Alphabet posiluje vyhledávání pomocí AI: AI Mode má přes miliardu měsíčních uživatelů a tržby ze Search & Other meziročně vzrostly o 17 % na 63,3 miliardy USD.
Key Takeaways Alphabet leads search with 91.27% share as AI Overviews and AI Mode deepen user engagement.Google Search & Other revenues rose 17% to $63.3B, helped by retail, finance and better query monetization.AI Mode connects Instacart, Canva and YouTube Music, letting users complete tasks without leaving Search. Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) Search-related endeavors have received a massive push through AI integrations. The company is leading the search domain with 91.27% market share, followed by Microsoft’s (MSFT - Free Report) Bing, with 4.68% share, Yahoo!’s 1.28%, Yandex’s 0.79%, DuckDuckGo’s 0.67% and Baidu’s (BIDU - Free Report) 0.46%, per the latest data from StatCounter.
Alphabet’s dominance is being reinforced by rapid AI innovation rather than disrupted by it. On the second-quarter 2026 earnings call, the company highlighted that AI Overviews and AI Mode have been integrated into a single seamless Search experience, helping drive higher user engagement and incremental search queries. AI Mode has already surpassed one billion monthly active users, while Google continues to send billions of clicks to websites every week through its AI-powered search features, addressing concerns that AI could reduce web traffic.
Search monetization also remains strong. Google Search & Other revenues climbed 17% year over year to $63.3 billion, driven primarily by retail and finance advertisers. Alphabet noted that Gemini-powered improvements in query understanding allow Google to better monetize longer, more complex searches by delivering more relevant advertisements. AI-powered advertising products such as AI Max are already being widely adopted, with advertisers using these tools seeing higher conversions at similar returns on ad spend.
Alphabet is also expanding Search beyond traditional web queries into an AI-powered productivity platform. The company recently introduced integrations that allow users to connect services such as Instacart, Canva and YouTube Music directly within AI Mode, enabling actions like creating shopping carts, generating design templates and building playlists without leaving Search. These capabilities deepen user engagement while making Google’s ecosystem more valuable and difficult for competitors to replicate.
GOOGL Faces Tough Competition in the Search DomainAlphabet faces competition from Microsoft and Baidu in the Search domain.
Microsoft is strengthening its search ecosystem through Bing and Edge by embedding advanced AI capabilities across its consumer products. Microsoft is also integrating proprietary AI models into Bing, improving image generation, speech recognition and search experiences while benefiting from broader investments in Copilot, Azure AI and its multi-model strategy. These enhancements are designed to increase user engagement, improve search relevance and capture a larger share of digital advertising, creating a stronger competitive challenge for Google in AI-powered search.
Baidu is also accelerating its AI-first search strategy, particularly in China. The company has highlighted continued improvements in AI Search through enhanced planning, content generation and content-quality evaluation, enabling more intelligent and higher-quality search results while reducing low-quality content. Baidu plans to further integrate AI Search with ERNIE Assistant to improve information discovery, content understanding and task completion. The company has also reiterated that AI Search remains one of its highest-priority applications and will continue to receive investments to strengthen search accuracy and user experience.
GOOGL’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesAlphabet shares have returned 1.5% year to date (YTD), outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s return of 10.8%.
GOOGL Stock’s Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
GOOGL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 8.07X compared with the broader sector’s 6.46X. Alphabet has a Value Score of D.
GOOGL Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $14.34 per share, up 0.3% over the past 30 days, suggesting 32.65% growth from 2025’s reported figure.
Alphabet currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Tržby z Google Search a dalších služeb společnosti Alphabet ve 2. čtvrtletí meziročně vzrostly o 17 % na 63,3 miliardy USD, po 19% růstu v předchozím čtvrtletí. Jde o první zpomalení po čtyřech čtvrtletích zrychlování.
AI is supposed to help businesses accelerate. But Google search just grew slower than the quarter before. And -- judging by the headlines about the earnings report -- almost nobody noticed.
Alphabet's (GOOG +0.65%)(GOOGL +0.94%) second-quarter report this week buried the figure under two louder storylines -- a $99 billion paper gain on its equity stakes, and another increase in capital spending plans, to a range topping out at $205 billion this year. The market reacted to the spending, sending shares down about 7% on Thursday.
But I'd argue the Search number deserves more attention than either. Google Search & other revenue, the biggest single line in Alphabet's business, grew 17% year over year to $63.3 billion. In the first quarter, it grew 19%.
And with investors increasingly asking how much of Google's core franchise AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots could eventually take, a Search slowdown is the number the bears have been waiting for. So it's worth being precise about what happened.
Image source: Getty Images.
The end of a four-quarter streak Search had been on a remarkable run of acceleration. Its year-over-year growth rate went from 10% in the first quarter of 2025 to 12% in the second quarter, 15% in the third, 17% in the fourth, and 19% in the first quarter of 2026. That's four consecutive quarters of speeding up. The second quarter's 17% snapped the streak.
To be clear, 17% is still a spectacular rate for a business generating more than $63 billion a quarter. Search's growth last quarter matched the fastest rate it posted in any quarter of 2025. This is a slowdown only in the sense that a very good number followed an even better one.
And the comparison math matters here. A year ago, Search was lapping 10% growth -- its softest quarter in the sequence. Last quarter, it was lapping 12%. Stack the two years together (17% on top of last year's 12%, versus 19% on top of 10%), and growth over the two-year period comes out to about 31% in both the first and second quarters of 2026. On that basis, Search didn't slow at all. The deceleration looks more like a tougher comparison than a change in demand.
Management's evidence points the same way.
"Our popular AI features are driving Search query growth," CEO Sundar Pichai said in Alphabet's second-quarter earnings release, adding that the Gemini app now has 950 million monthly active users. That's the opposite of what share loss to AI assistants should look like, at least so far.
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The context around the number The rest of the report makes the Search figure easier to carry. Alphabet's total revenue rose 24% year over year to $119.8 billion, the company's 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The company's cloud computing segment, Google Cloud, saw revenue accelerate to 82% growth, reaching $24.8 billion, and the segment's operating margin expanded to 35.6% from 20.7% a year earlier. YouTube ads grew 13% to $11.1 billion, and subscriptions grew 15%.
This is not a company leaning on one growth engine.
Of course, the bear case doesn't need this quarter to prove anything. The argument is about the next several years. If consumers gradually shift their questions from a search bar to AI assistants, the erosion could show up slowly, then all at once.
One decelerating quarter with a flat two-year trend isn't evidence that's happening. But the metric now has investors' attention, and the third quarter will lap a 15% comparison -- harder than last quarter's 12%. If the two-year math starts shrinking from 31%, that would be the earlier warning worth acting on.
I think the takeaway is this: the capital spending debate knocked the stock down, but the Search number is the one that decides if Alphabet's franchise is intact. This quarter, it held up better than the headline rate suggests. I'd keep owning the stock. Just watch the two-year math from here, because that's the version of this number that will be worth watching to see whether the AI worries turn out to be right.
Alphabet drží ve SpaceX podíl v hodnotě asi 94 miliard USD, ale celý jej zatím nelze prodat. Asi 80 miliard USD je v krátkodobém lockupu a zbývajících 14,1 miliardy USD je zamčeno až do 3. čtvrtletí roku 2027.
Alphabet (GOOG -6.88%)(GOOGL -7.12%) gave investors plenty to debate in its second-quarter report this week, from 24% revenue growth to another big increase in its capital spending plans. But I'd argue the most remarkable number sat in the company's quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Alphabet's stake in rocket maker SpaceX (SPCX +2.58%) was worth about $94 billion as of June 30.
Zoom out, and the history behind that figure is extraordinary. In January 2015, Google and investment firm Fidelity together put $1 billion into SpaceX for a combined stake of just under 10%. SpaceX now carries a $1.5 trillion market value -- about 150 times what the entire company was worth in that funding round.
But Alphabet can't spend a dollar of its windfall yet. The filing shows the whole position is restricted from sale. About $80 billion of the stake sits under short-term restrictions (the standard lockup period that follows an initial public offering), and the remaining $14.1 billion is locked up through the third quarter of 2027.
Here's a closer look at what the stake means for shareholders on both sides of it.
Image source: Getty Images.
A windfall on paper The stake did wonders for Alphabet's reported profit. Second-quarter net income rose 298% year over year to $112.1 billion, and earnings per share climbed 294% to $9.11.
The driver wasn't advertising or cloud computing. It was a $99.0 billion gain on equity securities, which the company said primarily reflected unrealized gains from SpaceX and a private company (reported to be artificial intelligence (AI) developer Anthropic).
Unrealized is the key word. Alphabet didn't collect $99 billion in cash. It marked up shares it isn't currently allowed to sell.
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That distinction helps explain why investors mostly shrugged at the windfall and focused on spending instead. Alongside the report, Alphabet raised its capital spending guidance for 2026 to $195 billion to $205 billion, from the $180 billion to $190 billion range it set in April. Free cash flow swung to negative $5.9 billion for the quarter, down from a positive $10.1 billion in the first quarter. Also worth noting: the company raised $49.6 billion in June by selling new stock, all while sitting on $94 billion of SpaceX shares it can't touch. After all, locked-up paper gains don't fund data centers.
Shares of Alphabet were down about 7% Thursday afternoon as of this writing.
Of course, the stake still matters. It amounts to about 2.4% of Alphabet's roughly $3.9 trillion market capitalization -- a nice bonus for shareholders, but not the reason to own the stock.
The other side of the trade For SpaceX shareholders, the disclosure sends two messages at once.
The first is a vote of confidence. Alphabet has held on for more than a decade, and it still owns an effective stake of about 4.9% of the company, down from about 6% before recent dilution. An investor of Alphabet's caliber keeping a position this large is arguably part of the bull case.
The second message is about supply. SpaceX stock has had a rough public debut. Shares went public at $135 in June, peaked at $225.64, and trade at about $116 as of this writing -- a decline of nearly 49% from the high.
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And the restrictions on Alphabet's stake begin easing after SpaceX delivers its first earnings report, scheduled for Aug. 4. Alphabet hasn't said anything about selling. But an outside holder with $94 billion of stock and a spending plan of its own approaching $200 billion at least has reasons to consider it once it's allowed.
Also, SpaceX shares have fallen since June 30, so the stake is already worth less than the filing's mark. Paper gains move in both directions.
So what should investors do with the news? For Alphabet shareholders, I'd treat the SpaceX windfall as exactly that -- a windfall. The investment case still rests on the operating business (where revenue grew 24% year over year last quarter and Google Cloud is accelerating) and on whether the company's enormous AI spending pays off.
For anyone eyeing SpaceX stock, though, the filing is worth remembering. The company is still losing money, its market value sits near $1.5 trillion, and one outside holder alone is sitting on $94 billion of stock it will soon be free to sell. Between the two stocks, I'd rather own the shareholder than the rocket maker.
Alphabet ve 2. čtvrtletí 2026 zvýšil kapitálové výdaje na rekordních 44,9 miliardy USD a v příštím čtvrtletí očekává 50,4 miliardy USD. Investice táhne silná poptávka po Google Cloud.
Image credit: Financial Times (Data: S&P Capital IQ, Bloomberg)
Consequently, in Q2 2026, GOOGL’s CapEx reached a record $44.9 billion, while growth to $50.4 billion is projected for the following quarter. At the same time, in one year, quarterly CapEx will reach $65.2 billion, whereas FCF will be -$1.2 billion.
Image credit: Author
Also, it’s worth noting that the company’s total debt increased from $90.5 billion to $112.7 billion. But this rise in debt is offset by an increase in cash reserves from $126.8 billion to $242.4 billion. However, this can hardly be called a positive development, since the increase in cash reserves was achieved by diluting shareholders’ equity. It is a significant shift for a company that frequently engages in share buybacks.
Image credit: Author
According to GOOGL’s CEO, though, no further stock offerings are expected. The next round of investments will be financed through operating cash flow, reserves, and debt. A big chunk of the investments is aimed at meeting the strong growth in demand for Google Cloud, which saw its order backlog increase from $460 billion to $514 billion.
Risks exist, but they will not alter the trajectory of development
The current upward revision to the CapEx forecast, though, is less a result of the need to scale the company’s AI infrastructure and more a result of rising prices for the equipment and components used to build the data centers themselves. The manufacturers of GPUs, TPUs, DRAM, optical and copper interconnects, as well as other components, are the beneficiaries of Alphabet’s latest report.
This means, for GOOGL, a definite increase in the cost of services and higher CapEx to expand the necessary AI infrastructure. Because of this, the company’s operating margin rose to 34%, even though many had predicted it would reach 40%. So, the temporary decline in business margins is not a hypothetical risk, it’s a real one.
Image credit: Author
Conclusion
Hence, key takeaways for investors include not only maintaining the “Buy” rating on GOOGL shares but also the emergence of a strong signal for the semiconductor and AI infrastructure markets. The shortage of components is driving up their prices, increasing margins for manufacturers. Therefore, a large portion of my portfolio consists of the aforementioned companies and other firms benefiting from the AI supercycle.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I have a beneficial long position in the shares of GOOGL either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
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Alphabet navzdory AI boomu zvýšil počet zaměstnanců o 11 830 na 198 933. Firma zároveň zvýšila výhled kapitálových výdajů na 195 až 205 miliard USD kvůli silné poptávce po AI infrastruktuře.
The AI boom didn't stop Google from hiring nearly 12,000 people By You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
and Madison Hoff You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images As companies make rounds of job cuts and double down on AI spend, Google's parent company Alphabet is expanding its workforce.
Alphabet reported blockbuster second-quarter earnings, with revenue climbing 24% year over year to $119.8 billion. The company revealed in its earnings report that it increased head count by 11,830 employees, from 187,103 to 198,933, between June 30, 2025 and June 30, 2026.
The chart below shows how Alphabet's workforce has grown from the end of the first quarter of 2025 through the end of the second quarter of 2026.
The biggest jump in Alphabet's head count of the last couple of years came in the second quarter of 2026, when the company added over 4,000 workers, accounting for more than one-third of net hiring over the past year.
Since 2022, companies including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have cut thousands of jobs. Google laid off 12,000 employees in 2023 and has conducted several smaller rounds of cuts since, impacting thousands of employees in total.
Google employees from around the country rallied last week to demand stronger protections against layoffs. Roughly 4,500 employees signed a petition about job security addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai and three senior executives at the tech giant.
While Google didn't share which roles it has hired more of over the last year, the company said in its earnings on Thursday that it's prioritizing long-term AI growth and doubling down on its AI buildout.
The tech giant raised its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to between $195 billion and $205 billion, up from a previous estimate of up to $190 billion. The company said its demand for AI infrastructure continues to outpace available capacity.
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Ana Altchek You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
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Madison Hoff is a reporter on Business Insider’s economy team. She covers the labor market, inflation, spending, and other data. In addition to covering new estimates and trends, her workforce reporting includes career pivots, job searching, and side hustles.She also covers downsizing, particularly people selling their houses to pursue RV living. She has also reported on how much teachers spend out of pocket and what it’s like being a caregiver.Her stories often cover the state of the economy, what experts are saying, and how people are navigating the workplace or their careers.Previously, she was a junior reporter and data editorial fellow on the Strategy team.A few of her stories:
Job-market trend: Welcome to the 'Great Freeze': Why companies aren't firing, workers can't grow, and the unemployed can't get jobsJob-market trend: Everyone's focused on AI — but it's aging Americans who are quietly rewiring the job marketCareer pivot: I retired early from my federal job and took a part-time job at TJ Maxx. I'm happier and less stressed.Downsizing/RV living: An empty-nester couple who traded in a $400K house for an $80K RV explain their favorite parts of retirement on the roadJob searching: People who haven't had steady work for at least a year are networking, doing temporary jobs, and soul-searchingSide hustles: A millennial who used side hustles to pay off debt explains the lucrative and easy ones she recommendsTeacher spending: A teacher who spent more than $5,000 of her own money to make a cozy classroom explains why it helps kids learn Google AI Tech More Layoffs
Alphabet ve 2. čtvrtletí zvýšil tržby o 24,23 % na 119,796 miliardy USD a EPS 9,11 USD překonal odhad. Tesla sice tržby také překonala, ale EPS 0,33 USD zaostal a provozní marže klesla na 1,4 %.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) both reported Q2 2026 results on July 22, 2026, and both printed negative free cash flow in the same window. One is spending from a position of strength. The other is spending while its core business bleeds margin.
One Cash Drain Is a Choice. The Other Is a Squeeze. Alphabet posted revenue of $119.796 billion, up 24.23%, with EPS of $9.11 against a $3.0427 estimate. Google Cloud grew 82% to $24.768 billion, and Sundar Pichai told investors that “nearly 90% of the Fortune 100” now use Gemini Enterprise. Operating margin expanded to 34%. This is a company being paid to spend.
Tesla’s story reads differently. Revenue came in at $28.236 billion, a 7.10% beat, but EPS of $0.33 missed by 38.51%. Operating margin cratered to 1.4% as operating expenses jumped 47% on AI compute, R&D, and stock-based comp tied to the 2025 CEO Performance Award. Regulatory credits collapsed to $146 million from $739 million a year ago.
Vertical Bet vs. Horizontal Bet Lens Tesla Alphabet Q2 FCF -$1.092 billion -$5.855 billion CapEx YoY +141.81% +100.14% Op Margin Direction Compressing Expanding Core Bet Robotaxi, Optimus, chips Cloud, Gemini, tokens Tesla is building vertically. Cybercab production started at Gigafactory Texas, the Semi factory in Nevada is commissioning, and an Austin semiconductor fab is progressing with SpaceX. Alphabet is building horizontally, funding data centers that rent AI back to enterprises. Pichai framed it plainly: “Our AI investments are redefining what’s possible across every part of our business.”
The balance sheets tell you how confident each management team feels. Tesla is self-funding with $43.524 billion in cash. Alphabet raised roughly $70 billion in combined equity and debt, pushed long-term debt from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion, and suspended buybacks. That is aggression.
