Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

June 28 (Reuters) - Google has put limits on Meta’s (META.O), opens new tab use of its Gemini AI ​models after the social media company sought more ‌computing capacity than the rival tech group could provide, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Google, owned by Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, told Meta around March ​it could not meet the full Gemini capacity the ​company had sought to purchase, the newspaper said, ⁠adding that the shortfall disrupted and delayed some of ​Meta’s internal AI projects.

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Several other Google clients have also been ​affected, though to a lesser extent, according to the report. Meta has been particularly impacted due to its exceptionally high demand for Google’s ​models, the FT said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the ​report, which cited people familiar with the matter. Google and Meta did ‌not ⁠immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.

Due to the restrictions, Meta has encouraged staff to be more efficient with AI tokens, the units that measure AI usage, ​the FT report ​said.

Even as ⁠companies continue to spend billions on chips and data centres, they are still struggling to ​secure enough computing power to support the growing ​demand ⁠for AI services.

Revenue at Google Cloud grew to $20 billion in the first quarter ended March, but CEO Sundar Pichai said computing ⁠power ​constraints prevented even higher growth and ​contributed to the cloud unit's backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter.

Reporting by Abu ​Sultan in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard and Sonali Paul

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On June 23, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Alphabet would be replacing Verizon Communications in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Since 2020, seven of the Dow's 30 components have changed, including the additions of Honeywell International, Salesforce, Amgen, Amazon, Nvidia, Sherwin-Williams, and now Alphabet, and the deletions of RTX, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Intel, Dow, and Verizon.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.13%) -- otherwise known as SpaceX -- has only been public for a couple of weeks. But the company has a strong case for joining the Dow one day. Here are three reasons SpaceX could eventually join the Dow, and whether the growth stock is a buy now.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Industry leadership With just 30 components, each Dow stock represents certain industries and a stock market sector. The strongest case for SpaceX joining the Dow is that it is the undisputed leader in the commercial space launch industry -- conducting 82% of U.S. space launches.

If SpaceX can scale its Starlink network of broadband and mobile satellites, it could make a case for joining the Dow one day. And coincidentally, that segment could one day surpass the network of the very company that just got booted from the Dow -- Verizon.

But Starlink is merely one aspect of SpaceX's investment thesis. The bigger prize is artificial intelligence (AI) through SpaceX's ownership of xAI and its goal to launch millions of AI compute satellites in space. To support that vision, SpaceX plans to build a massive chip manufacturing plant called Terafab and an integrated AI satellite facility called Gigasat in Texas. CEO Elon Musk has an impressive track record unlocking manufacturing efficiencies with Tesla (TSLA +1.38%) -- but AI compute satellites will be far larger than Starlink satellites and carry far heavier payloads. To top it all off, SpaceX could face resistance from astronomers and nighttime sky viewers if it launches droves of AI compute satellites into Sun-synchronous orbit, causing unprecedented light pollution.

Challenges aside, SpaceX is on the cusp of becoming an industry leader in space technology for decades to come -- from connectivity and AI satellites to launching payloads and maybe even interplanetary travel. If SpaceX can turn these big ideas into sustainable businesses for future growth, it stands a good chance of one day being added to the Dow.

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2. Market cap Another factor SpaceX has going for it is its size. Even after undergoing a significant sell-off, SpaceX is still one of just seven companies in the $2 trillion club alongside Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. And since Taiwan Semiconductor would never be added to the Dow because it's not a U.S. company, SpaceX is the most valuable U.S. company not in the Dow.

NVDA Market Cap data by YCharts

If SpaceX maintains or increases its market cap, it would strengthen the case for inclusion in the Dow. However, size alone is no guarantee of inclusion, as it took several years for Alphabet to be added even after it reached a multi-trillion valuation. And mega-cap growth stocks Meta Platforms and Tesla are not Dow components.

3. A SpaceX/Tesla merger SpaceX's size and industry leadership could eventually lead to its inclusion in the Dow. But the most likely path to an expedited addition would be a merger between SpaceX and Tesla.

