For the past two years, the AI race has largely been framed as a battle between foundation model makers like OpenAI and Anthropic.

But an interview published Thursday suggests Palantir Technologies Inc.

(NASDAQ:PLTR) CEO Alex Karp believes the industry's next competitive moat may lie somewhere else entirely.

Karp isn't trying to build the next frontier AI model.

Instead, he's making the case that the most valuable part of the AI stack could ultimately sit above it—a software layer that lets enterprises switch between models without giving up control of their data, workflows or intellectual property.