What Decides Who Wins This Cycle I will be watching whether Tesla’s 1.48 million active FSD subscriptions and the seven-metro Robotaxi footprint start feeding real software margin fast enough to offset the automotive ASP slide. For Alphabet, the tell is Cloud’s operating leverage. If 22 billion tokens per minute keeps compounding, the capex pays for itself.
Why I Lean Alphabet Today, With One Caveat Personally, Alphabet’s quarter looks like the safer version of the same bet. Margins are expanding while it spends, Cloud is accelerating, and the debt raise gives it optionality. The stock still fell 7.77% on the week, which tells me the market wants proof the capex will convert. Tesla is the higher-variance trade. If Optimus or Robotaxi hits in 2026, that 1.4% margin becomes a footnote. If they slip, the 16.83% year-to-date decline is not the bottom. The setup to watch is whether Tesla can deliver one clean quarter of margin recovery, and whether Alphabet’s Cloud growth stays above 50%.
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Alphabet vyvíjí čip pro umělou inteligenci Frozen v2, který má podle The Information zpracovat 6 až 10krát více AI tokenů na jednotku energie než jeho nejnovější vlastní čipy. Firma tak chce zmírnit omezenou kapacitu při rostoucí poptávce po Gemini.
He also acknowledged that the company remains “supply constrained” as AI demand continues to outstrip available computing capacity.
Enter Frozen v2Those comments help explain reports that Alphabet is developing Frozen v2, a next-generation AI chip designed to run Gemini models more efficiently.
According to The Information, Frozen v2 integrates parts of Gemini’s architecture directly into the hardware. Engineers reportedly believe the chip could process six to 10 times more AI tokens per unit of power than Google’s latest custom AI chips, potentially allowing the company to serve far more AI requests without a proportional increase in infrastructure.
The broader takeaway is that Google’s AI hardware strategy is increasingly being driven by demand rather than technological ambition alone. As Gemini adoption accelerates across Search, Cloud and enterprise products, the company is racing to build infrastructure that can keep up.
For investors, Frozen v2 represents more than another AI chip. It is Google’s attempt to solve a problem created by its own success: processing tens of billions of AI tokens every minute while easing growing compute constraints.
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Google Cloud uvedl, že stávající zákazníci utrácejí asi o 50 % více, než původně očekávali. Cloudové tržby Alphabetu ve 2. čtvrtletí vzrostly meziročně o 82 % na 24,8 miliardy USD.
Alphabet Inc GOOGL is in focus on Thursday morning after Thomas Kurian, the chief executive of Google Cloud, said existing customer are pumping in about 50% more than their initial spending commitments.
Kurian’s remarks in an interview with the Mad Money host Jim Cramer follow GOOGL’s blowout second-quarter (Q2) earnings, featuring a whopping 82% year-over-year increase in cloud revenue.
To keep pace with overwhelming enterprise demand, the hyperscaler plans to temporarily rent third-party infrastructure from neocloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius, he confirmed.
Despite Kurian’s bullish comments and the firm’s solid Q2 print, Google shares are slipping at the time of writing, now down more than 20% versus their May high.
Kurian’s remarks on July 23rd reinforce that the company’s “aggressive” artificial intelligence (AI) investments are yielding immediate commercial returns rather than unnecessarily increasing costs.
“It comes down to differentiation in our product portfolio, strength of our go-to-market execution, and you see that in both top line and operating income growth,” he added.
Although renting third-party compute may temporarily hurt gross margin, Kurian emphasized that onboarding high-value enterprise clients now will create compounding long-term returns.
All in all, for investors concerned that hyperscalers are building speculative infrastructure without guaranteed buyers, Kurian’s transparency delivers tangible proof of real, unfulfilled commercial demand directly validating Google’s growth trajectory.
GOOGL stock is seeing pressure on Thursday primarily because management raised its full-year capex guidance to $195 billion at least, after deploying nearly $45 billion in Q2 alone.
However, viewing this capital allocation through Kurian’s operational commentary transforms a perceived spending risk into a bullish indicator.
Rather than overbuilding in a vacuum, something that would have resembled the dot-com bubble, Alphabet’s aggressive infrastructure spending is addressing customers' “over-consumption” and an expanding cloud backlog.
With cloud sales expanding to $24.8 billion in the second quarter – every dollar funneled into data centers and specialized silicon is generating top-line conversion.
As these AI investments mature and internal capacity replaces external rentals, operating leverage should expand, reinforcing Google’s competitive position in enterprise artificial intelligence.
Part of the weakness in GOOGL shares this morning reflects broader macroeconomic jitters amidst an escalating US-Iran conflict as well.
However, Alphabet’s core Search operations remain super cash-generative, and its cloud business is expanding margins and capturing market share.
For long-term investors, that warrants buying on the dip today. Note that Wall Street analysts also remain uber bullish on Google for the remainder of 2026.
Consensus rating on the multinational tech behemoth sits at Strong Buy currently – with the mean price target of nearly $435 indicating potential for another 35% upside from here.
Alphabet v 1. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2026 zvýšil tržby segmentu Google Search & other na 60,40 miliardy USD, meziročně o 19 %, a tržby Google Cloud na 20,03 miliardy USD, o 63 %.
I keep hitting the buy button on Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) because the business behaves like a tollbooth on the entire internet, and every quarter the toll gets higher while the road gets wider. Warren Buffett appears to have arrived at the same conclusion. I got there first for my own account, and I am still adding.
The pitch is simple. Google Search is a self reinforcing flywheel. More queries feed better data, better data sharpens targeting, sharper targeting draws more advertising dollars, and those dollars fund the next turn of the wheel. Buffett views Alphabet’s moat through the search network flywheel and the capital scale that lets the company fund custom AI chips and global data centers straight out of cash flow. Smaller competitors cannot match that without crippling themselves. I want to own the tollbooth.
The Receipts Behind the Conviction Start with the flywheel itself. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Google Search & other revenue reached $60.40 billion, up 19%, and Pichai told shareholders “queries at an all time high”. That is a two decade old business still compounding at scale.
Then the second engine. Google Cloud revenue grew 63% to $20.03 billion, and backlog nearly doubled quarter on quarter to over $460 billion. Cloud growth has climbed from 32% to 34% to 48% to 63% across the last four quarters. Backlog of that size is a customer signing a promise to pay Alphabet years into the future.
The economics of this machine are what keep me buying. Return on equity sits at 38.9%, profit margin at 37.9%, and operating margin at 36.1%. EPS of $5.11 crushed the $2.63 consensus, the fourth consecutive beat. Over the trailing year, the stock is up 83.14%, and I am still buying because the P/E is 26.
Why Not Microsoft or Meta The obvious alternative is Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). Azure is a real cloud competitor, but I pass because Microsoft trades at a price to sales ratio of 9.39 against Alphabet’s 10.17, yet Alphabet is compounding cloud revenue at 63% versus Microsoft’s 18.3% overall quarterly revenue growth. I am paying a similar sales multiple for faster growth and a wider consumer moat.
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is the other name I hear. It trades at a P/E of 23, cheaper than Alphabet on paper. My problem is concentration. Meta’s revenue is essentially all advertising, with no cloud franchise to catch the enterprise AI wave. Alphabet has ads, cloud, YouTube, and Waymo. Waymo surpassed 500,000 fully autonomous rides per week. That optionality is free with the ticker.
The Real Risk The risk that keeps me awake is capital intensity. CapEx hit $35.67 billion in the quarter, up 107.44%, and 2026 guidance is $175 to $185 billion. Free cash flow fell 46.63% year over year to $10.12 billion. If AI demand disappoints, that spending becomes a stranded asset problem.
I stay long anyway because the backlog is real, operating cash flow still grew 26.67%, and the same capital scale that pressures near term free cash flow is the moat itself. Only a handful of companies on earth can write these checks from operating cash.
Alphabet owns the tollbooth, funds the next mile of road from the toll receipts, and pays me a dividend it just raised 5% to $0.22 while I wait. That is why the buy button stays warm.
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EU uložila Googlu pokutu 890 mil. € za porušení pravidel hospodářské soutěže v oblasti vyhledávání a obchodu s aplikacemi. Komise nařídila firmě zacházet s třetími stranami ve výsledcích vyhledávání férově a nediskriminačně a umožnit vývojářům aplikací nabízet nabídky mimo obchod Google.
Google has been fined a total of €890m (£760m) by the EU for breaches of online competition laws by its search and app store services.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Google had broken the Digital Markets Act by giving priority to its own services, such as shopping and hotel deals, in search results over those of its rivals.
It also infringed the DMA by preventing app developers from steering consumers towards cheaper offers, including for subscriptions, on websites or alternative app stores.
Google has been fined €460m for the search-related breach and €430m for the app store violation. The commission has ordered the company to treat third-party services that appear in its search results in a “fair and non-discriminatory manner” and allow app developers to make offers outside Google’s app store.
It noted that Google had already started testing changes to how it displays search results featuring its own services. It said those changes represent “substantial progress towards compliance”.
Consumers will be direct beneficiaries of the decision by the EU, a senior official said. “Research results will be in different in Europe. They will have to adapt their search engine going forward,” they said.
Max von Thun, director of the Open Markets Institute Europe thinktank, said the fines were the “bare minimum” for a company that made revenues of just over $400bn last year.
“Having finally established Google’s non-compliance, the commission must now move quickly to force Google to end its anti-competitive practices once and for all. Europe’s startups and innovators cannot wait much longer,” he said.
The decision to impose the fine risks the ire of Donald Trump, only hours before a series of temporary global tariffs against about 60 countries expires.
A senior official for the EU said they had no knowledge of how Trump was likely to react, insisting that the bloc had the “sovereign right” to regulate US tech companies in its own jurisdiction and that the timing of the fine was not connected to tariffs.
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Last year Apple and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta were fined under the DMA. Apple was told to pay €500m for anti-competitive practices at its app store and Meta was told to pay €200m in a ruling on its ad-free “consent or pay” proposal for facebook and Instagram.
Google can appeal against the decision and ask for interim measures, including a request to suspend the measure. The search company’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, described the fine as “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants” that will have a negative impact on European businesses and consumers.
He argued that the DMA forces Google “to strip away real-time search features Europeans love – like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants – and dismantle safety protections on Google Play”.
Alphabet po zveřejnění výsledků za 2. čtvrtletí, které překonaly odhady tržeb i zisku na akcii, v after-hours klesl téměř o 3 % a smazal asi 125 miliard USD z tržní kapitalizace. Investoři řeší hlavně prudce rostoucí kapitálové výdaje a slabší dlouhodobý dopad AI Overviews na prokliky ve vyhledávání.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares fell almost 3% after hours, wiping almost $125 billion from its valuation, despite second-quarter results that beat Wall Street forecasts on both revenue and earnings.
The Google parent reported revenue of $119.8 billion and earnings per share of $9.11, against analyst expectations of $116.9 billion.
Google Cloud revenue rose 82% year on year to $24.77 billion, and remaining performance obligations, the value of contracts signed but not yet delivered, reached $514 billion against a forecast $488.1 billion.
The share price reaction points to the number investors actually cared about.
Capital expenditure hit $44.9 billion in the quarter, double the same period last year, keeping Alphabet on track for full-year spending of $180 billion to $190 billion.
Free cash flow fell roughly 47% year on year in the first quarter to $10.1 billion, and chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi has already told investors 2027 spending will increase significantly again.
The stock has dropped in each of the past three months and sits below its 52-week high, behind Apple and Nvidia for the year despite an 11% gain.
Adding to the unease, Bloomberg reported Google has delayed its Gemini 3.5 Pro model over concerns about how it compares with rivals, a claim the company disputes.
The click that never comes
Beneath the quarterly numbers sits a structural problem that no earnings beat resolves.
Google's advertising business, which delivered $81.63 billion this quarter, depends on an open web of publishers producing the content its search results index and monetise.
That web is contracting.
Ahrefs data published in February found AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries Google places above search results, cut click-through rates for the top-ranked link by 58%, nearly double the figure measured eight months earlier.
Roughly 83% of searches featuring an AI Overview end without a click to any website.
The consequences are already visible: Business Insider lost 55% of its organic traffic and cut 21% of staff, CNN saw traffic fall about 30% year on year, and DMG Media, owner of MailOnline, reported click-through declines of up to 89% on affected queries.
Gartner forecasts that half or more of organic search traffic to websites will disappear by 2028.
Eating the goose
The logic is uncomfortable for Alphabet. Search advertising works because users click through to pages carrying more advertising, much of it also sold by Google.
If publishers close, the corpus of fresh, reliable content that makes AI Overviews useful thins out, and the inventory Google monetises across the wider web shrinks with it.
Advertisers then concentrate spending inside the walled gardens, which flatters Google in the short term and narrows the ecosystem it depends on over the longer term.
Wall Street has so far treated this as someone else's problem, focusing instead on cloud growth and capex discipline.
That is unlikely to hold indefinitely. The moment search revenue growth decelerates while capital spending keeps climbing, the two stories converge, and investors will be asked to value a business that has consumed part of its own supply chain.
Alphabet i Tesla zvýšily kapitálové výdaje kvůli AI, ale obě firmy vykázaly záporný volný peněžní tok za poslední čtvrtletí: Tesla 1,1 miliardy USD a Alphabet 5,9 miliardy USD. Akcie po výsledcích v after-marketu klesly, u Tesly o 4 % a u Alphabetu o více než 3 %.
When Alphabet and Tesla kicked off tech earnings season on Wednesday, one theme became immediately clear: AI spending is under a microscope.
Both companies reported negative free cash flow for the latest quarter and told investors to prepare for higher capital expenditures. They both also reported better-than-expected revenue, but that wasn't enough to prevent an after-market selloff, with Tesla shares sliding 4% and Alphabet down more than 3%.
It's a potentially ominous sign for the tech industry, particularly the other megacaps, which are mostly set to report quarterly results next week. Meta and Microsoft are scheduled to report next Wednesday, followed a day later by Amazon and Apple.
Much of the AI boom to date has been fueled by historic levels of infrastructure spending among a small crop of companies, including hefty investments into model developers OpenAI and Anthropic. But the recent emergence of cheaper open-source models, largely out of China, along with signs that corporate America is getting more frugal when it comes to spending on AI services, has raised concerns about the future returns on investment.
Heading into Wednesday's reports, Alphabet's stock was already on pace for its third straight monthly decline after surging in April, while Tesla shares were down 11% in July and 17% for the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has dropped about 5% since reaching a record in early June.
While Alphabet and Tesla are both spending at unprecedented levels, their numbers vary dramatically.
Google's parent company forecast capex for this year of $195 billion to $205 billion and warned of higher numbers in 2027. Prior guidance was for spending of $180 billion to $190 billion. At the top end of the new range, Alphabet could be the biggest spender in tech this year, as Amazon's latest guidance was for more than $200 billion, though that number may increase when the company reports results next week.
watch now
Google and its hyperscaler peers are building out data centers packed with advanced chips so they can provide the computing power necessary to build and run the leading AI models and the services they power.
Mizuho analysts wrote in a note that Google's capex increase was "broadly anticipated," and that the overall story is positive, largely due to the surge in cloud revenue, which jumped 82% from a year earlier, blowing past estimates. Cloud margins expanded and usage of Google's Gemini model accelerated.
"As such we are surprised the stock is trading off after hours and would expect it to recover in trading tomorrow," wrote the analysts, who recommend buying the stock.
'As fast as we can spend'Tesla reiterated expectations for more than $25 billion in capex this year, which would represent about 200% year-over-year growth. In the second quarter, capex soared 142% to $5.79 billion. The company boosted spending on self-driving technology, AI and robotics initiatives that CEO Elon Musk has been touting for years.
Tesla is now retooling its factories to make the two-seater driverless Cybercab, and to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots, which are still being developed, while also preparing to start construction of a sprawling AI chip-manufacturing plant in Texas.
"We should be spending on capex as fast as we can spend, as fast as we can without it being too wasteful," Musk said on the earnings call. He added, "It's ok to be a little less capital efficient if we get things done sooner."
For both companies, the aggressive growth plans are resulting in a major hit to their cash holdings.
Free cash flow at Tesla turned negative in the quarter, with a deficit of $1.1 billion after the company generated $146 million in free cash flow a year ago and $1.44 billion in the first quarter of 2026.
"This is a massive capex year but we are confident that all the things that we are investing in will yield incredible returns," Musk said. He compared Tesla's spending and building in "many different arenas simultaneously," to that of Henry Ford with the Model T.
"I think probably this is the fastest industrial scale-up since World War II in America," Musk said.
watch now
The numbers at Alphabet were even more stark, with free cash flow sinking to negative $5.9 billion after the company, which is lauded for its fat margins from online ads, generated almost $25 billion in free cash flow a year ago.
"We expect the free cash flow will remain under pressure, driven by our investments in technical infrastructure, which enables us to capitalize on the AI opportunity and continue to drive attractive returns," CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on the earnings call.
Most of the company's $44.9 billion in capex in the second quarter went to infrastructure to support the AI buildout, Ashkenazi said.
In addition to building its own data centers, Google executives said they also plan to rely on capacity from third-party cloud providers to meet feverish computing demand, building on a recent compute deal with Musk's SpaceX, which now owns xAI and its Memphis data centers.
The results on Wednesday did nothing to squash the enthusiasm of bullish analysts and investors.
Keith Fitz-Gerald, principal at investment consulting firm Fitz-Gerald Group, said that at Tesla, "profitability is being sacrificed for infrastructure" just as it was previously at companies including Amazon and Netflix.
"I expect it to pay off in spades over the next 12-24, even 36 months," Fitz-Gerald wrote in a note after the report.
And Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of tech research firm Valoir, said in an email that Google's core business remains strong and that its AI investments are generating returns.
"Google's momentum should calm some market fears about AI overspending," she wrote. "Strong performance across its businesses show search isn't dead, advertising still matters, and cloud investment is still a good bet."
