Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.
BigBear.ai stock (NYSE: BBAI) is a concentrated bet on applied AI for defense, national security and critical infrastructure—not a broad bet on the entire AI economy. The best alternative depends on the exposure you want: Palantir for a scaled defense-and-commercial software business, C3.ai for a similarly sized unprofitable enterprise-AI company, or NVIDIA, Nebius and Cerebras for the chips and infrastructure that power AI workloads. The figures below use source prints from November 6–13, 2026, not live quotes, and are not individualized investment advice.
At a glance
| Name | Best for | Key spec | Price / market cap | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palantir Technologies (PLTR) | Scaled defense and commercial AI software | Q3 2026 revenue $2.31 billion, up 96%; gross margin about 83.4% | $171.58 close on Nov. 13, 2026; forward P/E 80.50× on BriMindInvest | November 2026 |
| C3.ai (AI) | Size-matched enterprise-AI exposure | $232.38 million trailing revenue; trailing revenue growth −37.5%; trailing net margin −192.1% | $12.06 and $1.87 billion market cap on Nov. 12, 2026 | November 2026 |
| NVIDIA (NVDA) | Broad AI-compute and data-center exposure | Editorial AI Exposure Score 97; GPUs, networking and CUDA software | $4.01 trillion market cap; daily move −4.34% on Supercycle’s Nov. 12 board | November 2026 |
| Nebius Group (NBIS) | GPU-cloud and AI-infrastructure exposure | Editorial AI Exposure Score 97; NVIDIA-backed GPU cloud | $34.97 billion market cap; daily move −16.84% on Supercycle’s Nov. 12 board | November 2026 |
| Cerebras Systems (CBRS) | Specialized AI-processor exposure | Editorial AI Exposure Score 100; wafer-scale processors, CS-3 systems and inference cloud | $23.22 billion market cap; daily move −3.29% on Supercycle’s Nov. 12 board | November 2026 |
Prices checked November 2026.
Prices, market caps and scores are the cited publishers’ snapshots. Supercycle explicitly says its score is an editorial rating, not a financial metric.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
What is BigBear.ai stock actually exposing you to?
BigBear.ai describes itself as a mission-ready AI provider for defense, national security and critical infrastructure. Its software and services address decision intelligence, predictive analytics, logistics, autonomous systems and cybersecurity. That makes BBAI a focused government-missions investment rather than a proxy for consumer AI, semiconductor demand or the whole software sector.
The company’s 2026 operating story changed after it bought Ask Sage for $250 million in cash on December 31, 2025. BigBear.ai said Ask Sage brought a generative-AI platform for secure deployment, orchestration and agentic use in defense, intelligence and regulated organizations. At announcement, Ask Sage had more than 100,000 users across 16,000 government teams and hundreds of commercial organizations. Management tied Ask Sage’s higher-margin products to both the second-quarter revenue increase and gross-margin expansion.
Popular on Amazon
- Ideal for Gifting
- Ideal for a bookworm
- Compact for travelling
BigBear.ai’s own second-quarter release reported $36.7 million of revenue, up 13% year over year, and a 32.8% gross margin, up from 25.0%. Backlog was $269.6 million at June 30, 2026, and cash and investments were $409.8 million. The company initially affirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $135 million to $165 million.
Q3 figures came from an earnings-call transcript and a Yahoo Finance recap rather than the 10-Q used in the available data. Revenue was $43.6 million, up 31% year over year; gross margin was 31.2%, up from 22.4%; and gross profit was about $13.6 million versus about $7.4 million. The GAAP net loss was $91.9 million, or $0.19 per share, compared with $2.5 million of net income a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA remained negative at $9.1 million, with SG&A of $31.3 million.
After Q3, management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $150 million–$165 million, a 5% midpoint increase over the prior range. More than 25 contracts signed since Q2 represented over $225 million of total contract value, and Yahoo Finance reported backlog of $330 million, up 22% sequentially. These figures show improving growth and mix, but not profitability.
