Databricks revenue surges 80% to $6.9 billion as agentic AI drives consumption

Databricks annualized revenue jumped more than 80% to $6.9 billion, the company told analysts Tuesday at its Data and AI Summit in San Francisco. The figure, up from $5.4 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter, puts the privately held company ahead of public rival Snowflake, which carries an $83 billion market cap and roughly $5.6 billion in annualized revenue. Databricks commands a $134 billion private valuation.

Chief Executive Ali Ghodsi said the consumption-based model and the rise of agentic AI are driving both growth and margin pressure. "The agents are generating way more queries," Ghodsi said in an interview. "We have all these agents, the agents and agent platform we have also generates revenue, so it just increases the consumption of everything all around."

AI products now contribute $1.7 billion in annual revenue, up from $1.4 billion in February. Databricks' Genie lets business users query corporate data in natural language, while Agent Bricks lets developers build custom AI applications. As adoption rises, the company spends more on underlying models. Ghodsi declined to disclose current gross margin but said it will decline.

Enterprises are shifting from "tokenmaxxing" — encouraging maximum token usage — to "value-maxxing," optimizing efficiency while retaining AI capabilities, Ghodsi said. Databricks' Unity AI Gateway alerts teams as they approach budget limits. Large customers still want frontier models such as Anthropic's Mythos for complex tasks but prefer open-source alternatives for routine work.

Chinese models have gained significant traction among Databricks customers. "The customers are really demanding the choice," Ghodsi said.

The company is expanding into vertical markets. In March it launched Lakewatch for cybersecurity. On Tuesday it announced the acquisition of Panther, a security startup valued at $1.4 billion in 2021, and unveiled CustomerLake for marketing data management.

Databricks remains private while peers including SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic pursue public listings. SpaceX debuted last week at a $2 trillion valuation. OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidentially for offerings.