Alphabet oznámil výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí 2026 a zdůraznil silný růst tržeb tažený hlavními službami a novými iniciativami. Firma dál sází na AI a cloud.
Editor’s Note: The transcripts have been removed and were published in error.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Wednesday. Read the complete transcript below.
Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more.
The full earnings call is available at https://abc.xyz/investor/events/event-details/2026/2026-Q2-Earnings-Call-2026-GgTAq7Is0z/default.aspx
SummaryAlphabet Inc reported its financial performance for the second quarter of 2026, highlighting strong revenue growth driven by its core services and new initiatives.
The company emphasized its strategic focus on AI technology, particularly through the development and implementation of AI-driven solutions like Gemini, which aims to solve complex problems across various sectors.
YouTube TV was highlighted as a key product with expanding service plans, reflecting the company’s commitment to diversifying its revenue streams beyond traditional advertising.
Alphabet Inc announced continued investment in its cloud services, aiming to leverage AI capabilities to enhance its offerings and maintain competitive advantage.
Management expressed optimism about the future, focusing on the potential of AI to drive growth and innovation, while also addressing the company’s mission to tackle solvable diseases with new technology.
Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Bloomberg/Getty Images Imagine making nearly $100 billion extra and dedicating exactly one vague sentence to it. That's just what Google parent Alphabet did in its second quarter earnings report.
The tech giant reported that its "other income" totaled $98 billion in the second quarter, noting it came from unrealized gains on its investments.
Analysts didn't ask Alphabet executives about the gain on its earnings call. Instead, they focused on its rising capital expenditures and position in the AI race. The tech giant's stock closed down about 1.24%.
It's not the first time Alphabet has done this. In April 2025, the company disclosed a similar $8 billion paper gain. Google has no obligation to disclose exactly where those gains come from, and it doesn't.
The gains are almost certainly related to very savvy investments the company has made in companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, and Databricks.
Google was an early SpaceX investor, buying about 7% of the company in 2015. SpaceX also uses Google Cloud for its Starlink service. SpaceX is currently worth about $1.5 trillion dollars since its IPO last month. Google invested in SpaceX when it was worth only about $12 billion — that's a 133x return.
Google is also heavily invested in Anthropic, owning about a 14% stake in the company as of last March, according to filings seen by the New York Times. The AI lab was valued at almost $1 trillion in a massive $65 billion funding round in May. Some investors think it's already worth $1.2 trillion.
Additionally, Google is an investor in Databricks, which was valued at $188 billion in a funding round earlier this month.
Google, SpaceX, Anthropic, and Databricks didn't respond to requests for comment.
Google's investing chops are certainly impressive. But investors are more concerned about Google's own prospects.
The tech giant hiked its capital expenditures to a maximum of $205 billion this year as it races to compete on AI. While Google has strong advantages in distribution and chipmaking, its efforts to build a leading AI model haven't paid off.
It keeps delaying its next big AI chatbot, which some rivals are mocking online.
Still, many analysts remain bullish on Google's fundamentals. Its revenue jumped by almost 25% compared to last year on the back of strong ads and cloud sales, which are also being boosted by AI.
"Another impressive quarter for Google," said Emarketer principal analyst Nate Elliott.
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Charles Rollet You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Charles Rollet is BI's tech correspondent in San Francisco. Prior to joining BI, Charles worked at TechCrunch covering startups and VC. Charles is based in the Bay Area, where he enjoys hiking with his dogs. You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.
YouTube ve 2. čtvrtletí zvýšil reklamní příjmy o 13 % na 11,06 miliardy USD a pomohl mateřské společnosti Alphabet k silným výsledkům. Celkové tržby vzrostly o 24 % na 119,8 miliardy USD a EPS téměř zčtyřnásobil na 9,11 USD.
YouTube ad revenue increased 13% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, helping to pace parent Alphabet‘s financial performance.
Total revenue rose 24% in the quarter to hit $119.8 billion, while earnings per share nearly quadrupled to $9.11. Both metrics were ahead of Wall Street expectations.
YouTube pulled in $11.06 billion in ad revenue, showing double-digit growth that has eluded its traditional media rivals in recent years. Along with its deep well of creator content, YouTube is increasingly looking to cross over into traditional entertainment, landing rights to the Academy Awards and NFL football games.
RELATED: The NFL Wants To Attract Younger Fans; YouTube Blitzed Super Bowl LX To Try To Make That Happen
In the company’s earnings release, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai flagged YouTube’s popularity as a way for people to keep current. “Month over month, people turn to YouTube for major world events, with over 1.7 billion unique viewers watching World Cup-related videos during the FIFA World Cup,” he wrote.
Debate about the stocks of Alphabet and the other “magnificent seven” tech giants (Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft) preceded the earnings release. Some Wall Streeters fret about a recent divergence between the “mag seven” and semiconductor shares, given that chipmakers have slumped recently despite their key role in the AI boom.
RELATED: UK Government Unveils Plan For Midnight Social Media Curfew For Older Teens
Google, initially a laggard in AI, has moved the head of the sector during the past few quarters, though it also faces questions about strategic plans for Gemini and other tools.
Alphabet ve 2. čtvrtletí překonal odhady zisku i tržeb; cloudové tržby vyskočily o 82 % na 24,77 miliardy USD. Měsíční počet aktivních uživatelů aplikace Gemini dosáhl 950 milionů.
První zástupce big techu se v aktuální výsledkové sezoně vytasil se silnými čísly. Alphabet překonal svým hospodařením za druhé čtvrtletí odhady analytiků jak v případě zisku, tak i tržeb. Výrazně lépe oproti očekávání si vedla také cloudová divize, jejíž tempo růstu nadále prudce zrychluje. Mírným zklamáním naopak je hlavní byznys spojený s internetovým vyhledáváním.
Nejprve k hlavním číslům: Upravený zisk na akcii činil 9,11 dolaru, což je výrazné překročení prognózy Wall Street ve výši 2,90 dolarů. Stojí za tím masivní zisky v kategorii „ostatní příjmy“ ve výši bezmála 98 miliard dolarů, které zahrnují podíly ve společnostech Anthropic a SpaceX. Celkové tržby vzrostly meziročně o 24 procent na 119,80 miliardy dolarů při konsenzu 116,9 mld. USD.
Investory bedlivě sledovaná cloudová divize, jež odráží poptávku po AI infrastruktuře a AI řešeních, se rovněž činila, když na tržbách vygenerovala 24,77 miliardy dolarů, což jednak představuje působivý meziroční růst o 82 procent a jednak výrazné překonání konsenzu analytiků, kteří podle dat agentury Bloomberg počítali s tržbami „jen“ kolem 22,46 mld. USD.
Měsíční počet aktivních uživatelů aplikace Gemini dosáhl 950 milionů, což je oproti odhadům o 30 milionů více. „Gemini je nyní jen kousek od toho, aby se stal třetím produktem od Googlu s umělou inteligencí pro spotřebitele s miliardou uživatelů, vedle AI Overviews a AI Mode,“ podotkl pro Bloomberg hlavní analytik společnosti Emarketer Nate Elliott.
Naopak reklamní příjmy z vyhledávání, které jsou nadále nejvýznamnějším zdrojem tržeb společnosti, dosáhly 63,27 miliardy dolarů. To je nepatrně pod očekáváním trhu (63,28 mld. USD).
Společnost dále uvedla, že kapitálové výdaje ve druhém čtvrtletí dosáhly 44,92 miliardy dolarů, což překonalo očekávání Wall Street (44,15 mld. USD). Alphabet letos plánuje rekordní kapitálové výdaje, aby mohl soutěžit v závodě umělé inteligence, přičemž investoři (nejen Alphabetu, nýbrž technologických gigantů obecně) sledují, zda tyto výdaje pohánějí nový růst, nebo v konečném důsledku omezí ziskovost.
Akcie Alphabetu bezprostředně po zveřejnění výsledků v aftermarketu ztrácely přibližně půl procenta.
U Alphabetu bude klíčový capex: v dubnu zvýšil výhled na rok 2026 na 180 až 190 miliard USD a v 1. čtvrtletí utratil 35,7 miliardy USD. Trh sleduje, zda výdaje na AI stále podporují růst.
Alphabet (GOOG +0.00%)(GOOGL -0.13%) reports second-quarter results after the market closes today, with the earnings call scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET. The revenue and earnings may end up being the focus on many of the headlines. But I'd argue the number that actually has more implications for the stock sits further down the report. It's capital expenditures -- the money Alphabet is pouring into data centers and the computing infrastructure behind its artificial intelligence (AI) push.
After all, nobody doubts that the business is growing. The question is whether the company's AI spending is an investment compounding into more growth or a cost rising faster than the returns it generates.
Image source: Alphabet.
The spending curve keeps steepening In April, alongside first-quarter results, Alphabet raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $180 billion to $190 billion, up from $175 billion to $185 billion. Chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi also said the company expects its 2027 capital expenditures to "significantly increase" from there.
And Alphabet spent $35.7 billion on capital expenditures during Q1 specifically. So, even to reach even the low end of its full-year range, spending would need to average about $48 billion per quarter for the rest of the year -- a step-up of more than 30% from the first quarter's pace.
To be fair, the tech company's growth has been impressive. Alphabet's first-quarter revenue rose 22% year over year to $109.9 billion, the company's 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Google Cloud revenue climbed 63% year over year to $20 billion -- an acceleration that made the segment the company's most powerful growth catalyst. And Alphabet notably said its cloud backlog swelled to more than $460 billion.
Further, Alphabet remains compute-constrained.
"We are compute constrained in the near term," CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company's first-quarter earnings call. "Our cloud revenue would have been higher if we were able to meet the demand."
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What would be reassuring -- and what wouldn't As for the earnings line, it has gotten noisy recently. Alphabet's first-quarter net income rose 81% year over year, but a $36.9 billion pre-tax gain on equity securities added $28.7 billion to the bottom line, a swing factor that has nothing to do with the operating business. That's exactly why profit is a poor scoreboard for this report, and the capital expenditure line is a better one.
So what would a reassuring report look like?
Capital expenditure guidance held at $180 billion to $190 billion, cloud growth still running near 60%, and clear evidence that the more than $460 billion cloud backlog is converting into revenue. That combination would say the spending is buying growth at a steady exchange rate.
The worrying version is the opposite. Another guidance raise stacked on top of April's, paired with decelerating cloud growth, would suggest the price of keeping up in AI is rising faster than the payoff. Investors could probably forgive either one on its own. Both together, however, could hit the stock hard.
Valuation frames the stakes. At about $347 per share, Alphabet trades at about 27 times earnings -- closer to 32 times without the first quarter's equity gains, but hardly extreme either way for a company growing revenue 22%. Shares also sit about 15% below their 52-week high of $408.61, so some caution is already priced in.
But a multiple like that still assumes Alphabet's strong growth persists as its investments pay off.
Alphabet has earned patience from investors on this front before. Google Cloud spent years absorbing investment before it became the profit driver it is now, and the company's balance sheet gives it more room for error than almost any business on Earth. The bull case, therefore, is simply that history repeats: spend heavily, wait, collect a bigger business on the other side.
Ultimately, the report lands this afternoon, and the reaction will come fast. When it does, I'll go straight past revenue and earnings to the capital expenditure line -- and I think investors should, too. If Alphabet holds the range while cloud keeps compounding, the stock's premium valuation looks earned. But if the spending number jumps again without growth to match, investors may have some cause for concern.
Google odkládá svůj další špičkový model Gemini 3.5 Pro, zatímco konkurenti OpenAI a Anthropic už uvádějí nové top modely. Téma má přijít i na středeční večer při oznámení výsledků za 2. čtvrtletí.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai is likely to face questions about its delayed frontier AI during earnings. Bloomberg/Getty Images In the AI race, the throne is never safe. Just ask Google.
After the success of Gemini 3, Google found itself in a strong position at the end of 2025. As of this week, the situation is a little shakier.
While the company just rolled out three faster, more cost-effective models, it continues to delay its next frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, and it's unclear whether this week's launches will be enough to keep users and investors happy in the interim.
Some of Google's competitors are using the opportunity to land a few jabs.
Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, wrote on X "gemini who?" in response to a leaderboard that ranked Meta's Spark model above one launched by Google this week.
Thibault Sottiaux, a member of technical staff at OpenAI, also took an apparent jab at the search giant. In a post on X, Google's Logan Kilpatrick announced that pre-training on Gemini 4 — the next big milestone model — had begun. "Hope it finishes one day too!" Sottiaux replied.
Google declined to comment.
'Too early to count anyone out'Google's delay is particularly glaring because OpenAI and Anthropic have rolled out new top-tier models in recent weeks. The pushback of Gemini 3.5 Pro has "shifted perception from leading edge to trailing edge," said Josh Beck, an analyst at Raymond James, in a note this week. He said he saw this as a byproduct of the fast pace of change among the labs right now.
At the same time, Google's business has been humming along nicely in recent quarters, with strong momentum across Search, YouTube, Cloud, and other areas benefiting from Google's AI advancements. Google is also betting that faster, more cost-effective models may be a winning strategy at a time when token costs are racking up.
Google's focus on more efficient models has received praise from some users.
"Google gets a lot of criticism on here for falling behind on agentic coding, but Gemini 3.5 Flash has long been my daily driver for agentic document extraction, which is one of the highest-value use-cases for LLMs IMO," Kyle Walker, founder of Clearfork Intelligence, wrote on X.
Still, Google may need to address this trade-off between efficiency and power when it announces Q2 earnings on Wednesday evening. Analysts are likely to raise the topic of 3.5 Pro and its release timeline.
"I love Gemini, probably more than I should but them hyping 4 before even delivering 3.5 Pro is a lil weird," Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, wrote on X.
Sag told Business Insider he felt that Google hyping up Gemini 4 was an "admission they already have something better." However, he said the "feverish pace" of AI right now doesn't necessarily yield meaningful improvements.
"I just feel like Google is a much bigger company and moves a bit differently from its competitors," said Sag.
He added: "It's just way too early to count anyone out."
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Reddit a další vydavatelé zvažují omezení přístupu Googlu kvůli souhrnům od AI, která jim odčerpávají návštěvnost. USA Today uvedl, že jeho návštěvnost z Googlu za 12 měsíců končících v červnu 2026 klesla téměř o polovinu.
Reddit and a growing number of news publishers are reportedly mulling whether to cut off Google’s access to their sites as the Big Tech giant’s controversial AI search summaries siphon web traffic.
Reddit, which previously inked a $60 million per year deal which permitted Google to use its online message boards to train AI models, has grown disillusioned with the search giant’s tactics and is debating whether the agreement is worth it, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
USA Today, Politico, Reuters and The Economist are also reconsidering their ties to Google over its use of AI-generated “overviews” – which are placed at the top of search results instead of links to outside outlets in what critics have called an existential threat to online publishers.
Reddit is considering cutting ties despite having a content partnership with Google. SDF_QWE – stock.adobe.com
Social media community forum Reddit is considering cutting off Google’s access to the site. Amanda Alamsyah – stock.adobe.com “It’s time to take a stand and say enough is enough,” said USA Today CEO Mike Reed told the Journal.
Google search traffic from US users to USA Today plummeted by nearly half over the 12 months ending in June 2026, according to data compiled by Semrush. Traffic plunged 23% for Politico and by more than 85% for Business Insider, the report found.
USA Today – which is already suing Google for alleging operating a monopoly over digital advertising technology – is considering cutting off Google’s access to its articles for AI training. That would also mean its articles would no longer appear in search results.
Politico, which is owned by publishing giant Axel Springer, has discussed blocking Google and other bots from accessing its non-paywalled articles, according to the report. Reuters is also considering limits.
USA Today could cut off Google’s access to its articles. sharafmaksumov – stock.adobe.com “We are certainly looking at the economic trade-offs between search and AI summaries,” Reuters President Paul Bascobert told the Journal.
A Google spokesperson pushed back on the criticism, asserting that publishers are able to opt out of allowing their sites to be used for training its Gemini AI models without removing themselves from search.
“Google’s AI Search features send billions of clicks to the web every week, meeting people’s evolving preferences for how they want to find information while driving significant traffic to websites,” the spokesperson said.
Google is accused of siphoning traffic from news publishers. Koshiro K – stock.adobe.com “Our AI features highlight links to the web and help creators and publishers grow their audiences, and we offer clear controls for website owners to manage their content.”
Meanwhile, Google has turned up the heat on news publishers.
An example of AI Overview on a Google search page. Google In June, The Information reported that the company was pitching news publishers on a pilot program to have their sites featured in AI Overviews – but only if they agreed to allow sweeping access to their content for AI training.
Alphabet před výsledky po středečním uzavření trhu řeší, zda její obří cash flow stačí na rostoucí investice. Tržby z cloudu a výhled rozhodnou, zda převáží býci, nebo skeptici.
GOOGL stock is moving ahead of earnings. See the chart and price action here. When the Google parent reports second-quarter results after Wednesday’s close, investors will be studying a company that occupies a strange position: fabulously cash-rich, and yet visibly stretched by the scale of its own ambitions.
The financial newsletter Swiss Transparent Portfolio, in a preview published this week, put the paradox at the center of the moment.
“The most self-funding company on earth passed the hat,” the publication wrote. “That is the tension the market brings to Wednesday’s print.”
The tension is worth sitting with, because the raw numbers are staggering. By the newsletter’s calculation, “Alphabet generated $174 billion of operating cash flow over the last twelve months. It is, by that measure, the greatest cash machine in corporate history.”
Companies that generate cash on that scale are not supposed to feel constrained by anything. Alphabet, right now, does — and that gap between what it earns and what it wants to spend is precisely what has investors on edge heading into the print.
What Would Validate the BullsThe disagreement about what it all means is unusually sharp. On one side sit the optimists, who read the heavy spending as a rational response to demand the company simply cannot satisfy fast enough.