SpaceX and Tesla's combined market cap exceeds that of Microsoft and Amazon. SpaceX bought xAI earlier this year, but Tesla's self-driving and robotics technologies heavily rely on xAI. What's more, Tesla is a partner with SpaceX and xAI on Terafab. And SpaceX could benefit from Tesla's expertise in energy storage.

It's worth noting that there is no automative company in the Dow. General Motors was in the Dow, but was removed in 2009 in favor of Cisco Systems after GM entered bankruptcy protection. So if SpaceX and Tesla merged, it would give the Dow added exposure to automotive manufacturing, self-driving cars, robotics, energy, automation, AI, and space technologies in a similar vein as Alphabet's addition broadened the Dow's exposure to cloud infrastructure, AI, search, entertainment, media, self-driving cars, consumer electronics, and quantum computing.

SpaceX is well on its way to stardom Recent Dow shakeups illustrate the index's willingness to add non-traditional blue-chip stocks. Consistent, stodgy dividend growth is no longer a key factor. Rather, the Dow is looking for industry leaders with staying power.

While the Dow may not be the high-yield index of old, it's unlikely to add SpaceX unless it's consistently profitable. Salesforce was added to the index in 2020 when it didn't pay a dividend, and Nvidia was added in 2024 when it paid a very small dividend. But both those companies had been consistently growing earnings for years. Whereas SpaceX reported a net loss in 2025 and is borrowing money to fuel its growth plans.

There's no denying SpaceX is chock-full of potential. Years from now, SpaceX could be a household name pioneering the cutting edge of human ingenuity. But for now, investors are better off keeping SpaceX on a watchlist until it shows meaningful progress in turning grand ideas into a profitable business model.

Daniel Foelber has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Amgen, Apple, Cisco Systems, Honeywell International, Intel, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Pfizer, RTX, S&P Global, Salesforce, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors, Sherwin-Williams, and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Hollywood is having its best summer since before the pandemic, and that hot streak is putting the annual box office on pace to cross $10 billion for the first time in seven years.

The season, which runs from the first weekend in May through Labor Day, has tallied $1.8 billion so far through Sunday. That's down less than 2% from 2019 levels, or just about a $30 million lag. Industry analysts keep a close eye on this period of the year because it typically accounts for about 40% of the total annual domestic box office.

"The summer box office is incredibly important," said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at movie data company Rentrak. "It's vitally important in terms of what the overall health of the industry looks like and what that portends for the entire year."

What sets this summer apart is that it didn't kick off with a blockbuster action film or superhero team-up. Instead, the first major hit of the season came with the release of Disney's "The Devil Wears Prada 2," followed by Universal's "Obsession" and A24's "Backrooms," two low-budget horror films from YouTube creators-turned-filmmakers. 

It was further fueled by residual ticket sales of Lionsgate's "Michael," the Michael Jackson biopic, which debuted in late April.

Together, those four films have contributed nearly $850 million to the domestic summer box office since the start of May, according to data from Rentrak. Notably, that's about how much Disney and Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame" had tallied for the 2019 box office during the same period. 

Last week's release of Disney and Pixar's "Toy Story 5" delivered another boost, posting a franchise-best opening of $160 million.

Combined, the handful of upside surprises is making for a stronger-than-expected domestic box office and a promising foundation for the second half of the year as the industry chases pre-pandemic levels.

As of Sunday, the 2026 box office has tallied $4.4 billion domestically, about 15% behind the $5.2 billion the 2019 box office had collected during the same time period.

Currently playing in theatersContributing to the surprisingly strong ticket sales is movies like "Michael," "Obsession" and even Amazon MGM's "Project Hail Mary," which was released in March, that are holding strong at the box office week after week.

Typically, after opening weekend, a title will see sales drop anywhere from 50% to 70%. But these films were seeing drops of between 20% to 40% each week.

"Obsession" has pulled off an even rarer box office feat as ticket sales actually increased in its second and third weekend in theaters, up 39% and 14%, respectively, according to data from The Numbers.