Which listed company is the closest scaled defense-AI alternative?
Palantir is the closest public-market substitute when you want the same broad government buyer but a far larger, more mature software platform. It is not a like-for-like size or valuation comparison.
Yahoo Finance’s November 10 recap put Palantir’s Q3 2026 revenue at $2.31 billion, up 96% year over year, with an approximately 83.4% gross margin. BigBear.ai’s Q3 revenue was $43.6 million and gross margin 31.2%. The gap is not merely a difference in quarterly sales; it reflects Palantir’s established commercial artificial-intelligence platform alongside its government work.
A November 13 BriMindInvest scoreboard showed Palantir at $171.58 and BBAI at $2.07. Its forward P/E figures were 80.50× for Palantir and −14.35× for BBAI. A negative P/E means the company is losing money; it is not evidence that the stock is cheap. The same scoreboard gave Palantir an AI score of 65.9 (rank 47) and BBAI 23.1 (rank 3,490), while saying Palantir led four of five comparison metrics. Those are the publisher’s methodology and opinion, not an audited rating.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →The contract scale is similarly different. A dated August 31 comparison identified BigBear.ai’s ORION decision-support platform and Army GFIM-OE production contract, while Palantir’s examples included the Maven Smart System and a U.S. Army enterprise agreement with a ceiling of up to $10 billion over a decade. That article said Palantir signed $3.373 billion of total contract value in Q2 2026, versus BigBear.ai’s $269.6 million backlog at June 30. Keep those contract figures in their stated periods; they are not interchangeable backlog definitions.
Also popular on Amazon
Palantir’s trade-off is valuation. A November 6 Seeking Alpha snapshot showed a $386.44 billion market cap and $376.22 billion enterprise value, compared with BBAI at $1.07 billion and $805.41 million. MarketBeat’s October 30 page showed Palantir near $198.97 and a P/E of 170.06, but that price is stale relative to the November 13 print. Palantir therefore offers scale, margins and a broader customer base at a much richer price, while BBAI offers a smaller, loss-making and more acquisition-dependent profile.
Is C3.ai the best size-matched alternative?
C3.ai is the closest public comparison by size and continuing losses, but its products target enterprise application suites rather than BigBear.ai’s mission and national-security workflows.
Business Quant’s November 12 comparison listed C3.ai at $12.06, a $1.87 billion market cap and $232.38 million of trailing revenue. BigBear.ai was $2.08, with a $999.29 million market cap and $142.07 million of trailing revenue. C3.ai’s trailing revenue growth was −37.5%, versus −1.5% for BBAI, and its trailing net margin was −192.1%, versus −126.8% for BBAI.
Recommended Free Tools
The same page scored the head-to-head 3–3. It gave BigBear.ai the edge on trailing growth and the less-severe net-margin loss, while giving C3.ai the market-cap advantage. Displayed earnings multiples were negative for both (about −4.2× and −5.5×), and forward earnings were blank. Those values vary by provider and construction, so they should not be treated as a single definitive valuation.
Business Quant displayed next-year revenue consensus of $149.80 million for BBAI and $207.24 million for C3.ai. It showed BBAI growth of +17.3% and C3.ai growth of −17.2%, followed by +23.8% and +11.0% the following year. The BBAI consensus may lag the October guidance raise or use a different fiscal convention; management’s stated range remains $150 million–$165 million.
KoalaGains’ product description draws the practical distinction: C3.ai sells pre-built enterprise applications such as predictive-maintenance and enterprise-search tools, while BigBear.ai focuses on operational analytics, national-security workflows and computer vision. C3.ai may suit an investor who wants enterprise software exposure at a small-cap scale; BBAI suits someone specifically seeking defense and government missions. Neither was profitable in the cited period.
MarketBeat wrote on October 30 that analyst targets favored BBAI: a $4.50 consensus target implied 73.08% upside from the price used on that page, while a $9.63 C3.ai target implied 18.71% downside. The page also displayed a different −24.7% C3.ai figure. Because the prices moved to $2.07–$2.08 for BBAI and $11.84–$12.06 for C3.ai by November 12, those percentages should be read as a dated target snapshot, not a current verdict.