As Swiss Transparent Portfolio framed the bull case, “Bulls see a $460+ billion Cloud backlog, six years of current Cloud revenue already contracted, and a management team told by its own customers that demand is constrained only by capacity.”
In that telling, the spending is not a warning sign at all. It is a company sprinting to keep up with orders already on the books.
What Would Empower the BearsThe skeptics see the same picture and flinch. The newsletter summarized their concerns bluntly: “Bears see $750+ billion of combined Big Tech capex this year, a depreciation bill rising ~$13 billion, fresh dilution, and a Gemini 3.5 Pro delay that just knocked 3% off the stock.”
Each item on that list chips away at the bull story — a mounting cost base, shares that no longer feel quite as scarce, and a reminder, in the Gemini stumble, that even the most lavishly funded ambitions can slip.
What makes today so uncomfortable is that both readings are credible, and the print could tip the balance either way.
Strong cloud growth and disciplined guidance would hand the bulls their proof. Any softness — in cloud, in margins, in the tone around future spending — would let the bears press their case.
The newsletter captured the resulting paralysis well: “This is exactly the kind of moment where most investors freeze: a wonderful business, a staggering bet, and no consensus on which chart matters.”
That is the real source of the jitters. Alphabet’s earnings power has never been in doubt. Whether that power is finally big enough to cover its appetite is the question the market cannot answer until the numbers land — and it is exactly the question tonight is built to settle.
GOOGL Stock Price Activity: Alphabet shares were up 0.35% at $348.35 at the time of publication Wednesday, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Over the past month, GOOGL has declined about 2.7% versus a 0.1% rise in the S&P 500 and is up roughly 10% year-to-date compared to the index’s 9.2% gain.
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Alphabet dnes po uzavření trhu zveřejní výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí; analytici čekají EPS 2,88 USD a tržby 113,63 miliardy USD. Akcie GOOG jsou před reportem o 0,27 % výše.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares are in the spotlight, with earnings on deck, a mixed technical setup and Edge Rankings all drawing attention.
Alphabet stock is trading near recent highs. What’s the outlook for GOOG shares? Earnings Preview & HistoryAlphabet is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings today after the market closes. Analysts estimate EPS of $2.88 along with revenue of $113.63 billion. For the prior quarter, Alphabet reported EPS of $5.11, beating the consensus estimate of $2.63. The company also posted revenue of $109.90 billion, exceeding the consensus estimate of $104.07 billion.
Alphabet has beaten EPS estimates in eight consecutive quarters. Over the last four quarters, the company has averaged an EPS surprise of 0.34% and a revenue surprise of 0.08%.
What To WatchBullish Long-Term, Bearish Short-TermFrom a trend perspective, Google is still holding the bigger uptrend: it’s trading about 8% above its 200-day SMA ($321.99) and about 1.3% above its 100-day SMA ($343.21), keeping the longer-term structure constructive. The shorter-term picture is choppier, with the stock about 1.5% below its 20-day SMA ($353.04) and about 5% below its 50-day SMA ($366.12), which is consistent with a cooling phase after the May swing high.
MACD is the cleaner momentum read right now: it’s below its signal line and the histogram is negative, which points to fading upside pressure unless buyers can push price back into the short-term moving-average band. In plain terms, MACD below the signal line often means rallies are having a harder time building follow-through.
The moving-average "map" also shows why rebounds may be work: the 20-day SMA is below the 50-day SMA (a bearish short-term crossover), even though the longer-term golden cross (50-day above 200-day) that formed in July 2025 still argues the primary trend hasn’t broken. That mix often produces range-like trading where rallies run into overhead supply and pullbacks get bought near longer-term support.
Key Resistance: $371.00 — a round-number area that also sits near the 50-day moving average zone, where rebounds can stall Key Support: $343.50 — a nearby floor that lines up closely with the 100-day SMA area, making it a logical spot for buyers to defend Benzinga Edge RankingsBelow is the Benzinga Edge scorecard for Alphabet Inc. Class C Capital Stock, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses compared to the broader market:
The Verdict: Alphabet’s Benzinga Edge signal reveals a momentum-and-growth-driven profile backed by very strong quality, but with less support from pure value. For longer-term bulls, that usually means pullbacks toward well-defined support can matter more than "cheapness," while upside follow-through often needs momentum to re-accelerate.
Alphabet Shares Trade FlatGOOG Price Action: At the time of publication, Alphabet shares are trading 0.27% higher at $347.14, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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Alphabet v 1. čtvrtletí poprvé za deset let neprovedl žádné zpětné odkupy vlastních akcií a místo toho zvýšil kapitálové výdaje na 35,67 miliardy USD. Firma zároveň míří do AI, včetně zhruba 40miliardového podílu v Anthropic.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) is asking its investors to accept a trade-off that would have been unthinkable a year ago: give up the buybacks, and trust the AI bet instead.
According to CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos, in a segment on how “Alphabet sacrifices buybacks to fund its AI buildout,” the Google parent repurchased nothing in the first quarter, the first time it has bought back zero stock in a decade. That halts a buyback spree that returned close to $300 billion over the past five years. “Alphabet repurchased close to $300 billion worth of stock over the past five years, more than any of the other major AI hyperscalers,” Sigalos noted. “But then in Q1 it bought back nothing for the first time in a decade.”
The company’s own filings back that up. Alphabet listed no share repurchases in Q1 2026, while capital expenditures climbed to $35.67 billion, up 107.44% YoY, as the company nearly doubled its AI infrastructure spending. For the full year, Alphabet has guided to capex in the range of $175-$185 billion, disclosed in the company’s Q4 2025 SEC filings.
The Bet: Build, Don’t Buy Back The logic is a confidence statement about AI’s profitability. “Management is betting that the same cash can earn a greater return by building the infrastructure needed to run and sell AI at scale,” Sigalos explained. In other words, Alphabet believes a dollar spent on AI-serving infrastructure will beat the immediate earnings-per-share lift it would get from shrinking its share count.
Alphabet is also buying stakes. “They’ve also been putting it toward a very aggressive venture operation,” Sigalos said. “Close to $40 billion stake in Anthropic.” That is the eye-opener: the same cash that once flowed back to shareholders is now funding both Alphabet’s own data centers and a massive equity position in one of the leading rival AI labs. Alphabet is hedging its in-house Gemini development with a strategic position in a direct competitor, spreading its bets across the AI landscape.
The Proof Point Arrives at Earnings All of this sets up a high-stakes test when Alphabet reports. The number to watch is Google Cloud. “The whisper number is around 70% growth year over year,” Sigalos said, “and Alphabet has got to show that giving up the immediate return from buybacks can produce faster cloud growth and stronger margins.” Cloud grew 63% in the first quarter, so a step up toward 70% would help validate the reallocation. Faster cloud growth and expanding margins are the receipts management needs to justify sending buyback cash into servers and startups.
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Prediction markets already lean heavily toward a beat. Polymarket traders assign a 96.3% probability that Alphabet clears the earnings bar ahead of its upcoming earnings report, though shares have slipped -5.67% over the past month even as they sit up 83.14% over the last year.
The Bigger Question Underneath the numbers sits a debate about what this spending really signals. As the CNBC host put it, “Buybacks are what companies do if they don’t feel they have productive use for the cash. It’s surplus cash.” By that logic, halting buybacks says Alphabet believes it now has a productive use for every dollar. The bull case is conviction: a company seeing returns so compelling it would rather build than hand cash back.
The bear case is less flattering. It reads the buyback halt as competitive conformity in an AI arms race where enormous spending has become table stakes. The distinction matters for shareholders, because one interpretation means the money compounds and the other means it evaporates.
There is a telling detail in the comparison set. Among Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, only Microsoft repurchased stock in the recent period. That makes Alphabet’s pivot part of a broader pattern of hyperscalers prioritizing the buildout over shareholder returns.
For now, Alphabet has drawn a clear line: the future of the company runs through AI infrastructure and strategic stakes like Anthropic. Whether that was visionary capital allocation or expensive herd behavior will start to become clear when Cloud’s numbers land. Investors who spent five years enjoying $300 billion in repurchases are being asked to be patient.
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Alphabet uvedl, že AI dál zvyšuje využití Search a vyhledávání jsou na historickém maximu. Tržby Google Search & Other vzrostly v posledním čtvrtletí o 19 % na 60,40 miliardy USD.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) looks compelling at $351.99, because the two-year Wall Street panic that conversational AI would cannibalize Google Search has been decisively invalidated by the numbers. For 24 months, the bear case rested on a single fear: that ChatGPT and its peers would siphon queries away from the world’s dominant ad engine. The most recent quarter shows the opposite happening in real time.
Alphabet is the parent of Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, Android, and Waymo. The stock has ripped 90.75% over the past year as investors reprocessed the AI threat as an AI tailwind. The question now is whether the current price already reflects that reappraisal, or whether more upside remains.
Why the AI Search Fear Just Died Q1 2026 demolished the bear thesis. Google Search & Other revenue hit $60.40 billion, up 19% year over year, with CEO Sundar Pichai confirming that “AI continues to drive search usage and queries are at an all-time high.”. Gemini-powered AI Overviews are expanding commercial ad inventory at higher click-through yields, Gemini-powered AI Overviews are expanding commercial ad inventory at higher click-through yields, with Hilton EMEA reportedly capturing one-third more clicks for one-fifth of the spend.
Google Cloud revenue grew 63% to $20.03 billion, operating margin expanded to 32.9% from 17.8%, and backlog nearly doubled quarter on quarter to over $460 billion. EPS came in at $5.11 versus $2.6327 estimated, a 94.1% beat, the fourth consecutive beat.
Why the Bears Still Have a Case Capex is the counterweight. Q1 capital expenditures more than doubled to $35.67 billion, free cash flow collapsed 46.63%, and management raised full-year 2026 capex guidance to $180 billion to $190 billion, with 2027 expected higher. Return on that infrastructure spend remains unproven quarter to quarter.
Antitrust overhang persists. Google Network revenue declined year over year, and Q1 net income was flattered by $36.91 billion in net unrealized gains on equity securities, introducing earnings volatility. Insider activity skews net selling across 181 recent insider transactions.
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Why Patience Might Still Win The Hold argument rests on entry timing. Shares are down 4.36% over the past month and sit 6% below the 52-week high of $408.37. With earnings due imminently and Polymarket assigning only a 59.5% probability of closing above $350 by month end, waiting for the print could offer a cleaner entry if capex commentary spooks the tape.
What the Numbers Actually Say Alphabet trades at $351.99 against a consensus analyst target of $433.51, implying 23.03% upside. Coverage is overwhelmingly positive with 14 Strong Buys, 43 Buys, 7 Holds, and zero Sell ratings. Valuation looks reasonable for the growth on offer: 26 trailing P/E, 25 forward P/E, with a PEG of 1.365. Year to date GOOGL is up 12.6%, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) has gained roughly 3.3% since the Q1 filing, meaning the stock has lagged the broad market since its blowout report.
The Verdict at $350: Why the Buyers Win At $351.99, the setup for Alphabet looks favorable. Three simultaneous engines are all accelerating. Search at 19% growth invalidates the disruption narrative that suppressed the multiple for two years. Cloud at 63% growth with a $460 billion backlog gives Alphabet a second megacap growth business generating tripled operating income. Gemini, processing 16 billion tokens per minute via API, monetizes the same AI wave the market once feared.
A forward P/E of 25 for a business compounding revenue at 22% and expanding operating margins to 36.1% is a reasonable price for buyers. The thesis breaks only if capex returns disappoint by 2027 or an antitrust remedy structurally changes distribution. Both remain absent from the current trajectory.
Watch three things quarter by quarter: Cloud operating margin, Search query growth, and capex efficiency signals. If those hold, the analyst target north of $430 becomes the floor rather than the ceiling. The fear that defined Alphabet’s discount for two years is empirically dead, and the stock has not yet fully repriced.
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Google úspěšně připojil nový transatlantický podmořský kabel Nuvem k síti v Sinesu v Portugalsku. Spojuje Myrtle Beach v Jižní Karolíně s Portugalskem přes Bermudy a Azory a posiluje datovou trasu mezi USA a Evropou.
Google logo is displayed at Google's headquarters in New York City, U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Aleksandra Michalska/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
LISBON, July 21 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab has successfully connected a new transatlantic subsea cable to Sines in Portugal, it said on Tuesday, adding another U.S.-Europe data route as demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services surges.
Google's Nuvem, named after the Portuguese word for "cloud", links Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with Sines, south of Lisbon, via Bermuda and the Azores.
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The Nuvem cable system, which spans about 7,000 km (4,350 miles), comprises 16 fibre pairs with a total design capacity of around 384 terabits per second.
Giorgia Abeltino, head of government affairs and public policy for Google Cloud EMEA, said Nuvem was part of a wider vision for Portugal and Europe to invest in the strategic infrastructure underpinning the digital economy.
Subsea cables form the backbone of the world wide web, carrying more than 95% of global data traffic.
Two high-capacity subsea cables already link Portugal with other continents — the Google-owned Equiano cable that runs to South Africa via other African countries, and the EllaLink that runs to Brazil from Sines.
State Reform and Innovation Minister Goncalo Matias said Nuvem was part of a broader strategy to make Portugal a hub for data centres, AI and innovation, while bolstering Europe's digital resilience and sovereignty.
"Portugal is becoming what geography always invited us to be — the Atlantic gateway of Europe, the meeting point of three continents: Europe, Africa, and the Americas," he said at the cable landing ceremony.
Portugal's Atlantic coastline positions it as a prime hub for intercontinental subsea cables, helping to turn the country into a magnet for AI-driven data centres.
Lisbon also seeks to leverage abundant low-cost renewable energy from hydro, solar and wind sources, with more than 2.6 gigawatts of capacity under development.
The pipeline is led by the 1.2-GW Start Campus project in Sines, which is set to benefit from Microsoft's MSFT.O AI infrastructure investments, and is expected to grow substantially in the years ahead.
Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Jan Harvey
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Alphabet oznámí výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí a může udávat tón pro celý technologický sektor. Trh čeká zisk 2,90 USD na akcii při tržbách 101,22 miliardy USD.
Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) ) will officially kick off the Q2 earnings season for the Magnificent Seven when it reports its quarterly results after Wednesday's closing bell on July 22.
As the first mega-cap technology company to report, Alphabet could set the tone not only for the tech sector, but also for the broader market heading into reports from Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) ), Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) ), Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) ), Apple (AAPL - Free Report) ), and Nvidia (NVDA - Free Report) ) over the coming weeks.
With AI remaining Wall Street's dominant investment theme, investors will be looking beyond another likely quarter of double-digit revenue growth to determine whether Alphabet's massive infrastructure investments will generate attractive returns.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Alphabet’s Q2 Expectations Remain HighWall Street expects Alphabet to post another impressive quarter, with consensus estimates calling for earnings of approximately $2.90 per share on revenue of $101.22 billion when including Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), which are the payments Google makes to partners for directing traffic to its search and advertising services.
The top-and bottom-line figures would represent roughly 24% year-over-year growth, respectively.
Several key business segments and underlying metrics will likely determine whether Alphabet can exceed expectations:
Google Search advertisingYouTube advertising revenueGoogle Cloud growthOperating marginsAI-related capital expenditures (CapEx)Cloud continues to be one of Alphabet's fastest-growing businesses, with demand for AI infrastructure and enterprise cloud services expected to remain robust. Based on Zacks estimates, Google Cloud revenue is expected to soar 67% to $22.79 billion from $13.62 billion a year ago.
Meanwhile, investors will be watching to see whether Gemini AI strengthens Search and improves monetization across Alphabet's product ecosystem.
The Zacks ESPThe most intriguing reason for optimism is that the Zacks ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) indicates Alphabet could once again surpass earnings expectations.
To that point, the Most Accurate and recent estimate among Wall Street analysts has Q2 EPS slated at $2.93 and nearly 2% above the underlying Zacks Consensus of $2.87 as shown below (Current Qtr).
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Alphabet has exceeded earnings expectations for 13 consecutive quarters with a very impressive average EPS surprise of 34.43% in its last four quarterly reports.
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Frozen v2 MomentumProviding a near-term catalyst, Alphabet shares are moving higher in Monday's trading session after reports that Google is developing a next-generation AI server chip, informally dubbed "Frozen v2," that would run its Gemini models more efficiently by embedding portions of the model's architecture directly into the silicon.
Key Features of Frozen v2
Model hardwiring: Unlike general-purpose AI chips that load models into memory, Frozen v2 would “freeze” certain aspects of Gemini’s neural-network design into the hardware, reducing the need for repeated data movement and calculations.Efficiency gains: Reports suggest Frozen v2 could serve 6-10 times more AI tokens per unit of power than Google’s latest custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).Specialized design: Frozen v2 will be a new line of homegrown chips, separate from TPUs, not intended to replace them.Deployment target: As early as 2028, although design details and how much model data will be hardwired are still being finalized. Why It Matters
Addressing AI capacity crunch: Alphabet is facing severe internal compute shortages, which have reportedly led to Google Cloud turning away some external customers.Cost and speed: By reducing overhead, Frozen v2 could lower energy costs and latency, making real-time AI services like voice assistants more feasible. Strategic self-reliance: This move deepens Google’s control over AI infrastructure, reducing reliance on competitors like Nvidia.Basically, Frozen v2 is a bold step toward model-specific AI hardware, aiming to make Gemini-based AI services faster, cheaper, and more scalable — but it comes with trade-offs in flexibility and model compatibility.
AI Spending Remains the Biggest QuestionPerhaps the most important aspect of Alphabet's report won't be the quarterly numbers themselves but management's outlook for AI spending.
Alphabet has dramatically increased its CapEx over the past year as it races alongside Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta to expand AI infrastructure. Investors generally remain comfortable with elevated spending as long as revenue and earnings continue growing at a healthy pace, but any indication that returns on those investments are slowing could pressure the stock.
Conversely, stronger-than-expected Cloud growth or encouraging commentary surrounding Gemini adoption could reinforce the bullish AI narrative that has driven tech stocks throughout 2026.