That success is a sign that films are getting solid word of mouth from audiences and that it's driving new moviegoers to cinemas.

"It's just been one after another after another," said Alex DelVecchio, general manager of Rutgers Cinema in Piscataway, New Jersey. "I always said this whole year was about getting to June 19. Because once you get to June 19 you hit this six weeks in a row. It's Toy Story, 'Supergirl,' Minions, 'Moana,' ['The Odyssey'] and Spider-Man."

The combined efforts of those six films could boost the summer box office to $4.2 billion, Dergarabedian said. The summer box office has only surpassed $4 billion once since 2019, and that was thanks to the dual efforts of Warner Bros. "Barbie" and Universal's "Oppenheimer" in 2023, according to Rentrak data.

That threshold would mark a return to normal cadence for the summer box office, which collected more than $4 billion practically every year between 2013 and 2019 before Covid shut down cinemas.

Universal's "The Odyssey," directed by Christopher Nolan, is currently tracking for a $100 million-plus opening weekend and is expected to benefit significantly from premium large format screenings.

Sony's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," which was made in collaboration with Disney's Marvel Studios, could perform even better, with some analysts predicting between $200 million and $250 million for its opening weekend.

"'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' could be the biggest opening weekend of the year," Dergarabedian said. "And that opens on July 31st. What's that going to mean for August? Well, a lot, because that's going to add and contribute a lot of box office to the month. Then that sets up a fall and a holiday period [where] I think we're not going to see really that much of a slowdown."

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2026-06-27T09:15:01.233Z

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For years, Google was considered perhaps the best job in tech. The company built a reputation for generous benefits, pay, and the opportunity to work on products used by billions of people.

It remains a dream employer for many, but the AI boom has created new opportunities beyond Big Tech — and it's not just superstar AI researchers leaving. Some rank-and-file Google employees have also decided their best path lies outside Google, whether that's joining another employer, launching a startup, or pursuing an entirely different career.

Business Insider interviewed six recent Google employees about why they left. Here's what they told us. Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.

I felt some FOMO at Google during the AI boom

Yousuf Imran left Google this year to launch a startup focused on AI sales tools.  Yousuf Imran Yousuf Imran worked as an account executive at Google for roughly six years before leaving the company in April to launch an AI startup. He's 41 and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I earned nearly $1 million last year as an account executive at Google, but I felt some "FOMO" around the AI boom.

I think most people at Google would tell you the same if they were being candid.

Google pays very well, but the equity packages at OpenAI and Anthropic are in a different universe. A three- or four-year stock grant at one of these companies can be life-changing money.

That math was part of my own calculus in deciding to start my own business focused on AI sales tools. If the only way to get real upside in this AI moment is equity, at some point you ask yourself whether the equity should be in your own company.

Uncertain job security was another factor in my decision. What struck me about the recent layoff rounds at Google was that they hit genuinely talented people. It wasn't a performance story; it was a consolidation story. AI is letting companies restructure teams and flatten layers, and when that's the driver, tenure and talent don't protect you the way they used to.

The scarier choice was staying at Google

Aashna Doshi started a podcast while working at Google before leaving to build an AI business.  Aashna Doshi Aashna Doshi worked as a software engineer at Google until May, when she left to build an AI startup. She's 23 and lives in New York City.

In May, I left Google to go all-in on building my AI startup.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Google. I was learning every day and meeting a lot of smart people from diverse backgrounds.

But at a Big Tech company, you're one piece of a very large machine, and I craved the ability to make decisions, move fast, and see the direct results of my work.

On top of that, the AI tools available to builders right now are unlike anything we've had before. I had a strong conviction around a specific idea, and I didn't want to look back and wish I had taken the shot when the timing was this good.

Leaving Google was a financial risk, but I've always believed that if you feel a strong enough pull toward something, you have to be willing to walk away from good in pursuit of something that could be great. Financial security is comfortable, but it can also be a trap.

The scarier version of this decision wasn't leaving Google. It was staying and always wondering what could have been.