Also popular on Amazon
Which alternatives provide broader AI exposure than defense analytics?
If your goal is participation in AI-compute demand rather than government decision software, the business model changes completely. Supercycle’s November 12 leaderboard ranked 516 stocks using an editorial AI Exposure Score and placed Cerebras, NVIDIA and Nebius at the top of its pure-play list.
NVIDIA: the diversified infrastructure anchor
Supercycle gave NVIDIA an AI Exposure Score of 97 and a $4.01 trillion market cap. Its description centers on GPUs, networking and the CUDA software stack used for AI training and inference, with data-center AI demand representing the core thesis. NVIDIA is therefore a broad buildout exposure choice, not a small-cap defense contractor. The cited leaderboard showed a −4.34% daily move on November 12; this pass did not open an NVIDIA filing for additional financial metrics.
Nebius: GPU-cloud infrastructure
Nebius also scored 97, with a $34.97 billion market cap and a −16.84% daily move on the same board. Supercycle describes it as an NVIDIA-backed GPU cloud serving AI-compute and infrastructure demand, with Microsoft and Meta among the named customers. This is a cloud-capacity bet: revenue depends on deploying and selling compute, not on winning defense-analytics programs.
Cerebras: specialized AI silicon
Cerebras received the board’s top score of 100 and a $23.22 billion market cap. Supercycle describes wafer-scale AI processors, CS-3 systems and an inference cloud, saying the company exists solely to serve AI-compute demand. The board showed a −3.29% daily move. The available data did not open Cerebras’ prospectus or confirm listing details beyond the CBRS ticker shown by Supercycle, so valuation and public-company history require separate verification.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThese three names answer “which stocks are tied to the AI buildout?” They do not answer “which company resembles BigBear.ai’s defense customer base?”
What about Leidos and diversified government technology?
Leidos is a lower-purity, diversified government-technology alternative rather than a direct AI software peer. A June 30, 2026 Zacks comparison published by Yahoo Finance preferred Leidos over BBAI because of profitability, earnings growth, contract momentum and lower execution risk. That opinion predates BigBear.ai’s Q2 and Q3 reports and its guidance increase. The available data contained no November Leidos price, backlog or AI-revenue share, so Leidos should be treated as a dated comparison point, not a current ranking.
Why do “stocks similar to BBAI” lists produce misleading answers?
Similarity screens often match industry labels and market capitalization rather than economic exposure. AltIndex’s November 12 list placed Riskified first because it was close to BBAI on that industry-plus-size method. It also returned EverCommerce, Sharplink Gaming, Par Technology and Magic Software. Sharplink Gaming is the clearest false friend: a similar-sized gaming company is not an AI-exposure substitute.
Also popular on Amazon
Other peer widgets include DXC Technology, Kyndryl, Globant, Concentrix, Formula Systems, Clarivate, VNET and ASGN. Their revenues can dwarf BigBear.ai’s because they are large IT-services, consulting, information-services or data-center businesses—not because they are purer AI investments. SoundHound AI appears in a November 6 peer table with a roughly $2.01 billion market cap and a −71.12% one-year return, but the cited data does not establish it as a defense contractor.
MarketBeat’s October 30 competitor sentence named Palantir, C3.ai, Kyndryl, DXC and Formula Systems. That is useful as a map of published comparables, but not as a list of equally focused AI stocks. For an exposure decision, classify each company by what drives its cash flows: defense software, enterprise applications, AI infrastructure or general IT services.
How should you interpret BigBear.ai’s price, cash and losses?
The November 12–13 price cluster was about $2.07–$2.08. Stock Titan and BriMindInvest showed a one-year price decline of about 71%. AltIndex showed a 12-month market-cap decline of 57.8%, which is a different metric; share issuance can make market capitalization and price returns diverge, but the excerpts do not provide a complete share-count bridge.