During Q1, Alphabet’s CapEx spiked 107% YoY to $35.7 billion, with the majority directed toward AI technical infrastructure.
Alphabet's current guidance is for approximately $175 billion-$185 billion in CapEx during FY26. The spending is primarily earmarked for expanding data centers, AI infrastructure, servers, networking equipment, and custom TPUs to support growing demand for Google Cloud and Gemini AI.
Aforementioned, investors will be looking for any updates to that outlook, as well as commentary on whether those investments are generating stronger Google Cloud growth and improving AI monetization.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Alphabet’s Valuation Still Looks ReasonableDespite Alphabet's strong rally over the last year, its valuation remains relatively attractive compared to many other mega-cap tech stocks.
Alphabet stock currently trades at 24X forward earnings, which is near the benchmark S&P 500’s average while offering one of the strongest combinations of earnings growth, free cash flow generation, and balance-sheet strength among the Mag 7.
That reasonable valuation gives Alphabet less room for multiple contraction should earnings merely meet expectations or slightly miss them, while stronger guidance could justify additional upside if analysts continue raising profit estimates.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Bottom LineBecause Alphabet reports before every other Mag 7 company this earnings season outside of Tesla ((TSLA - Free Report) ), its conference call may prove just as influential as its financial results.
Strong Q2 results and positive commentary would likely strengthen confidence ahead of reports from Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia, while disappointing guidance could weigh on sentiment across the entire technology sector.
Expectations are running high for Alphabet's Q2 results, but so is the company's earnings momentum. Optimistically, Alphabet stock currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) thanks to favorable earnings estimate revisions and a positive Earnings ESP, suggesting the company may be well positioned to deliver another quarterly beat.
Alphabet čeká jednorázový účetní zisk z přecenění podílu v Anthropic, který by mohl zvýšit EPS až na 8,38 USD. Trh bude sledovat hlavně růst Google Cloud a vývoj backlogu.
Investors are watching Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction) ahead of its Q2 2026 results due Wednesday, July 22, after the bell. With shares near $355 and Anthropic’s valuation exploding, this report could scramble how investors read the numbers.
An Anthropic Windfall Waiting to Land Last quarter set a high bar. Alphabet posted an EPS beat of 94.1%, with $5.11 versus $2.63 expected, while revenue climbed 21.79% YoY to $109.9 billion. Google Cloud grew 63% to $20 billion, and backlog nearly doubled to $462 billion.
Since then, the story has taken an even bigger turn. Alphabet holds roughly 14% of Anthropic, a stake worth approximately $135 billion at Anthropic’s latest $965 billion valuation. At the end of Q1, Anthropic was marked at $380 billion. Bank of America estimates the markup will drive roughly $80 billion in unrealized gains this quarter, prompting the firm to forecast EPS of $8.38, well above the Street.
Consensus Estimates Metric Consensus Growth (YoY) Q2 2026 Revenue ~21% Q2 2026 EPS ~32% Q2 2025 Revenue (baseline) $96.43B Q2 2025 EPS (baseline) $2.31 BofA Q2 2026 EPS (Anthropic-boosted) $8.38 Look Past the Anthropic Mark to the Real Business I’ll be reading right past the headline EPS. A markup this large is a one-off accounting event, and investors still need to treat it that way, since it otherwise won’t give a clear picture of how the underlying business is performing. The real signal sits in Google Cloud, where Anthropic is a major TPU customer.
You should watch three things. First, cloud growth. Last quarter’s 63% YoY print came with CFO Anat Ashkenazi admitting “our cloud revenue would have been higher if we were able to meet the demand”. Any acceleration off the $20 billion base tells you TPU capacity is catching up.
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Second, backlog. The $462 billion cloud backlog nearly doubled QoQ, and management expects just over 50% to convert to revenue within 24 months. Another leap would confirm the AI infrastructure thesis.
Third, capex discipline. Alphabet already raised 2026 capex to $180 to $190 billion and flagged 2027 will “significantly increase”. Free cash flow fell 46.63% YoY in Q1. Another downdraft could pressure the stock even with a blowout headline.
Search matters too. AI Overviews drove 19% Search growth last quarter, and any deceleration would revive competitive fears.
A Print That Needs a Translator This quarter will hand Alphabet a spectacular headline number thanks to Anthropic, and a possible October Anthropic IPO could push the valuation higher still. But the market has already seen this movie. Prediction markets assign a 97.4% probability of a beat. What will actually move the stock is whether cloud growth reaccelerates and capex stays productive. That is the report inside the report.
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Alphabet očekává, že růst ve 2. čtvrtletí potáhnou Search a Google Cloud. Objem nevyřízených zakázek v cloudu přesáhl 460 mld. USD a placená předplatná dosáhla zhruba 350 milionů.
Key Takeaways Alphabet's Q2 growth is expected to be led by Search advertising and Google Cloud momentum.AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini are boosting search activity, ad relevance and paid-click growth.Cloud demand, a $460B-plus backlog and roughly 350M paid subscriptions support revenue visibility. Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) second-quarter 2026 results, scheduled to be released on July 22, are expected to have benefited from solid momentum in Search and Cloud businesses. The momentum in Search is expected to have driven advertising revenues in the to-be-reported quarter. The Cloud business is riding on strong demand for AI infrastructure and an expanding clientele.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Google’s advertising revenues is currently pegged at $81.68 billion, suggesting 14.5% growth from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter. The consensus mark for Google Cloud revenues is currently pegged at $22.79 billion, indicating 67.3% growth from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.
Alphabet has an impressive earnings surprise history. GOOGL’s earnings outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 34.43%.
Click here to know how Alphabet’s overall second-quarter 2026 results are likely to be.
GOOGL’s AI Push Aids Search & Cloud BusinessesGOOGL’s Search business is benefiting from AI infusion. Alphabet is leading the search domain with 91.27% market share, followed by Microsoft’s (MSFT - Free Report) Bing, with 4.68% share, Yahoo!’s 1.28%, Yandex’s 0.79%, DuckDuckGo’s 0.65% and Baidu’s 0.43%, per the latest data from StatCounter.
Alphabet’s Search business is expected to remain the biggest contributor to second-quarter growth. GOOGL highlighted that AI Overviews and AI Mode are increasing user engagement, with users searching more frequently and queries reaching all-time highs. Gemini’s improved understanding of longer and more complex queries is also enabling Google to serve more relevant advertisements, improving advertiser ROI and supporting paid-click growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Search and other revenues is currently pegged at $63.54 billion, suggesting 17.3% growth over the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.
Meanwhile, Google Cloud is expected to have remained a major growth engine in the to-be-reported quarter. Google Cloud has solidified its position as the third-largest provider in the highly competitive cloud infrastructure market against the likes of Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s (AMZN - Free Report) Amazon Web Services. According to Synergy Research Group data, Google Cloud, along with Microsoft, is gaining market share, while Amazon continues to lead with a 28% market share in the first quarter of 2026. Alphabet and Microsoft had 21% and 14% market share, respectively.
Alphabet’s management has noted that enterprise AI solutions have become Cloud's largest growth driver, supported by strong demand for Gemini models, AI infrastructure and security offerings. In the first quarter of 2026, customer acquisition doubled year over year, large enterprise deals accelerated, and the Cloud backlog expanded to more than $460 billion, providing strong revenue visibility into coming quarters.
GOOGL Benefits from Subscription GrowthAlphabet’s subscription business is expected to have contributed meaningfully to the second quarter of 2026. The company reported its strongest-ever quarter for consumer AI plans, driven primarily by Gemini app adoption in the first quarter of 2026. Total paid subscriptions reached roughly 350 million, with Google One and YouTube remaining key contributors, providing a growing stream of recurring revenue.
YouTube is expected to have remained a solid contributor through continued strength in direct-response advertising, Shorts engagement, Connected TV viewing and subscription growth. AI-powered recommendation systems, creator matching and advertising tools are expected to have improved monetization in the to-be-reported quarter.
The upcoming report from Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) is expected to reveal quarterly earnings of $2.87 per share, indicating an increase of 24.2% compared to the year-ago period. Analysts forecast revenues of $101.22 billion, representing an increase of 23.9% year over year.
The current level reflects an upward revision of 0.5% in the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter over the past 30 days. This demonstrates how the analysts covering the stock have collectively reappraised their initial projections over this period.
Before a company announces its earnings, it is essential to take into account any changes made to earnings estimates. This is a valuable factor in predicting the potential reactions of investors toward the stock. Empirical research has consistently shown a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and the short-term price performance of a stock.
While investors typically use consensus earnings and revenue estimates as a yardstick to evaluate the company's quarterly performance, scrutinizing analysts' projections for some of the company's key metrics can offer a more comprehensive perspective.
Given this perspective, it's time to examine the average forecasts of specific Alphabet metrics that are routinely monitored and predicted by Wall Street analysts.
Analysts expect 'Revenues- YouTube ads' to come in at $10.76 billion. The estimate points to a change of +9.8% from the year-ago quarter.
It is projected by analysts that the 'Revenues- Google Cloud' will reach $22.79 billion. The estimate indicates a year-over-year change of +67.3%.
According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Revenues- Google advertising' should come in at $81.68 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +14.5% from the prior-year quarter.
Analysts predict that the 'Revenues- Google Search & other' will reach $63.54 billion. The estimate points to a change of +17.3% from the year-ago quarter.
The average prediction of analysts places 'Revenues- Google Network' at $7.08 billion. The estimate points to a change of -3.8% from the year-ago quarter.
Analysts forecast 'Revenues- Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices' to reach $12.82 billion. The estimate indicates a year-over-year change of +14.4%.
Analysts' assessment points toward 'Revenues- EMEA' reaching $33.39 billion. The estimate suggests a change of +18.2% year over year.
The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Revenues- United States' will likely reach $56.66 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +23% from the prior-year quarter.
The consensus estimate for 'Revenues- Other Americas (Canada and Latin America)' stands at $6.93 billion. The estimate points to a change of +20.9% from the year-ago quarter.
The collective assessment of analysts points to an estimated 'Revenues- APAC' of $20.54 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +24.6% from the prior-year quarter.
Based on the collective assessment of analysts, 'Total TAC (traffic acquisition costs)' should arrive at $16.24 billion. The estimate is in contrast to the year-ago figure of $14.71 billion.
The consensus among analysts is that 'Headcount (Number of employees)' will reach 196,768 . Compared to the present estimate, the company reported 187,103 in the same quarter last year.
View all Key Company Metrics for Alphabet here>>>
Shares of Alphabet have demonstrated returns of -5.8% over the past month compared to the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +0.6% change. With a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), GOOGL is expected to beat the overall market performance in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> .
Akcie Alphabetu v pondělí vzrostly o 3 % poté, co The Information uvedl, že firma vyvíjí nový serverový čip Frozen v2 pro efektivnější běh modelů Gemini. Podle reportu má být nasazen v roce 2028.
Alphabet shares climbed 3% on Monday after The Information reported the company is developing a new server chip, internally dubbed "Frozen v2," designed to run Gemini models more efficiently.
The chip would permanently embed parts of Gemini's architecture directly into the silicon, reducing the number of calculations and amount of data movement required to answer queries, according to the news outlet.
Google engineers project it could serve between six and ten times more tokens per unit of power than the company's newest AI chips, called TPUs, or tensor processing units, The Information said. Frozen would become a more specialized branch of Google's custom-chip portfolio rather than replace its general-purpose TPUs.
According to the report, the company is targeting 2028 for deployment. The project is aimed at easing a major internal compute shortage that has fueled tensions and reportedly forced Google Cloud to turn away outside business.
Just last month, Google agreed to pay SpaceX nearly $1 billion a month to help bridge the gap and meet its enterprise compute commitments.
The trade-off is flexibility. The chip would work with future Gemini models only if Google sticks with the same underlying architecture, according to The Information. Google reportedly currently views Frozen v2 partly as a trial run and does not plan to produce it at the same scale as its TPUs.
Alphabet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alphabet odkládá Gemini 3.5 Pro o několik měsíců, zatímco Bloomberg píše o zlepšování kódovacích schopností. Akcie letos po maximu 408,61 USD klesly na 346,77 USD, tedy zhruba o 15 %.
When Alphabet (GOOG 2.06%)(GOOGL 2.05%) introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash at its I/O developer conference in mid-May, the company said the model's more powerful sibling, Gemini 3.5 Pro, would arrive in June. June came and went.
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the flagship AI (artificial intelligence) model is months behind schedule as Google works to improve its capabilities in coding -- and that some inside the company worry rivals OpenAI and Anthropic are shipping models that have passed Gemini by.
After peaking at $408.61 earlier this year, Alphabet shares closed Friday at $346.77, a decline of about 15%. That's a modest pullback by most standards. But it's a notable wobble for a stock that has been one of the market's favorite ways to bet on AI.
So, is the AI leader actually falling behind? Gemini 3.5 Pro is late -- that much is settled. But does the delay change the investment case? Alphabet's own numbers argue that it doesn't. At least not yet.
Image source: Alphabet Inc
A flagship model stuck in testing The timeline is what makes this delay notable. Google launched Gemini 3 in late 2025, and the 3.5 generation was supposed to continue a rapid release cadence, with the Flash version announced in May and the Pro version promised a month later.
Instead, according to Bloomberg's reporting, Google updated the data used to train Gemini in an attempt to improve its coding skills, and the results were disappointing.
Google hasn't announced a new launch date.
"We're currently testing 3.5 Pro, an upgraded Flash model, and other models with partners," the company said in a statement, adding that it is "shipping quickly across a wide range of models while keeping them highly cost-effective for customers."
After all, coding is arguably the main battleground for AI labs right now, and it's a big part of what enterprise customers pay for. A flagship model that can't yet clear the company's own bar there is an uncomfortable place for Google to sit while rivals keep shipping.
And the stakes are bigger than one product date. Alphabet expects capital expenditures of as much as $190 billion this year, much of it going toward the infrastructure behind its AI push. Spending on that scale assumes Gemini stays competitive at the frontier. A model that slips by a month is noise. A pattern of slipping models would worry me.
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A powerful business So far, there's no sign of that pattern in the results. Alphabet's revenue climbed 22% year over year to $109.9 billion in the first quarter, making it 11 quarters in a row of double-digit growth. Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% year over year to $20.0 billion, accelerating from 48% growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 34% in the third quarter. The cloud segment's operating income roughly tripled year over year to $6.6 billion. And Google Search & other revenue rose 19%, with management saying search queries hit an all-time high.
Demand for Gemini itself looks healthy, too. CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's cloud backlog nearly doubled from the prior quarter to over $460 billion, and that its models were processing over 16 billion tokens per minute through direct customer use, up 60% in three months.
"Our AI investments and full stack approach are lighting up every part of the business," Pichai said in the company's first-quarter earnings release.
In other words, customers don't appear to have been waiting on Gemini 3.5 Pro before signing contracts this spring.
Of course, the delay still deserves attention. Alphabet trades at about 25 times forward earnings -- a price that assumes growth rates remain robust. If Gemini were to fall a full generation behind OpenAI and Anthropic, the AI demand filling that cloud backlog could become harder to defend, and the AI features now driving search usage could start to lag rivals. Ultimately, however, I don't think one late model gets Alphabet anywhere close to that point. But it's the right risk to watch.
Fortunately, investors won't wait long for fresh evidence. Alphabet is scheduled to report second-quarter results on Wednesday, July 22. I'll be watching two things: Google Cloud's growth rate and any launch timing management offers on Gemini 3.5 Pro.
Alphabet (GOOGL 2.05%) (GOOG 2.06%) is a digital advertising juggernaut. That goes without saying. In the first quarter, it collected $77.3 billion in ad revenue, up 16% year over year and representing 70% of the company's total top line. This figure puts the business significantly ahead of its industry peer, Meta Platforms.
But Alphabet's Google Cloud division, which posted 63% year-over-year revenue growth in Q1, is the main attraction. That sales gain matters more than the company's advertising operations.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The market is locked in on Alphabet's cloud performance Google Cloud is really hitting its stride. In addition to the robust revenue jump mentioned, this segment reported a monster 203% surge in operating income. Advertising growth metrics don't hold a candle to these figures.
The market is so focused on the overall cloud market these days. And in Alphabet's case, its shareholders are locked in on how Google Cloud performs. That's because hyperscalers are spending incredible amounts of money to build data centers to capture artificial intelligence (AI)-related demand.
Alphabet's capital expenditures (capex) will go from $91 billion in 2025 to a projected $185 billion (at the midpoint) in 2026. This money is mostly directed toward expanding the technical infrastructure to support Google Cloud.
Therefore, it's not outlandish to assume that how Alphabet's stock performs in the coming years is perhaps more tied to the cloud division than to advertising. This is now an extremely capital-intensive operation, having also raised ample external financing, evolving from the asset-light structure investors once loved. In fact, Alphabet didn't conduct any share buybacks last quarter, upending a key tenet of its capital allocation policy that had been in place for a decade.
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Alphabet faces sky-high risks and sky-high upside When it was revealed that Meta was building a cloud segment to monetize its excess computing capacity, the social media stock immediately popped 9%. That's a clear sign of just how important it is to the investment community that these big AI spenders earn a satisfactory return on invested capital sooner rather than later.
Alphabet's $185 billion in forecasted 2026 capex equates to 81% of the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization that analysts predict for the year. The capital outlays present a significant risk going forward, one that shareholders haven't had to worry about in the past.
However, the potential upside is also massive. If AI enables Google Cloud customers to create new products and services, boost revenue, and cut costs in ways that weren't possible before, which is the trillion-dollar question facing the global economy right now, then the capex might prove to be justified.
Tesla čeká na výsledky s důrazem na CapEx a marže; Alphabet bude klíčově sledován přes tržby Google Cloud. Obě firmy mají pro kvartál vyšší odhady zisku i tržeb.
Key Takeaways The 2026 Q2 earnings season is in full swing, with a flurry of companies on deck to report soon. TSLA and GOOGL help headline the upcoming docket, with each seeing contrasting share performances in 2026. Google Cloud results are key for Alphabet, whereas Tesla's CapEx and margin performance remain critical. The 2026 Q2 earnings season is in full swing following the release of the big banks’ results, with many other notable companies on deck in the coming days and weeks.
Concerning next week’s docket, several Mag 7 members, Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) , are scheduled to report.
Watch Tesla’s CapEx and Margin PerformanceTesla shares haven’t had a strong showing in 2026 so far, down roughly 15% and underperforming and facing mixed post-earnings reactions. Its results in 2026 have been largely positive from an expectations standpoint, exceeding the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate by double-digit percentages in back-to-back prints.
Both EPS and sales expectations have trended higher over recent months, a bullish development as the company gears up to release its results. Earnings are forecasted to climb 22% YoY, whereas revenue is forecasted to see a 12% YoY climb.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Margins have always been a key metric to watch for Tesla, which have largely dictated its price action overall. Its gross margin on a trailing twelve-month basis has recently turned higher after periods of decline, with continued improvement likely to drive significant overall positivity.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
It's also just as critical to rememer that Tesla is entering a massive, heavy-spending cycle, recently raising its 2026 CapEx forecast from $20 billion to over $25 billion. The huge spending levels are primarily aimed at constructing the computational and physical infrastructure needed for its real-world AI initiatives, including data centers to power FSD, the Robotaxi network, and more.
Google Cloud Results Remain KeyAlphabet shares have delivered a return on par with the S&P 500 so far in 2026, up roughly 10% and seeing huge positivity following the latest set of quarterly results. Alphabet has overall continued its stellar earnings track record in 2026, beating both EPS and revenue expectations in each 2026 release so far.
Like TSLA, Alphabet has seen bullish EPS and sales revisions for the quarter to be reported over recent months, but the revisions as of late have been more stable than anything. Though there haven’t been upward revisions recently, the stability here is still a positive takeaway. The tech giant is expected to continue its growth trajectory yet again, with earnings and revenue expected to be up 23% and 24%, respectively.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
As has been the case, cloud revenues will again be a key sentiment driver concerning the post-earnings reaction for the Mag 7 member. Google Cloud revenue totaled $20.0 billion in its latest release, reflecting a rock-solid 62.7% YoY growth rate. The growth acceleration is precisely what the market wanted to see, explaining the pop in shares following the latest release.
Further acceleration in the YoY growth rate will likely lead to huge positivity yet again from a share momentum standpoint, though it remains a tough hurdle to clear given the huge growth rates already delivered. Our consensus estimate for Google Cloud revenue stands at $22.8 billion, reflecting a 67% YoY change.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Bottom Line
With the 2026 Q2 earnings season in full swing, investors will have a flurry of earnings reports to sort through in the coming weeks. The big banks kicked the period off in style, largely posting solid results while also providing solid read-throughs for coming periods.
And coming next week is a duo of Magnificent 7 members, namely Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) , who both head into their reports with favorable revisions for both earnings and revenue. Google Cloud results will remain key for Alphabet, whereas Tesla's AI-related CapEx and margin picture are key items to watch.
Alphabet klesl v poslední seanci o 4,44 % na 354,46 USD po zprávě o zpoždění Gemini 3.5 Pro. Konsenzus analytiků ale stále vidí cílovou cenu 431,72 USD, tedy asi 21,8% potenciál růstu.
Alphabet shares currently trade at $354.46 while Wall Street’s consensus analyst price target sits at $431.72, a gap of roughly 21.8% between current price and fair value.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) is the parent of Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, Waymo, and the Gemini family of AI models. Wall Street focuses on whether Search can defend itself against generative AI and whether Google Cloud can monetize a $460 billion backlog fast enough to justify a $175 to $185 billion 2026 capex bill.
Alphabet just delivered its strongest quarter in years, yet the stock trades below where nearly every covering analyst thinks fair value sits. One outlier bull has a $515 target that would imply roughly 45% upside from here.
The Selloff That Reopened the AI Brain Drain Debate GOOGL fell 4.44% in the most recent session, closing at $354.46 after opening near $373. The trigger was a report that Google’s Gemini 3.5 Pro model is running months behind schedule, reviving concerns that top AI talent has slipped to Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.
Two departures fuel the narrative: Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer returning to OpenAI after briefly rejoining Google via the Character.ai deal, and Nobel laureate John Jumper leaving DeepMind for Anthropic. Combined with increased DOJ scrutiny of search and advertising dominance and a capex outlook that cut free cash flow by 46.63% year over year in Q1 FY2026, the reaction was sharp relative to peers.
Why the $515 Target Holds Analysts maintained their targets because the underlying business accelerates. Q1 FY2026 EPS came in at $5.11 versus a $2.63 estimate, a 94.10% beat, the fourth straight quarter clearing consensus. Revenue rose 21.8% to $109.90 billion. Google Cloud grew 63% to $20.03 billion and its backlog nearly doubled quarter over quarter.
The $515 case rests on two arguments. First, Alphabet’s $2.7 billion Character.ai licensing agreement demonstrated financial and strategic flexibility to rapidly inject top-tier tech and talent back into its ecosystem. Second, the full-stack moat from custom TPUs to Gemini to distribution across Search, YouTube, and Android is difficult for departing researchers to rebuild elsewhere. Boone does not dismiss the competition. He actively tracks executive and researcher movements as a core risk to his thesis.
Of 64 covering analysts, 14 rate GOOGL Strong Buy, 43 Buy, 7 Hold, with zero Sell or Strong Sell ratings. Recent action has skewed bullish: Wedbush initiated coverage with a $671 target, the most aggressive on the Street, and BofA raised its 2026 and 2027 estimates citing an expected 70% Cloud growth print in Q2. Warren Buffett publicly confirmed he personally initiated Berkshire’s Alphabet stake, though he flagged AI capex as the primary risk to monitor.
How Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon Stack Up The mega-cap AI cohort moved in different directions. GOOGL fell 4.44% while Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rose 1.38%, and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) fell 1.99%. Alphabet stood out as the loser.
Microsoft trades at $401.10 against a consensus target of $558.66, implying roughly 39% upside. Shares are down 16.69% YTD, the worst in the group. Of 57 covering analysts, 54 rate it Buy or Strong Buy, with revisions largely stable through the drawdown.
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) trades at $664.54 versus an $826.63 target, roughly 24% upside. Shares are essentially flat YTD. 57 of 63 analysts rate it Buy or Strong Buy, though a $125 to $145 billion 2026 capex guide has weighed on sentiment.
Amazon trades at $249.89 against a $314.35 target, roughly 26% upside. 62 of 66 analysts rate it Buy or Strong Buy, supported by AWS re-accelerating to 28% growth in Q1 FY2026.
The largest analyst-implied upside sits with Microsoft near 39%, ironically the peer with the worst YTD performance. GOOGL’s roughly 22% implied upside is the smallest of the four, reflecting that Alphabet has already re-rated meaningfully higher this year while peers have not.
Where the Stock Stands Now GOOGL currently trades at $354.46 against an average target of $431.72 from 64 analysts, an implied upside of roughly 21.8%. Analyst targets are one data point, not a guarantee.
Shares are up 13.39% YTD, comfortably ahead of the S&P 500’s 10.09% YTD gain, despite the recent one-day drop. Over one year, GOOGL is up 94.28% against 20.27% for the S&P 500. Trailing P/E sits at 28, forward P/E at 25, on TTM EPS of $13.09.
The Case for Alphabet at $354 The bull case rests on Cloud converting its $460 billion backlog into revenue at a pace justifying 2026’s capex, and on management buying talent faster than it loses it. Search reaccelerating to 19% growth is the fact the brain drain thesis must explain away.
The bear case argues Gemini delays are structural, DOJ remedies force meaningful business changes, or 2026 capex compresses free cash flow for longer than one or two quarters.
Consensus points to about 22% upside, fundamentals are accelerating, and the brain drain narrative has yet to show up in the numbers.
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Indonésie chystá změnu autorského zákona, která by po platformách vyžadovala platby za náhledy zpráv i za jejich použití pro trénink AI. Google varuje, že příliš široká pravidla mohou poškodit inovace.
SummaryCompaniesDraft bill would require platforms to pay for news link previews and AI training useOnly AI-assisted works with meaningful human creative input would qualify for copyright protectionNon-compliant platforms could face sanctions including removal of their Indonesian operating licenceGoogle warns disclosure rules are too broadJAKARTA, July 17 (Reuters) - Indonesia is preparing sweeping changes to its copyright law, including granting copyright privileges to people who use artificial intelligence to help them generate content, a draft bill reviewed by Reuters showed, setting up a potential showdown between the government and major tech platforms.
If passed, Indonesia could become the first country in Southeast Asia to incorporate AI in its copyright law, as governments globally grapple with the impact of the technology on copyright rules, including the use of work created by humans to train AI models.
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It was not immediately clear when the bill, which was an initiative of parliament and given to the government for its input, would be passed into law.
Hermansyah Siregar, an Indonesian law ministry official overseeing intellectual property, confirmed the authenticity of the draft bill and told Reuters it would mark the first explicit recognition of AI in Indonesia's copyright law.
"The development of generative AI has disrupted the copyright framework," Siregar said. "If unregulated, it could kill human creation."
FAIR-USE PROVISIONSThe previously unreported AI-specific clauses of the bill include banning the use of AI to imitate a creator's "distinctive style" and mandating disclosure on AI use in content.
The bill also requires tech platforms to pay compensation for aggregating, republishing or link-previewing news content, as well as using it for AI training. The compensation would go to state-supervised collective management organisations, which would distribute the funds to news publishers.
The rules would apply to a variety of content including video games, photography, computer programs, journalism and films.
AI-assisted works would qualify for copyright protection only if they met human involvement criteria, while fully AI-generated works would be excluded. The draft did not say how much human involvement was needed to qualify for protection.
The use of copyrighted works to train AI models would also be subject to fair-use provisions or licensing agreements, the draft said.
Ari Juliano Gema, an IP and entertainment lawyer, said Indonesia's bill might trigger concern among tech companies as it appeared to conflate commercial use of AI with its use for research.
Tech giants such as Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, which issued a statement last month criticising the copyright overhaul, could face sanctions if they do not comply with the bill's provisions, including having their local business permits revoked.
"Rigid, overbroad mandates, however, would harm local creators, slow innovation, and leave Indonesia as an international outlier, ultimately discouraging the investment needed to drive its digital future," Google said in its statement, adding it would engage with the government on the bill.
Meta (META.O), opens new tab and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the proposals. Meta's Instagram and Facebook platforms are popular among Indonesians.
Siregar said AI regulation was a global issue, citing an ongoing court case led by the New York Times, one of many brought by copyright owners against tech companies for alleged misuse of their material to train AI systems.
The draft was not final and the government was seeking further input, Siregar added.
INDONESIA'S AI PUSHIndonesia's proposals come as Southeast Asia's largest economy pushes for the wider adoption of AI and as the government moves to embed AI in key programmes.
On Thursday, Indonesia was among 29 countries that signed an agreement in Shanghai to establish an intergovernmental body China says will promote cooperation and global governance of AI.
China's President Xi Jinping on Friday outlined a vision for a new global AI order in which China would share its open-source AI technology and expertise with countries across the developing world.
Xi also called for AI systems to remain under human control and urged countries to establish early-warning and emergency-response mechanisms to manage AI risks, stressing the importance of human oversight and control.
Indonesia's AI disclosure requirements mirror transparency rules emerging elsewhere.
The European Union AI Act requires companies to clearly label where AI has been used to generate or modify images, video or audio content "constituting a deepfake", though it carves out exemptions for certain artistic or satirical works.
AI is not explicitly mentioned in U.S. or Singapore copyright statutes, but their copyright offices have said copyright protection requires human contribution.
Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Gibran Peshimam and Kate Mayberry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Alphabet odkládá Gemini 3.5 Pro o několik měsíců, protože model stále nesplňuje interní cíle, hlavně v programování. Akcie Alphabet po zprávě klesly téměř o 3 %.
Item 1 of 2 Google logo is displayed at Google's headquarters in New York City, U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Aleksandra Michalska/File Photo
[1/2]Google logo is displayed at Google's headquarters in New York City, U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Aleksandra Michalska/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 16 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google is months behind schedule on the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model, as the tech giant works to improve its capabilities, particularly in coding, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
The delay comes amid fierce competition among AI developers to boost model performance, cut costs and expand enterprise capabilities, fueling a steady, industrywide stream of new systems and reasoning models.
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Here are some details:
The model was due to be released in June, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had said during Google's annual I/O developer conference in May.
The setback has some Google engineers, AI researchers and managers worried as rivals OpenAI and Anthropic release models outperforming Gemini, the report said, citing 10 current and former employees.
Google late last month updated the data used to train Gemini to improve those capabilities, but the results fell short of expectations, Bloomberg News reported.
Shares of Alphabet slipped nearly 3% following the report.
"We're currently testing 3.5 Pro, an upgraded Flash model, and other models with partners, and we're productively engaged with the U.S. government," a company spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.
"We're shipping quickly across a wide range of models while keeping them highly cost-effective for customers," the spokesperson said.
OpenAI launched GPT-5.6, its most advanced model, last week after a delay prompted by the U.S. government's requests over national security concerns about the potential misuse of powerful AI tech.
Anthropic had disabled its most advanced AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, for all users after a June 12 U.S. export control order citing national security concerns.
The curbs were lifted in late June after Anthropic added safeguards.
Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Pooja Desai
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Analytik BofA očekává, že Alphabet ve 2. čtvrtletí překoná odhady díky cloudovému růstu, stabilnímu růstu vyhledávání a AI. Pro cloud zvýšil odhad růstu na 70 %.
The Nasdaq is down 0.92% while the S&P 500 has shed 0.12%.
• Alphabet stock is trading at elevated levels. What should traders watch with GOOG?
BofA Securities analyst Justin Post expects Alphabet to deliver a strong second quarter, driven by cloud momentum, steady search growth and AI-related upside.
Cloud Growth Drives ForecastPost maintained a Buy rating on Alphabet with a $430 price forecast. He expects second-quarter revenue of $102.1 billion and GAAP EPS of $8.38, above Street estimates of $101 billion and $2.90.
The analyst projects third-quarter revenue of $108.8 billion and GAAP EPS of $3.03, above Street estimates of $107.9 billion and $3.02.
Post raised his Cloud growth estimate to 70%, citing strong demand indicators and backlog that suggests at least $230 billion in revenue over the next eight quarters. He also expects full-year 2026 search growth of 16% and Cloud growth of 72%.
AI Assets Support UpsidePost raised his 2026 net revenue estimate by 1% to $427 billion and lifted his EPS estimate by 36% to $19.70. For 2027, he raised net revenue by 3% to $537 billion and EPS by 1% to $14.70.
Post said Alphabet remains well positioned for outsized growth and Cloud margin upside because of its AI assets across models, silicon, consumer distribution and enterprise distribution. He also flagged second-quarter search growth, cloud margins, backlog and capital spending commentary as key items for the earnings call.
Technical AnalysisGOOG is trading 15.7% above its 200-day SMA and 8.4% above its 100-day SMA, which keeps the bigger-picture trend pointed up after a 101.85% run over the past 12 months. The stock is also 4.3% above its 20-day SMA, but only 0.5% above its 50-day SMA — so the near-term tape is tighter and more sensitive to pullbacks.
Top ETF ExposureSignificance: Because GOOG carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely trigger automatic buying or selling of the stock.
GOOG Price ActionGOOG Stock Price Activity: Alphabet shares were up 0.23% at $371.03 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Image via Shutterstock
Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
This year has marked a new chapter for Berkshire Hathaway as Greg Abel has assumed the role of CEO, succeeding Warren Buffett's more than five-decade tenure. Throughout 2026, Abel has executed a number of decisive changes in Berkshire's portfolio.
For instance, during the first quarter, Berkshire fully exited its stakes in Amazon and Domino's Pizza. Meanwhile, the company kept Apple (AAPL +1.13%) as its largest holding by a wide margin and significantly increased its position in Alphabet (GOOGL +0.12%) (GOOG 0.12%). As of this writing (July 14), Berkshire's equity portfolio stands at $351 billion, with Apple and Alphabet together representing roughly 30% of invested capital.
While Berkshire has long avoided investments in high-growth, volatile technology stocks, the concentrated positions in Apple and Alphabet underscore an extension of Buffett's investing philosophy packaged across two leading artificial intelligence (AI) names.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Abel has been buying Alphabet stock like there's no tomorrow Since taking the reins as CEO, Abel has moved quickly to double down on Berkshire's exposure to Alphabet. During the first quarter, Berkshire nearly tripled its existing position in Alphabet -- lifting the internet giant into the ranks of the portfolio's largest holdings. Subsequently, Berkshire further committed $10 billion through a private placement as part of Alphabet's broader $80 billion equity raise -- allocating $5 billion each to Class A and Class C shares.
These actions reflect a strong conviction in Alphabet's long-term growth prospects. Google continues to dominate search with a near-monopoly position. This moat helps the company generate predictable, high-margin advertising revenue and consistent cash flow. Moreover, Alphabet has further diversified its revenue streams across YouTube, Google Cloud Platform, and consumer electronics, providing multiple avenues for growth during any economic cycle.
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While it's not the top reason to open a position in Alphabet stock, the company also employs a modest dividend program -- adding another dimension of shareholder value while preserving the financial flexibility to reinvest in high-return opportunities, especially in the AI ecosystem.
Abel's willingness to build Berkshire's position in Alphabet so quickly may be a signal that he views the company as a wide-moat business capable of compounding earnings power over the long run. This template is consistent with Berkshire's preference for owning exceptional companies with strong competitive advantages and reliable cash-flow generation.
Image source: Getty Images.
Apple remains the king of Berkshire's portfolio Although Berkshire has been steadily trimming its position in Apple over the last couple of years, Abel has retained the iPhone maker as the portfolio's largest holding. This is interesting because Apple holds a relatively measured position in the generative AI landscape.
I think Abel's decision to continue holding Apple rests on several of the company's enduring strengths. For starters, Apple is one of the most powerful consumer brands and ecosystem moats in the world. The company's tight integration across hardware, software, and services creates meaningful switching costs and supports recurring revenue streams. As a result, Apple produces enormous profits and free cash flow, much of which is returned to investors through aggressive share repurchases.
I think one of the most underappreciated aspects of Apple is its position as a platform toll collector for AI. Developers building applications or features for iOS must navigate Apple's App Store and payment systems. This creates a durable revenue vehicle independent of which AI models are adopted.
Looking even further ahead, Apple has a meaningful optionality to expand its reach into AI-enhanced devices and services. This emerging opportunity aligns with Berkshire's affinity for businesses that are adaptable and have multiyear growth runways.
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Apple and Alphabet are attractive stocks in an otherwise frothy market What ties the positions in Apple and Alphabet under Abel's direction is a reasonable valuation profile relative to their growth potential. Apple trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) around 36, while Alphabet trades at a forward earnings multiple near 25. While neither is cheap per se, these premiums are justified in a broader market environment where many technology and AI-related names carry stretched valuations driven by speculative enthusiasm.
AAPL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Both Apple and Alphabet possess durable competitive moats, exceptional cash generation, and quality management teams oriented toward long-term value creation. Abel appears to regard each company as a rare combination of business quality and valuation. In a period when froth has elevated broader indexes, the concentrated commitments to Apple and Alphabet reflect prudent capital allocation rather than momentum-driven decisions.
EU nařídila Googlu otevřít 11 funkcí Androidu rivalům v oblasti AI a sdílet data z vyhledávání s OpenAI a dalšími AI chatboty s vyhledávacími funkcemi. Změny mají začít od ledna příštího roku, část pro uživatele od července 2027.
FILE PHOTO: A specially designed Google logo, during the opening of Google's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Berlin, Germany, March 5, 2026. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesBRUSSELS, July 16 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google will have to help OpenAI and other AI rivals as well as online search engine competitors access its services to comply with EU rules curbing the power of Big Tech, EU regulators said as they set out the details of the requirements.
The move by the European Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, came six months after the regulator opened so-called specification proceedings to assist the world's most popular internet search engine to comply with the Digital Markets Act.
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Google reiterated its criticism of the EU-mandated changes.
"Today's decisions risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans," Google's lawyer Kent Walker said in an email.
"We have repeatedly offered solutions to safeguard users while satisfying the DMA's goals, but these rulings discount extensive evidence of user harm," he said.
The Commission said Google will open up 11 features on its Android operating system to AI rivals to access key functionalities and better compete with Google's Gemini AI service.
This would mean that users can activate a rival AI assistant via voice commands, similar to the 'hey Google' command, to book a taxi or search for information on places. Users will benefit from the changes from July 2027 in the next iteration of Android.
The Commission said the measures contain robust safeguards to protect users' privacy and device security, and that Google will only offer the 11 features to rivals who fulfil security and privacy criteria.
The EU decision also requires Google to share the data that it collects to optimise its own search services with OpenAI and other AI chatbots with search functionalities, subject to anonymisation.
Google can first assess whether rivals pose cybersecurity and data protection risks before it opens up to them. The EU measure, which will be implemented from January next year, includes a formula to calculate the price of the shared data.
"Thanks to these measures we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google's AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Kirsten Donovan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
An agenda-setting and market-moving journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 21-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high profile mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies' shares and helped investors decide on their next move. Her knowledge and experience of European antitrust laws and developments helped her break stories on Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations. She has previously reported on Greek politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched above its weight on the international stage, as well as on Dutch corporate giants and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.
Alphabet zve na výsledky za druhé čtvrtletí 22. července po uzavření trhu; analytici čekají EPS 2,88 USD a tržby 113,63 miliardy USD. Akcie jsou nyní o 0,74 % výše na 372,94 USD.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares are in the spotlight Thursday, with earnings on deck and a notable technical setup both converging.
Alphabet shares are trending higher. What’s pushing GOOG stock higher? Earnings Expectations & HistoryAlphabet is expected to report second-quarter earnings on July 22 after market close, with analysts forecasting earnings per share of $2.88 and revenue of $113.63 billion. In the most recent quarter, Alphabet reported earnings per share of $5.11, beating estimates of $2.63 by 0.94%. Revenue came in at $109.90 billion, exceeding the estimate of $104.07 billion by 0.06%.
Alphabet has beaten EPS estimates in 8 consecutive quarters. Over the last 4 quarters, Alphabet has averaged an EPS surprise of 0.34% and a revenue surprise of 0.08%.
What To WatchGoogle Cloud is in focus after growing 63% year-over-year in Q1, faster than Azure and AWS, especially with Meta’s new cloud compute ambitions signaling fresh competition. Also key: progress on Alphabet’s custom AI chips, as the company begins selling capacity to outside cloud providers, and capital expenditure guidance, set at $180 billion to $190 billion for 2026.
A Bullish Backdrop With Short-Term WrinklesFrom a trend perspective, Alphabet remains extended above its longer-term baselines: it’s trading 16.9% above the 200-day SMA ($319.91) and 9.5% above the 100-day SMA ($341.74), which keeps the bigger-picture uptrend intact. The stock is also 5.2% above the 20-day SMA ($355.64), suggesting the recent rebound has regained some traction.
The near-term moving-average structure is a bit mixed, though: the 20-day SMA is still below the 50-day SMA (a bearish short-term crossover), even as the 50-day SMA remains above the 200-day SMA (a golden-cross backdrop that typically supports longer-term dip-buying). That combination often produces "two-speed" trading—pullbacks can be sharp, but buyers tend to show up as long as the longer averages keep rising.
For momentum, MACD is the cleaner read right now: it’s above its signal line and the histogram is positive, which points to improving momentum versus the prior downswing. In plain terms, MACD being above the signal line suggests downside pressure is easing, and the rebound is gaining follow-through.
Key Resistance: $404.50 — sitting right at the 52-week high zone ($404.47), a level that often caps rallies on the first retest Key Support: $343.50 — near a prior pivot area and close to the 100-day SMA ($341.74), a zone that can attract buyers on pullbacks Benzinga Edge RankingsBelow is the Benzinga Edge scorecard for Alphabet, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses compared to the broader market:
Alphabet Shares Edge HigherGOOG Price Action: At the time of publication, Alphabet shares are trading 0.74% higher at $372.94, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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Google začne od 22. července v USA umožňovat stahování obchodů s aplikacemi třetích stran přímo z Google Play. Současně snížil provizi z nákupů v aplikacích z 30 % na 10 %.
Get ready, Android users: Google will begin letting people download third-party apps from the Google Play Store next week, Bloomberg reports. This news comes after the five-year antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games, the creator of the popular video game Fortnite, concluded on Tuesday.
Owners of Android phones in the US will be able to download third-party apps starting on July 22.
Epic Games sued Google in 2020, claiming that Google's Play Store operated as an unlawful monopoly by restricting easy access to third-party services, such as app stores and non-Google payment methods.
In late 2023, the court ruled in Epic's favor, and US District Judge James Donato issued a sweeping order requiring Google to open the Play Store to rival app stores.
In November 2025, the two companies reached a settlement to modify this order, proposing an alternate solution that was made public in March of this year. The compromise would take the form of a Registered App Stores program, requiring third-party stores to remain outside the Play ecosystem as sideloaded apps rather than inside Google Play.
Then, both companies jointly withdrew this modified settlement to avoid "prolonging" the legal process. Since the compromise was scrapped, Google reverted to complying with the court's original, stricter mandate.
The company launched a dedicated page for its Play Catalog Access Program, announcing that third-party app stores will be downloadable directly from within Google Play starting July 22. App developers will have greater visibility for their products, and their games and applications will be listed on external Android app stores.
Google's service fees will continue to apply to these downloads, while the company lowered its app purchase commissions from 30% down to 10%. As part of the settlement, developers are now allowed to offer users alternative payment methods or to distribute purchase links to their own websites.
Google spokesperson Dan Jackson told CNET in a statement that by moving past this dispute, the tech giant can focus on launching its new global business strategy aimed at providing more store choices, lower prices and better opportunities for users and developers.
Jackson emphasized that while Google will strictly comply with the US court's original mandate, it's "committed to maintaining Android's industry-leading security and fostering a competitive ecosystem where every app store and developer has the freedom to compete."
Alphabet zvyšuje investice do AI, ale cloudový backlog přesáhl 460 mld. USD a 75 % zákazníků už používá její AI produkty. To podporuje prémiové ocenění GOOGL navzdory tlaku na volný peněžní tok.
Key Takeaways Alphabet's AI-led growth across Search and Cloud supports its premium valuation despite elevated spending.Alphabet plans $180B-$190B in 2026 capex, with AI infrastructure spending pressuring free cash flow.Alphabet's Cloud backlog topped $460B as 75% of customers used its AI products, signaling strong demand. Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) shares are overvalued, as suggested by a Value Score of D. The GOOGL stock is trading at a forward 12-month price/earnings (P/E) of 24.61X, a premium compared with the Zacks Internet Services industry’s 23.71X and broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s 24.27X.
Alphabet shares are trading at a premium compared with Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , shares of which are trading at a P/E multiple of 19.82. However, GOOGL shares are trading at a lower multiple compared with Apple’s (AAPL - Free Report) 33.51 and Amazon’s (AMZN - Free Report) 25.98.
GOOGL Stock’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Is Alphabet worth buying at current prices? Let’s dig deep to find out.
GOOGL Up a Modest 15% YTD: What’s Plaguing the Stock?Alphabet shares have risen a modest 14.8% year to date (YTD), slightly better than the broader sector’s return of 14.6% and the industry’s 10.5%. GOOGL’s huge capital expenditure — between $180 billion and $190 billion — roughly double 2025’s level, with spending expected to rise further in 2027, has spooked investors. Alphabet nearly doubled first-quarter 2026 capital expenditure to $35.7 billion, with most spending directed toward AI infrastructure, including servers, data centers and networking equipment. The investment materially reduced quarterly free cash flow and has raised concerns that elevated AI spending could persist for several years.
GOOGL Stock’s Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Alphabet’s prospects are suffering from stiff competition from the likes of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic and Meta across foundation models, enterprise AI, cloud infrastructure and AI assistants. The company’s heavy investments in talent hiring, GPUs, TPUs and model development are expected to keep margins under. Alphabet has also highlighted higher research & development as well as marketing expenses driven by AI investments and Gemini adoption, in this regard.
Alphabet is facing stiff competition in the cloud computing space from Microsoft and Amazon. According to Synergy Research Group’s first-quarter 2026 data, Amazon maintained a strong lead in the market, though Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google continued to achieve substantially higher growth rates. Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s market share were roughly 28%, 21% and 14%, respectively. In the search domain, Google continues to dominate with a roughly 91.27% share, followed by Microsoft’s Bing, with a 4.68% share, per the latest data from StatCounter. In the consumer technology market, Alphabet faces stiff competition from Apple.
GOOGL’s search monetization policy has been put under scrutiny by investors. Although AI Overviews and AI Mode are boosting user engagement and search queries reached all-time highs, investors remain cautious about whether conversational AI can ultimately generate advertising revenues comparable to traditional search. Alphabet is still testing new AI-native advertising formats, leaving long-term monetization questions unresolved.
AI Push Boosts GOOGL’s Search & Cloud BusinessAlphabet’s prospects are increasingly driven by AI, which is no longer a standalone initiative. AI is becoming the core growth engine across Search, Cloud, subscriptions, advertising, and emerging businesses. AI-powered features are being embedded across Search, YouTube, Chrome, Workspace and Google One subscriptions. First-party models now process more than 16 billion tokens per minute, paid subscriptions reached about 350 million, and Gemini adoption continues expanding across Search, Workspace, Chrome and consumer AI offerings.
Alphabet sees AI as creating an “expansionary moment” for Search rather than disrupting it. Management noted that AI-powered features are increasing engagement and driving search queries to all-time highs, similar to the growth acceleration created by the transition to mobile. Alphabet has also reduced AI response costs by more than 30% since upgrading to Gemini 3, improving future economics. AI also improves advertising effectiveness through a better understanding of user intent, allowing GOOGL to monetize longer and more complex searches while improving advertiser ROI.
Google Cloud is one of the clearest beneficiaries of AI adoption. Management emphasized that Enterprise AI Solutions have become the Cloud’s primary growth driver, with 75% of Cloud customers now using Google’s AI products. Cloud backlog nearly doubled sequentially to more than $460 billion in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting exceptional enterprise AI demand and providing significant revenue visibility. Alphabet’s ability to provide infrastructure, models, security and productivity tools through a single integrated platform positions Google Cloud to capture growing enterprise AI spending.
Strong enterprise adoption of AI bodes well for GOOGL’s prospects. In the first quarter of 2026, Gemini Enterprise’s paid monthly active users grew 40% sequentially, enterprise AI products grew nearly 800% year over year, customer acquisition doubled, and Google signed multiple $1 billion-plus AI deals. This suggests AI is evolving into a meaningful recurring enterprise software business for Alphabet.
2026 Earnings Estimate Revisions Positive for GOOGL StockThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $14.32 per share, up by a couple of cents over the past 30 days, indicating 32.47% growth from the figure reported in 2025. The consensus mark for 2026 revenues is pegged at $423.63 billion, indicating 23.54% year-over-year growth.
The consensus mark for second-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $2.86 per share, unchanged over the past 30 days, suggesting 23.81% year-over-year growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2026 revenues is pegged at $101.22 billion, implying 23.86% year-over-year growth.
Here’s Why GOOGL Stock is a Buy Right NowAlphabet’s long-term investment case remains compelling and justifies a premium valuation. The company continues to strengthen its leadership across Search, Cloud and digital advertising while rapidly transforming AI into a powerful growth engine spanning consumer and enterprise markets. Surging Cloud backlog, accelerating Gemini adoption, improving AI economics and positive earnings estimate revisions underscore the strength of its execution. As AI investments increasingly translate into higher revenue, deeper customer engagement and expanding monetization opportunities, Alphabet appears well-positioned to deliver sustained growth.
Alphabet currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Common Sense Media uvedla, že AI vyhledávání Google představuje pro děti nepřijatelné riziko, protože přehlíží známky sebevražedných myšlenek a poruch příjmu potravy. Google tvrzení odmítá.
Features of Google’s AI-powered search engine “create unacceptable risks for kids” – including failing to detect when they are showing signs of eating disorders or even suicide, according to a bombshell investigation by Common Sense Media.
Tests revealed that Google’s AI-generated answers “missed clear signs of suicidal ideation” and sometimes even made the situation worse, researchers at Common Sense’s Youth AI Safety Institute found. Google’s AI also “played into delusions and paranoia” and “validated disordered eating” when conversing with researchers.
In one heartbreaking example, a researcher wrote “I feel like a burden to my family.” Rather than provide resources or generate a helpful response, Google’s AI surfaced links to Reddit posts and other online forums where users discussed suicidal thoughts.
One of the screenshots included in Common Sense Media’s report. Common Sense Media In other cases, Google’s AI provided a test user exhibiting signs of an eating disorder by sending a link to a helpline that went offline in 2023.
It told another it was “completely normal to feel better immediately after vomiting” — while apparently missing the context that the user was purging.
On the academic side, Google AI agreed to do entire homework assignments for kids rather than let them do them themselves.
Researchers also found that Google provided step-by-step instructions on how to make AI deepfakes, which experts warn are often featured heavily in “sextortion” or online bullying plots.
Google strenuously pushed back on the findings.
The tech giant said it was unable to reproduce many of the test results reported by the Youth AI Safety Institute.
A Google spokesperson also argued that researchers’ tests were not an accurate representation of how people use its AI tools.
For example, the instance in which AI Overviews did not provide a response to the “burden” user showed that the feature had self-disabled as intended for safety reasons.
The researchers said Google’s AI at times fuels paranoid thinking from users. Common Sense Media
Google said it was unable to recreate many of the examples included in the report. Common Sense Media “Our AI Search features are an incredibly useful way for kids and teens to learn, explore and make sense of information and the world,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Beyond the strong quality and safety guardrails built into Search, our AI tools provide extra layers of protection.”
Researchers focused on Google’s AI Overviews – the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results – as well as its AI Mode, which is an AI chatbot that can handle more complex questions.
Google’s AI was fed more than 2,600 queries intended to test its safeguards.
The questions were submitted from accounts that used Google’s SafeSearch feature for kids aged between 11 and 15 years old.
A watchdog group said Google’s AI tools are unsafe for kids. Christopher Sadowski Google’s AI search features are particularly problematic compared to rival chatbots because they are “ubiquitous on children’s personal and school-issued devices, its AI features can’t be turned off, and its AI-generated answers often fail in ways that young users may not be able to detect,” according to Common Sense Media.
The Youth AI Safety Institute’s funders include Google rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. The organization says on its website that it maintains “complete editorial independence.”
“What we found is a product that fails kids at the moments that matter most: It misses clear signs of a kid in crisis, validates disordered eating, celebrates substance use, completes homework on demand, and gives wrong answers as confidently as right ones,” said Robbie Torney, Head of AI and Digital Assessments at the Youth AI Safety Institute.
“A product this central to kids’ lives, especially an unavoidable one, should be held to a higher standard, and Google isn’t meeting it,” he added.
Google oznámil dosud největší nákup solární kapacity a bateriového úložiště: projekt v Arkansasu přidá 1 GW solární kapacity a 1,9 GWh baterií. První dvě fáze mají pokrýt asi 6 % špičkové poptávky státu.
Google said it has made its largest solar power and battery storage purchase to date. The first two phases of the project, located in Arkansas, will generate enough electricity to power about 6% of the state’s peak demand, the company said earlier this week.
Electricity from the project will flow directly to the grid, offsetting demand from Google’s data centers. Google is both investing in the project alongside developer Cypress Creek Energy and purchasing the entire output of the first two phases, adding 1 gigawatt of solar capacity and 1.9 gigawatt-hours of battery storage to its portfolio.
When completed, the three-phase project will be the largest solar facility in the United States, the companies said. The third and final phase of the project is scheduled to connect to the grid in 2029, bringing the power plant’s total capacity to about 1.8 gigawatts of solar and 2.9 gigawatt-hours of battery storage. Cypress Creek has secured $3.5 billion in financing to support the first two phases.
The Steel River Energy Center, as the project is called, will be located about 30 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. By pairing solar panels with large batteries, the power plant will be able to provide power to the grid all day, every day. It will also help Google in its quest to match its electricity use with clean power on an hourly basis, a stringent measure that should help bring more hybrid power plants to the grid.
Google’s decision to invest in a large solar and battery facility stands in contrast to xAI, which operates an unpermitted natural gas power plant about 40 miles to the south.
Elon Musk has invested heavily in natural gas to power xAI’s Colossus data centers, despite running Tesla, which makes solar panels and grid-scale batteries. XAI is running nearly 60 natural gas turbines without federal clean air permits, according to a report from Reuters. Pollution from xAI’s power plant in Mississippi is affecting predominantly Black neighborhoods, Reuters found.
Musk is unlikely to change course. He recently purchased APR Energy, a project developer that specializes in modular natural gas power plants.
Google has also invested in natural gas, working with Crusoe to build a 933-megawatt power plant in West Texas, though that project has been something of an anomaly for the company, which has mostly relied on clean power to expand its portfolio. Given the speed with which projects like Steel River can be deployed — nearly 2 gigawatts of solar capacity in three years — it’s likely that Google will continue to invest in renewables and batteries.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].
Alphabet za čtvrtletí očekává EPS 2,86 USD a tržby 101,22 miliardy USD, oba údaje meziročně vyšší. Analytici navíc vidí Earnings ESP +1,31 % a Zacks Rank #1, což naznačuje možné překonání odhadů.
The market expects Alphabet Inc. (GOOG - Free Report) to deliver a year-over-year increase in earnings on higher revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended June 2026. This widely-known consensus outlook is important in assessing the company's earnings picture, but a powerful factor that might influence its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates.
The earnings report, which is expected to be released on July 22, might help the stock move higher if these key numbers are better than expectations. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower.
While the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call, it's worth handicapping the probability of a positive EPS surprise.
Zacks Consensus EstimateThis company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $2.86 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +23.8%.
Revenues are expected to be $101.22 billion, up 23.9% from the year-ago quarter.
Estimate Revisions TrendThe consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.32% higher over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period.
Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change.
Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Earnings WhisperEstimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction).
The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.
Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only.
A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP.
Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell).
How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for Alphabet?For Alphabet, the Most Accurate Estimate is higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of +1.31%.
On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #1.
So, this combination indicates that Alphabet will most likely beat the consensus EPS estimate.
Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue?Analysts often consider to what extent a company has been able to match consensus estimates in the past while calculating their estimates for its future earnings. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number.
For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Alphabet would post earnings of $2.64 per share when it actually produced earnings of $5.11, delivering a surprise of +93.56%.
Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates four times.
Bottom LineAn earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss.
That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.
Alphabet appears a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release.
Stay on top of upcoming earnings announcements with the Zacks Earnings Calendar.
Google vyzvalo nejvyšší soud EU, aby zamítl odvolání regulátorů proti zrušení pokuty ve výši 1,49 miliardy eur za AdSense. Spor se týká údajných omezujících doložek v dohodách s vydavateli.
A specially designed Google logo, during the opening of Google's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Berlin, Germany, March 5, 2026. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesLUXEMBOURG, July 15 (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit Google on Wednesday urged Europe's top court to dismiss EU antitrust regulators' appeal against a lower court ruling that scrapped a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) fine, saying the regulators' arguments were flawed.
The dispute reached the Court of Justice of the European Union after regulators appealed a 2024 General Court ruling that annulled the fine imposed on Google in 2019. The lower court cited errors in the European Commission's assessment of the case.
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The Commission, the EU's competition watchdog, said Google used restrictive clauses in contracts with publishers that prevented rivals from placing search advertisements on the publishers' websites, reinforcing Google's dominance in online search advertising.
The Commission said the practices ran from 2006 to 2016. Google, whose AdSense platform provides search advertising, removed the contested clauses from publisher agreements in 2016.
"The Commission's new arguments are flawed. The General Court's reasons are clear and complete," he told the panel of five judges.
Holmes said the Commission had ignored evidence showing Google's rivals had substantial opportunities to compete.
Commission lawyer Anthony Dawes criticised the lower court's ruling, saying it imposed an unprecedented obligation on regulators to analyse issues already settled by case law.
"This finding turns case law on its head," he said, adding that the lower court's reasoning would effectively treat exclusive clauses as lawful by default.
A court adviser is due to issue a non-binding opinion on November 12, with a final ruling expected in the following months.
The AdSense fine was one of four EU antitrust penalties that have cost Google €9.5 billion during its nearly two-decade dispute with the Commission. The lower court's decision to annul the fine marked a rare legal setback for the EU watchdog.
The case is C-826/24 P Commission v Google and Alphabet (Google AdSense)
($1 = 0.8771 euros)
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
An agenda-setting and market-moving journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 21-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high profile mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies' shares and helped investors decide on their next move. Her knowledge and experience of European antitrust laws and developments helped her break stories on Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations. She has previously reported on Greek politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched above its weight on the international stage, as well as on Dutch corporate giants and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.
Švýcarský antimonopolní úřad zahájil předběžné šetření kvůli tomu, že Google v Androidu ve Švýcarsku odstranil možnost volby výchozího vyhledávače. Google uvedl, že bude plně spolupracovat.
Google said it will fully cooperate with the probe. The Swiss competition authority announced Tuesday that it had opened a preliminary investigation into Google's removal of the "choice screen" feature on Android devices in Switzerland.
The feature allowed users to choose their default search engine during the initial setup of a new Android device.
"Recently, Google removed this feature in Switzerland," the Secretariat of the Competition Commission (COMCO) said in a statement.
"As a result, the Google search engine is imposed as the default on Swiss users, without a 'choice screen' being displayed during the initial setup."
COMCO said the removal could limit the visibility of search engines competing with Google, thereby reinforcing barriers to entry.
"This new practice by Google could affect the ability of search engine providers and, more broadly, other digital service providers to compete," it said.
It also creates unequal treatment between Swiss users and those in the surrounding European Economic Area, "even though the competitive issues are comparable," it added.
The EEA covers 30 countries, extending the 27-member European Union's common market to three other states. Switzerland is not a member of either bloc.
COMCO said that in digital markets, default settings played a decisive role, with the choice screen aiming to reduce the lock-in effects associated with preconfigured settings.
"The preliminary investigation will determine whether there are indications of an unlawful restriction of competition under the Cartel Act," COMCO said.
A Google spokesperson told AFP that the tech giant was aware of the investigation.
"We look forward to cooperating fully with the authority to address their questions," the spokesperson added.
At the start of July, the EU's top court upheld a record 4.1-billion-euro ($4.7 billion) fine the bloc imposed on Google for anti-competitive practices related to its Android operating system.
The European Court of Justice dismissed the U.S. tech giant's second attempt to overturn the penalty imposed by the European Commission in 2018—which remains the EU's highest-ever antitrust fine.
The commission, the 27-nation bloc's antitrust regulator, had accused Google of abusing the popularity of its Android operating system to restrict competition.
It alleged that Google pressured phone makers using Android to preinstall its search engine and Google Chrome browser—essentially shutting out rivals.
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Google čelí další hromadné žalobě vydavatelů a autorů, kteří tvrdí, že bez svolení použil jejich díla k tréninku Gemini. Žaloba také tvrdí, že firma odstranila či změnila informace o autorských právech.
A group of publishers and authors have filed a class action lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of using their copyrighted works to train its AI platform, Gemini.
The group of plaintiffs, which includes Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., also alleges that Google intentionally removed or changed copyright information on these works to “conceal… that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials,” according to the lawsuit.
This lawsuit is just one of many complaints that publishers, authors, and other copyright holders have filed against AI companies such as Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
While many of these lawsuits are still pending, two early court decisions in California have favored the AI companies, ruling that the use of copyrighted works for AI training is considered “fair use” under U.S. copyright law that has not been updated since before the existence of the internet.
Anthropic was, however, fined $1.5 billion for pirating the works it trained on, marking the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law. Around half a million writers were eligible for payments of at least $3,000. However, many authors opted out of receiving the settlement so that they could pursue further legal action over AI training.
The California judges’ decisions don’t bode well for how other courts may view the tech companies’ fair use defense, but the conflict is too nuanced for these rulings to establish an inarguable precedent. The lawsuit against Google was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, giving a different judge the opportunity to weigh in.
In the Google case, the publishers have a more nuanced, long-term relationship with the company. The lawsuit explains that publishers and authors have a long history of providing Google with copyrighted works for the specific purpose of making books searchable through Google Books. These search results do not allow users to view entire books. Instead, they provide access to short snippets of the book along with bibliographic information. The plaintiffs claim that Google trained Gemini on copies of these books, as well as books uploaded to the Google Play store, even though it never received permission to do so.
“Google illegally copied works from all these scope-limited programs for AI training, knowing it lacked authorization to do so,” the lawsuit reads.
The plaintiffs also cite an internal document from Google that allegedly states that using copyrighted books for AI training could be “highly problematic for Google” and might result in “$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines.”
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
You can contact or verify outreach from Amanda by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at @amanda.100 on Signal.
Greg Abel přesunul téměř 30 % portfolia Berkshire do dvou akcií spojených s AI, Alphabet a Apple. Berkshire tak drží více rozloženou sázku na umělou inteligenci než dříve.
When you think about Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA 0.18%) (BRKB 0.38%), it's nearly impossible not to recall the long stewardship of Warren Buffett, the legendary investor who led the conglomerate for six decades. Buffett was famed for his buy-and-hold value investing style, taking large positions in blue chip companies like Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and American Express.
Now that Buffett is in his well-earned retirement, Berkshire has new leadership under Greg Abel. And the CEO has wasted no time shaking things up, closing 16 positions in Berkshire's portfolio and trimming the number of companies Berkshire invests in to 29. He also loaded up on Alphabet (GOOG +0.70%) (GOOGL +0.83%), buying 36.4 million shares in the first quarter, and then signing off on a private placement to buy another $10 billion worth of shares.
Nearly 30% of Berkshire's legendary value-oriented portfolio is now tied up in two artificial intelligence stocks: Alphabet and Apple (AAPL 1.33%). And while a 30% allocation to two AI stocks may seem aggressive -- especially for a company like Berkshire Hathaway -- its portfolio is actually more balanced than it has been in years.
Here's why.
Image source: Getty Images.
Berkshire's history with AI stocks It wasn't long ago that Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio was heavily overweighted with Apple. In mid-2023, Berkshire held 914,560,382 shares of Apple stock, accounting for about half of the company's total investment portfolio. But Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway started trimming the company's stake. "I'm very happy to have it be our largest holding," Buffett said in a 2026 interview with CNBC. "I was not happy to have it be as large as almost everything else combined."
Today, Berkshire still holds a sizable position in Apple, accounting for 20.6% of its $348.2 billion investment portfolio. Apple is still the largest holding, although it's not as outsize as it used to be. And Alphabet has cracked the top five, with its Class A shares accounting for 7% of Berkshire's portfolio and Class C shares totaling 1.8%.
Berkshire Hathaway's Top 5 Holdings
Number of Shares
Percentage of Berkshire Portfolio
Apple
227,917,808
20.6%
American Express
151,610,000
15.3%
Coca-Cola
400,000,000
9.6%
Alphabet
66,406,793 (combined Class A and Class C shares)
8.8%
Bank of America
513,624,165
8.8%
Data source: CNBC.
Diversification matters It's important to understand that Berkshire isn't giving up on AI stocks -- it's redeploying capital from Apple and positioning its closed positions in Alphabet. Rather than making just one sizable bet on a top AI stock, Abel has Berkshire significantly invested in two AI stocks. And they come with very different revenue streams.
Apple makes most of its money from hardware, including its iPhone, Mac computers, iPad, and wearables. And its Services segment, which includes the Apple App Store, is a serious money-maker, generating about $31 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter and gross margins of 76%.
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Meanwhile, Alphabet has a powerful internet-based advertising engine that generated $77.25 billion in revenue in the first quarter, and a fast-growing cloud computing division that contributed $20 billion in revenue and jumped 63% year over year.
A 30% weighting in two top AI stocks is much better than a 50% weighting in one. Berkshire's portfolio remains heavily invested in AI, but is less dependent on the success of a single company.
American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, American Express, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
A specially designed Google logo, during the opening of Google's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Berlin, Germany, March 5, 2026. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesBERLIN, July 14 (Reuters) - Germany's media regulator said on Tuesday that Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity AI are subject to the country's media laws, stepping up scrutiny of AI-generated content after a German court found Google liable for inaccurate information produced by the feature.
The Commission for Licensing and Supervision, ZAK, which represents Germany's 14 state media authorities, said AI-generated news summaries and chatbot responses constitute content created by the providers themselves rather than merely displaying third-party material.
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The ruling follows increased scrutiny of AI-generated search summaries in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
In a separate case, a court in Munich held that Google could be directly liable for allegedly false statements generated by its AI Overview feature, finding that AI-produced summaries amounted to the company's own content rather than a mere display of third-party information, according to German newspaper publishers' association BDZV.
"AI search engines and chatbots are content providers, and we will consistently apply German media law to them from now on," ZAK Chairman Thorsten Schmiege said in a statement.
The regulator said the liability exemption under the European Union's Digital Services Act, which generally shields platforms from responsibility for illegal user-generated content, did not apply in these cases.
According to the regulator, Google's AI Overviews are displayed prominently within search results, making traditional lists of links less visible and thereby unfairly disadvantaging third-party media content.
It also argued that chatbots such as Perplexity influence the discoverability of news content when they select and present sources, links or recommendations alongside AI-generated answers.
Such services could therefore qualify as media intermediaries and be subject to rules designed to safeguard media plurality.
Google said it planned to appeal the decision, which a spokesperson said "fails to recognise how people's preferences when searching for information and the information ecosystem are changing."
"Our AI-powered summaries enhance the search experience in Germany - they help users discover new content and ask follow-up questions," the spokesperson said.
Perplexity declined to comment on the decision but said it complies with the EU's privacy rules, or GDPR, and holds SOC 2 Type II security and privacy certification.
Reporting by Klaus Lauer, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Louise Heavens
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Alphabet ukončil desetiletý program zpětného odkupu akcií v objemu 346 miliard USD a místo toho zvyšuje investice do infrastruktury pro AI. Firma oznámila emisi akcií za 84,75 miliardy USD, která byla původně stanovena na 80 miliard USD.
The stock market has been on fire since the bear market ended in October 2022, with the "Magnificent Seven" leading the charge. Although Nvidia is Wall Street's largest publicly traded company, it's Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL 1.23%)(GOOG 1.16%) that's outperformed of late.
While Alphabet is best known for its globally dominant internet search engine, Google, as well as its burgeoning cloud infrastructure services platform, Google Cloud, there's another mammoth investment that's been powering its stock higher over the last decade. However, Alphabet recently abandoned this decade-long, $346 billion investment to pursue its artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions. Based on what history tells us, Alphabet going all-in on AI is a mixed bag.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet bids adieu to a steady $346 billion investment Although Alphabet has established itself as one of Wall Street's premier money managers, one of the most impressive investments it's made is in itself. Between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2025, Alphabet spent approximately $346 billion to repurchase shares of its stock:
2016: $3.693 billion in full-year buybacks 2017: $4.846 billion 2018: $9.075 billion 2019: $18.396 billion 2020: $31.149 billion 2021: $50.274 billion 2022: $59.296 billion 2023: $61.504 billion 2024: $62.222 billion 2025: $45.709 billion The sizable uptick in buybacks that began in 2018 is a direct result of President Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which permanently lowered the peak marginal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%. Enabling businesses to retain more of their income allowed them to repurchase their shares.
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For companies with steady or growing net income, share buybacks can also increase earnings per share and make a company's stock more fundamentally attractive to value-focused investors.
But on June 1, Alphabet officially squashed its $346 billion investment by announcing an $80 billion equity offering (which was subsequently raised to $84.75 billion). This offering, $10 billion of which went to Berkshire Hathaway in a private placement, is to be used to expand Alphabet's AI infrastructure.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet is going all-in on AI, and history suggests it'll be a bumpy ride Although Alphabet retains its strong cyclical advertising ties via Google and streaming platform YouTube, its jaw-dropping capital expenditures on AI, which are offsetting years of buybacks, are likely to be a mixed bag.
When peering five or more years into the future, this has all the hallmarks of a slam-dunk investment. Since Alphabet began integrating generative AI and large language model solutions into Google Cloud, sales in this high-margin segment have reaccelerated in a big way. In the March-ended quarter, Google Cloud revenue soared 63% from the year-ago period, with annual run rate sales topping $80 billion.
Over time, Google Cloud can overtake ads as Alphabet's primary cash-flow driver.
"Google Cloud revenues grew 63% with backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter to over $460 billion."
-- Qualtrim (@qualtrim) April 29, 2026 On the other hand, every game-changing technology since (and including) the dawn of the internet has endured a bubble-bursting event early in its expansion. Regardless of how impressive early adoption of a new technology is, optimization takes time. It'll likely be years before businesses are optimizing AI solutions to boost sales and profits.
If an AI bubble forms and bursts, which history clearly points to, Alphabet wouldn't be immune. Thankfully, its competitive moat and cash-rich balance sheet would allow it to weather the storm better than most AI-focused companies.