Big Tech no longer felt like the safe choice

Taylor M. LaSane left Google to focus on her own business full-time.  Taylor M. LaSane Taylor M. LaSane worked at Google for more than 10 years before leaving her transformation manager role last October to focus on her career coaching business full-time. She's in her early 30s and lives in Atlanta.

"Big Tech layoffs are happening everywhere, so it wasn't like staying there was necessarily any more stable than leaving."

Read the full story here.

Google showed me how far ahead AI had become

Candice Bryant said her time at Google showed her how much AI technology had advanced.  Candice Bryant Candice Bryant worked as an internal communications manager at Google until last October, when she resigned to focus on independent consulting and building AI-related products.

I worked with Google's search team during the early days of the generative AI boom, after ChatGPT launched and before Gemini was released.

When I first started seeing Google's AI tools come online, I was mesmerized by the technology. I remember seeing capabilities like NotebookLM's ability to turn notes into a podcast and thinking, "This is going to change everything."

But even as I saw the potential of these tools, I realized that almost nobody in my life was using AI just yet.

It dawned on me that a powerful technology nobody understands or uses isn't going to transform anything. I came to believe the real gap wasn't between Silicon Valley and policymakers — it was between Silicon Valley and everyone else. I increasingly felt I could have a bigger impact helping people understand AI from outside Google than from within it.

That's why I ultimately decided to leave Google and pursue that mission independently.

I felt unseen at Google

Joslyn Orgill left her six-figure Google job to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois.  Joslyn Orgill Joslyn Orgill worked as a data engineer at Google until August 2025, when she left to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science. She's in her early 30s and lives in Illinois.

"I wanted more out of my career and my life — something that I was more passionate about than what I could achieve at a big company like Google."

Read the full story here.

I left Google to run for Congress

Bushra Amiwala left her job at Google to run for Congress in Illinois' 9th District.  Bushra Amiwala Bushra Amiwala worked at Google for about five years before leaving her account manager role last year to run for Congress. Amiwala, who placed sixth in Illinois' Democratic primary for the seat, is in her late 20s and lives in the Chicago area.

"Do I run for this seat and quit my job, or do I stay at Google and never try?"

Read the full story here.

Have a story to share about working in tech? Reach reporter Jacob Zinkula via email at [email protected], or via Signal at jzinkula.29.

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Alphabet (GOOG 0.07%) (GOOGL 0.38%) stock has had a rough few days. It notched a new all-time high at the start of June and stayed around those levels for a few weeks. However, it has lost over 6% of its value -- about $250 billion -- in just the past few days, apparently due to one event: The announcement that Google DeepMind's Vice President John Jumper was leaving for Anthropic. But can one employee really be worth that much to a company?

While Jumper is a huge name in the AI world, he wasn't the only high-profile individual to jump ship from Alphabet recently. Noam Shazeer, the Gemini model's co-lead, left for OpenAI the week before that.

Should this raise red flags for Alphabet investors?

Image source: Getty Images.

Is Alphabet losing the AI race? Neither of these departures was likely due to their compensation packages. Alphabet has the funds to pay its top people whatever it wants if it deems them worth the money. Furthermore, Alphabet is a company full of brilliant engineers and AI thinkers, and management may have let them go in part to allow new talent to rise to the top. On the flip side, both Jumper and Shazeer may have left because they didn't like the direction that Alphabet was heading, and wanted to work for a company that was more aligned with their ideals.

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Whatever the reason may be, it's still concerning for Alphabet investors because losing the AI race isn't something it can afford to do. Alphabet's AI tools are likely the most commonly interacted with ones in the world, as its AI summaries are displayed with each Google Search result. If a competitor can launch a more useful product, that could endanger Alphabet's core business.

Additionally, Alphabet needs strong AI offerings to continue attracting clients to its Google Cloud platform. If it falls behind on AI, users may be more inclined to go with one of its competitors.

Still, even after the sell-off, Alphabet's stock is trading at a high valuation from a historical perspective.  

When a company is going through a heavy capital investment cycle (like Alphabet is right now), its cash from operations metric is a particularly useful statistic to measure its share price against. On that score, Alphabet is still near the most expensive level it has seen in the past decade.