Published November 12 market caps ranged from $996.48 million to $1.12 billion. That spread reflects different share-count or methodology inputs, so averaging them would create false precision. Business Quant showed $999.29 million; Dividend Data and Supercycle showed $996.48 million; AltIndex showed $1.12 billion.
The company’s $409.8 million cash-and-investments figure is primary data as of June 30, not a current September or November balance. The Q3 net loss was $91.9 million, but it would be incorrect to subtract that loss mechanically from June cash: losses can include non-cash items, and cash changes with acquisitions, working capital and financing. Ask Sage already consumed $250 million in cash, and management has discussed further “accretive, catalytic M&A,” so future deals could change both cash and dilution.
BigBear.ai remained loss-making: Q2 adjusted EBITDA was negative $11.6 million, Q3 adjusted EBITDA was negative $9.1 million, and Business Quant showed a trailing net margin of −126.8%. The investment case therefore combines improving reported growth and margins with substantial execution, customer-concentration and funding risk.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is Shield AI a stock alternative?
No. Shield AI was still described as private in the November 9 Motley Fool article. That article cited a reported $2.5 billion financing at a $28.8 billion valuation and $540 million of revenue, implying roughly 53 times sales on its arithmetic. FlightBrief likewise said Shield AI, Anduril and Skydio were private as of its October 12 reference date. Private-company valuation headlines do not provide a ticker that a retail investor can buy through a public exchange.
Also popular on Amazon
- It can be a gift option
- Comes with secure packaging
- Helpful in various ways
How should you choose among these alternatives?
- Choose the exposure first. Select defense decision intelligence (BBAI or Palantir), enterprise AI applications (C3.ai), or AI compute and infrastructure (NVIDIA, Nebius or Cerebras).
- Set a scale requirement. Palantir’s $2.31 billion quarterly revenue is a different risk profile from BBAI’s $43.6 million. C3.ai is closer in size, while the infrastructure names are much larger.
- Decide whether losses are acceptable. BBAI and C3.ai were unprofitable on the cited measures. Palantir’s published comparisons showed positive profitability characteristics but at a high forward multiple.
- Check the date on every price and target. November prints supersede October snapshots, and consensus targets can lag guidance changes.
- Separate company facts from editorial scores. Supercycle’s 88 score for BBAI, AltIndex’s 46 and BriMindInvest’s 23.1 are not interchangeable financial metrics.
- Review concentration and M&A risk. BBAI depends heavily on government and defense missions, while Ask Sage and potential future acquisitions affect margins, cash and dilution.
Public shares trade under their listed tickers on an exchange or brokerage account; the comparison above does not establish that any one stock is suitable for a particular investor.
How we picked the alternatives
The ranking separates the reader’s desired economic exposure: scaled defense software, size-matched enterprise AI and the hardware/cloud infrastructure behind AI. We used the latest operating figures available in the available data, dated November price snapshots, stated guidance and clearly attributed secondary opinions. We excluded size-screen results that do not represent AI exposure and kept private companies out of the tradable-stock list.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is BigBear.ai a pure-play AI stock?
No. Its revenue is concentrated in applied AI software and services for defense, national security and critical infrastructure. That makes it a specialized government-technology exposure rather than a pure-play semiconductor, cloud or consumer-AI investment.
Which BigBear.ai alternative has the closest customer base?
Palantir has the closest listed-company customer overlap because it sells software to government and defense organizations while also serving commercial customers. Its quarterly revenue and market capitalization are vastly larger, so customer similarity does not mean similar risk or valuation.
Can I buy Shield AI shares instead of BBAI?
Not on the evidence in this research. Shield AI was described as private and had not filed to go public in the cited November 2026 coverage, so its financing valuation is not a public-market share price.
Why is BBAI’s market-cap decline different from its stock-price decline?
AltIndex reported a 57.8% 12-month market-cap change, while other publishers reported roughly a 71% one-year price decline. Market capitalization also reflects the number of shares outstanding, and the cited material does not provide a complete share-count reconciliation.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →
