There's a pretty solid argument to be made that Palantir Technologies (PLTR -3.13%) has been the most lucrative of artificial intelligence (AI) stocks to own over the last 12 months. After all, Palantir's shares returned an incredible 340% in 2024, making it the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC).

And so far this year, the company's joyride doesn't appear to be slowing down either, with its shares up already 20% (as of Feb. 24).

At a fundamental level, the underpinning bull thesis around Palantir stock revolves around the company's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). Since AIP's debut in April 2023, Palantir has significantly grown its customer base, which has led to impressive revenue acceleration, widening margins, and a transition to a profitable company.

With that said, there are more layers to Palantir beyond AIP. During a recent interview on CNBC, Karp made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it comment about another product fueling Palantir's growth.

Below, I'll explore Karp's reference and detail why it could be a game changer for Palantir.

Karp just dropped a breadcrumb that's worth following

In addition to AIP, Palantir has three main software platforms: Foundry, Gotham, and Apollo. During his recent interview on CNBC, Karp made a specific reference to Apollo but did not delve into much detail about the application. This prompted me to do some of my own digging.

On Palantir's website, the company states that "Apollo deploys, monitors, remediates, and secures your software across heterogeneous environments." Let's explore what that actually means, and why it's important.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why Apollo could be a game changer

When it comes to tweaking software, engineers are often responsible for making changes to various aspects of the codebase, which can be a time-consuming and arduous task. Moreover, the manual aspect of these updates can come with security risks.

Apollo was created to streamline this process. Essentially, Apollo is the operating system that actually deploys Palantir's other systems -- Gotham and Foundry. The Apollo platform can be managed across multiple environments, including on-premises, cloud infrastructure networks such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform, as well as on private servers.

Apollo's value add is that by automating software operations, developers can allocate more time to other responsibilities such as product development -- thereby saving time and reducing overhead costs for an organization.

The big idea to understand here is that Apollo is the bridge that connects other software platforms. Palantir is quietly building a software ecosystem stitching together AI, data analytics, and secure deployment -- all across one system. I think this positions Palantir well to become an ever more important backbone for enterprise workloads -- which should become more complex as investment in AI applications continues to soar.

In a way, I think investors can already get a glimpse into how customers are relying so heavily on Palantir's infrastructure. According to the company's fourth-quarter earnings report, the average trailing-12-month revenue for Palantir's top 20 customers was $64.6 million -- an increase of 18% year over year.

To me, the trends above suggest that Palantir's customer base is sticky, and the company has been successful in its efforts to cross-sell, upsell, and command stronger unit economics thanks to its high-quality suite of products.

Given that the AI revolution is still in its early stages, I think Palantir should continue witnessing expansion opportunities across the customer base underscored by AIP and its sibling products. While AIP will likely continue to be in the spotlight, I'd encourage investors to listen closely to Palantir's leadership referencing other emerging pockets of the business.