GOOG Price to CFO Per Share (TTM) data by YCharts.

Furthermore, Alphabet's sell-off also coincided with a broader sell-off in the AI space.

Because of that, I don't think it's time for shareholders to panic. Alphabet is still a top AI pick, even if two high-profile figures have left. It will also take each of them some time to get up to speed at their new positions, so there's no reason to expect overnight changes at Alphabet's competitors. While the optics around the departures may not be great, nothing has yet occurred that would call Alphabet's status as an AI titan into question.

For new and old investors, taking full advantage of the stock market and investing with confidence are common goals. Zacks Premium provides lots of different ways to do both.

Featuring daily updates of the Zacks Rank and Zacks Industry Rank, full access to the Zacks #1 Rank List, Equity Research reports, and Premium stock screens, the research service can help you become a smarter, more self-assured investor.

Zacks Premium includes access to the Zacks Style Scores as well.

What are the Zacks Style Scores? The Zacks Style Scores, developed alongside the Zacks Rank, are complementary indicators that rate stocks based on three widely-followed investing methodologies; they also help investors pick stocks with the best chances of beating the market over the next 30 days.

Each stock is given an alphabetic rating of A, B, C, D or F based on their value, growth, and momentum qualities. With this system, an A is better than a B, a B is better than a C, and so on, meaning the better the score, the better chance the stock will outperform.

The Style Scores are broken down into four categories:

Value ScoreFinding good stocks at good prices, and discovering which companies are trading under their true value, are what value investors like to focus on. So, the Value Style Score takes into account ratios like P/E, PEG, Price/Sales, Price/Cash Flow, and a host of other multiples to highlight the most attractive and discounted stocks.

Growth ScoreWhile good value is important, growth investors are more focused on a company's financial strength and health, and its future outlook. The Growth Style Score takes projected and historic earnings, sales, and cash flow into account to uncover stocks that will see long-term, sustainable growth.

Momentum ScoreMomentum traders and investors live by the saying "the trend is your friend." This investing style is all about taking advantage of upward or downward trends in a stock's price or earnings outlook. Employing factors like one-week price change and the monthly percentage change in earnings estimates, the Momentum Style Score can indicate favorable times to build a position in high-momentum stocks.

VGM ScoreWhat if you like to use all three types of investing? The VGM Score is a combination of all Style Scores, making it one of the most comprehensive indicators to use with the Zacks Rank. It rates each stock on their combined weighted styles, which helps narrow down the companies with the most attractive value, best growth forecast, and most promising momentum.

How Style Scores Work with the Zacks Rank A proprietary stock-rating model, the Zacks Rank utilizes the power of earnings estimate revisions, or changes to a company's earnings outlook, to help investors create a successful portfolio.

Investors can count on the Zacks Rank's success, with #1 (Strong Buy) stocks producing an unmatched +24% average annual return since 1988, more than double the S&P 500's performance. But the model rates a large number of stocks, and there are over 200 companies with a Strong Buy rank, plus another 600 with a #2 (Buy) rank, on any given day.

But it can feel overwhelming to pick the right stocks for you and your investing goals with over 800 top-rated stocks to choose from.

That's where the Style Scores come in.

You want to make sure you're buying stocks with the highest likelihood of success, and to do that, you'll need to pick stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 or #2 that also have Style Scores of A or B. If you like a stock that only has a #3 (Hold) rank, it should also have Scores of A or B to guarantee as much upside potential as possible.

As mentioned above, the Scores are designed to work with the Zacks Rank, so any change to a company's earnings outlook should be a deciding factor when picking which stocks to buy.

A stock with a #4 (Sell) or #5 (Strong Sell) rating, for instance, even one with Scores of A and B, will still have a declining earnings forecast, and a greater chance its share price will fall too.

Thus, the more stocks you own with a #1 or #2 Rank and Scores of A or B, the better.

Stock to Watch: Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) Alphabet is one of the most innovative companies in the modern technological age. Over the last few years, the company has evolved from primarily a search-engine provider to cloud computing, ad-based video and music streaming, autonomous vehicles, healthcare and others. In the online search arena, Google has a monopoly with roughly 90% of the online search volume and market. Over the years, the company has witnessed increase in search queries, resulting from ongoing growth in user adoption and usage, primarily on mobile devices, continued growth in advertiser activity, and improvements in ad formats.

GOOGL is a #3 (Hold) on the Zacks Rank, with a VGM Score of B.

Additionally, the company could be a top pick for growth investors. GOOGL has a Growth Style Score of A, forecasting year-over-year earnings growth of 32.3% for the current fiscal year.

17 analysts revised their earnings estimate upwards in the last 60 days for fiscal 2026. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $2.64 to $14.30 per share. GOOGL boasts an average earnings surprise of +34.4%.

With a solid Zacks Rank and top-tier Growth and VGM Style Scores, GOOGL should be on investors' short list.

Alphabet (GOOGL 0.62%) (GOOG 0.58%) historically has had no shortage of growth opportunities to direct its capital toward. That's why it never paid a dividend in the past, as management felt the cash was better suited to reinvest in the business. This philosophy changed in June 2024, when the company paid its first quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share. That payout is now $0.22 per quarter. But the low dividend yield of 0.25% isn't enough to compel income investors to buy this Magnificent Seven stock.

The situation looks a bit different now. Alphabet is investing so much to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure that it has now tapped equity markets to raise fresh capital. As part of a nearly $85 billion raise, the company issued $16.75 billion of convertible preferred stock (GOOGM is the Class A equivalent, and GOOGN is the Class C equivalent). It offered a hefty 6.25% dividend yield at issuance.

That seems like a good deal, especially since the preferred stock comes from one of the most dominant tech companies. Before you rush to buy, read the fine print first.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Sitting between bondholders and common shareholders Preferred equity is a hybrid security that mimics both bonds, because they have a fixed dividend, and equities, since they represent ownership. And on the capital structure, it sits between bondholders and common shareholders. If a company goes bankrupt and has to liquidate assets, preferred holders get paid out before common equity holders.

These investment products are catered to a specific type of market participant. Investors who want to earn yield and limit downside will find preferred equities attractive.

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Bullish investors should pass on this Alphabet's preferred stock isn't perpetual. Instead, it will convert to common shares on May 15, 2029. So, the 6.25% dividend yield will be active for only about three years. After that, investors can expect to receive the common stock's low 0.25% yield.

The conversion details can be confusing for average investors. Your decision to buy the preferred stock comes down to your forecast of where Alphabet's common shares will be in the future. If the stock price doubles in five years, which is a reasonable view given the company's impressive profit growth relative to its current valuation, then it makes sense to keep things simple and own the common shares.

On the other hand, if you believe Alphabet's common shares will be flat or decline over the next five years, then owning the preferred shares is interesting. There's income to be made.

For long-term investors, however, it's best to pass on this financial instrument. While the dividend yield draws a lot of attention, the fine print presents a more complex situation.

On Jan. 12, 2026, Apple (AAPL 6.41%) and Alphabet (GOOGL 0.30%) (GOOG 0.83%) announced a deal that will see Google's Gemini AI model power a smarter Siri. The price tag is rumored to be roughly $1 billion a year, though neither company has confirmed terms.

On its face, it looks like a confirmation that Apple is painfully behind in the AI space race. I disagree. I think Apple is the winner. Here's why.

Image source: Getty Images.

What Google gets out of the deal Google gets a high-margin licensing fee on a model it already built, so there's no major new spending attached. It also gets bragging rights of a sort -- Apple, a company known for its obsession with quality, picked Gemini over OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. That means something.

On the other hand, $1 billion a year is a drop in the bucket for a company with annual sales of more than $400 billion. And it's only 5% of the payment Google makes to Apple for the privilege of remaining the default search engine on the iPhone.

