and Witbe

Gulf banking and AI infrastructure

HUMAIN, a Public Investment Fund portfolio company, is integrating CNTXT to add cloud transformation, data, AI, cybersecurity and managed technology services. Etihad GO Telecom awarded Total Technical Triangle Company a $49.6 million contract for a Cloud AI Data Centre with Dell systems and NVIDIA GPUs, scheduled to take 12 months. Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company and ARP Group plan an AI native, blockchain enabled wholesale bank in Bahrain, which has in principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain. HUMAIN · GO and 3T · Mumtalakat and ARP

RHAELM will pay Workhorse $10 million to build a TerraPod modular data center reference unit in Indiana, and a non binding letter of intent outlines a possible first order of 150 systems. Nutanix and Supermicro will offer a prevalidated system for private AI inference with Supermicro servers, NVIDIA GPUs and the Nutanix Cloud Platform. Omnissa expanded its Sovereign Solution, which keeps customer data and operations in each jurisdiction, to eight markets including Slovakia, South Korea and India. Workhorse · Nutanix and Supermicro · Omnissa

Also

Replit opened its first Asian office in Tokyo on 4 November, together with customer Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing, which is expanding its partnership with Replit. Fixify made its managed AI service for Level 1 IT support tickets generally available to MSPs in the US and Canada, charging per resolved ticket. Hatz AI launched Spaces, a shared workspace in Hatz Chat for MSPs and their customers, at no extra cost in existing packages. Replit · Fixify · Hatz AI

Vantaca's first State of the Industry report covers more than 500 community management companies and about 6.5 million homes, and the company expanded its HOAi Fleet agents. Spherexx added CoPilot to its Optimize revenue management platform to explain rate recommendations and simulate pricing and concession changes for multifamily properties. InsureMEP launched CriticalAsset, which maps mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire safety assets for commercial property insurers and requires human approval of AI generated data. Vantaca · Spherexx · InsureMEP

WhisperAI says it processed 144,688 hours of audio and video in October 2026, up 41% from September, and has more than 460,000 users. SlidesAI launched a standalone web app for creating presentations, with Google Slides, PowerPoint and ChatGPT integrations. M&A adviser Millenium Associates AG selected Ittikar's private capital platform, and founder Ray Soudah joins Ittikar's strategic advisory board. WhisperAI · SlidesAI · Ittikar

A&O Shearman will invest $1.1 billion over five years in AI, with every practice spending at least 3% of its time on specialist AI tools. A&O Shearman

Harbinger Group launched a Performance Enablement practice that combines advisory services, process redesign, AI powered digital engineering and capability development. Harbinger Group

China's Zhejiang province reported 582.87 billion yuan in core AI industry revenue in the first eight months of 2026, up 26.9%. Zhejiang