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Why the real power stays with Apple The disparity here is revealing. If Google lost that default search slot, it would be locked out of the search traffic from more than 1.5 billion of the most valuable devices on earth -- a gut punch to its core business. If, on the other hand, Apple swapped Gemini out for OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude, or even China's DeepSeek, the average iPhone owner would likely not notice.

It shows that AI models are more or less a commodity -- an interchangeable part Apple can shop for and replace, while Apple's hold on its customers is anything but.

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Siri gets smarter without Apple footing the R&D bill Internal evaluations reportedly showed Siri flubbing complex requests about a third of the time. It's clear that by incorporating Gemini, Apple will be able to greatly improve its products and the user experience.

Apple needed a fix, and it got it. $1 billion a year isn't cheap, but it pales in comparison to the investment Google has pumped into developing Gemini. Apple gets an immediate fix while it works to perfect its own in-house model.

And -- in stark contrast to the rest of big tech -- it does this with remarkable discipline. Apple's AI capital spending in 2025 was about $12.7 billion. Alphabet spent roughly $90 billion.

In my view, Apple has positioned itself perfectly to reap the rewards of state-of-the-art AI without most of the cost of creating it. So, while many people say Apple is falling behind in AI, I say it's right where it needs to be. I think this deal confirms it.

Shares of Alphabet (GOOGL 0.62%) (GOOG 1.15%) took a hit to start the week after it was revealed that the company had recently lost some high-profile employees. Last week, the co-lead on its Gemini models, Noam Shazeer, announced he was leaving to join OpenAI. And then DeepMind's vice president and Nobel Prize winner, John Jumper, said he was heading to Anthropic.

The loss of AI talent to rivals isn't a positive, but it doesn't remove the advantages that Alphabet has created. That is why the price dip could be a great investing opportunity.

The AI model and chip advantage Alphabet's biggest edge is that it is the most complete AI company with world-class models and AI accelerator chips. By having its own models, the company can capture more AI revenue streams within its Google Cloud segment, and it is using Gemini to help add features and fuel growth with its consumer businesses, including Google Search.

The company's Gemini models are very good, but on the consumer side, the company doesn't even necessarily need the best model, especially in certain areas like coding. Its distribution -- through the ownership of Chrome, Android, and a revenue-sharing deal on search with Apple -- give it a big edge, while its ad network lets it monetize consumer AI better than anyone else.

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That said, Alphabet's biggest edge isn't its models, which are very good, but its chips. Management smartly developed its proprietary tensor processing units (TPUs) more than a decade ago and optimized its entire hardware and software stack around them.

This lets it train its models and run inference at a much lower cost than rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. Employees moving to those rivals after being involved with its AI models doesn't lessen that advantage.

This is also Alphabet's biggest growth driver. Its cloud computing business is booming, and by being able to offer its TPU infrastructure services to its customers, it captures higher margins. It is also set to sell some of its chips outside of Google Cloud to Anthropic, which opens up another high-margin revenue stream for the company.

Image source: The Motley Fool

Time to buy the stock Being a leader in both AI models and chips should position Alphabet to be one of the dominant AI players over the next decade. The loss of a few highly talented employees isn't going to change that. This makes this recent sell-off a great buying opportunity, with the stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just above 24 times.

That's a bargain for what looks set to be a top AI stock over the long term.

© _ultraforma_ / Getty Images

Five researchers out of Google’s core AI team in seven days, and the market noticed. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) shares fell 5.09% over the past week to $345.29, and dropped another 1.14% Thursday morning to $341.34. The catalyst is talent, the subtext is product, and the spread between the two is where investors are getting nervous.

What Maggie Germain told CNBC On CNBC’s Closing Bell Overtime Wednesday, reporter Maggie Germain laid out why the exits look like a pattern rather than coincidence. When the host pressed whether pre-IPO equity alone explained the moves, Germain pointed at a hole in Google’s product lineup. “Google at this point doesn’t have something that competes with Codex and Claude Code, and that’s where researchers are really gravitating,” she said. Coding assistants are the wedge product for enterprise AI sales right now, and the labs building the best ones are hoovering up Google’s bench.

The standouts are real names. Noam Shazeer, a Gemini co-lead and one of the original authors of the Transformer paper, is heading to OpenAI. John Jumper, the Nobel laureate behind AlphaFold, is going to Anthropic. Two more DeepMind researchers are reportedly headed to Anthropic as well, and DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis acknowledged “the most ferociously competitive talent market the tech industry has ever seen.” The newer departures sit below Shazeer or Jumper in seniority, yet the cadence is the story.

Why pre-IPO equity changes the math Both Anthropic and OpenAI have confidentially filed S-1s, which converts a researcher’s grant from “maybe valuable someday” into “valuable on a defined timeline.” Polymarket traders are pricing the competitive gap quite directly. As of Thursday, the market gives Anthropic a 98.2% implied probability of holding the top model on Chatbot Arena by June 30, with Google at just 0.3%. Over one month, Anthropic’s odds rose 22.2 points while Google’s fell 17.7.

Compounding the mood, Gemini 3.5 Pro was reportedly pushed from a June release to July. Talent churn alongside a product slip compounds the credibility problem with enterprise buyers.

The numbers that complicate the panic Strip out the last week and the underlying business is still firing. Q1 FY26, reported April 29, delivered EPS of $5.11 against a $2.63 estimate on revenue of $109.90 billion, up 21.8% year over year. Google Cloud grew 63% to $20.03 billion, with backlog nearly doubling sequentially to over $460 billion. CEO Sundar Pichai told investors that Gemini’s API processed more than 16 billion tokens per minute, up 60% from the prior quarter, per Alphabet’s Q1 FY26 8-K.

So why the selloff. Capex hit $35.67 billion in Q1, more than doubling year over year, with FY26 guidance of $175 billion to $185 billion. Investors are being asked to fund a hyperscale build while watching the people who would justify that spend walk to competition. GOOGL’s composite sentiment score has fallen 19.16 points in seven days and 24.88 over thirty. Year to date, the stock is still up 10.46%, and over one year, up 107.64%. The selloff reflects positioning rather than a break in the business.

How the rivals are trading If you assumed talent flowing into the OpenAI and Anthropic camps was juicing their cloud backers, the price action disagrees. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is down 3.55% on the week and 24.10% year to date to $355.23, weighed by the same AI capex anxiety dragging Alphabet. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), which backs Anthropic and committed roughly 5 gigawatts of Trainium capacity to it, is down 1.36% on the week to $230.05, up just 1.49% year to date.

What to keep an eye on The July Gemini release is the readable catalyst. If 3.5 Pro lands and clears the 1500 Chatbot Arena threshold the market currently prices at 25%, the talent narrative softens. If it slips again or debuts middling, the question stops being about five researchers and starts being about whether enterprise customers stay parked in Vertex AI when Codex and Claude Code keep shipping. Polymarket is currently pricing an 80% chance GOOGL closes lower on June 25, which tells you where the very short-term crowd has placed its chips.

By PYMNTS  |  June 25, 2026

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Google has introduced new investing capabilities and a new Android app for Google Finance.

The new offerings, announced Thursday (June 25), include the global rollout of an updated portfolios tool, letting users track their investments in one dashboard.

“Your existing Google Finance portfolios will be available automatically, or you can create a new one by dropping in screenshots or uploading files (like CSVs or PDFs) that detail your holdings,” Google wrote on its blog. “You can even just describe your investments to get started and build from there.”

After a portfolio is set up, the Google Finance research tool lets users explore further by asking questions such as “what sectors are currently underrepresented in my portfolio?” or “how does my fixed income allocation impact my long-term growth potential?”

In addition, users can ask Google Finance to keep them updated on their chosen topics by describing a task — the company gives the example of requesting “a daily pre-market briefing analyzing significant overnight moves across major cryptocurrencies” — to get notified of updates through the Google app.

Lastly, Google has launched a new Google Finance app for Android, “bringing the core of our new experience directly into your pocket,” the post added.

“For people who find themselves checking in on the market multiple times per day, the new app is a dedicated place to easily access your watchlist, as well as real-time data, a live financial news feed, the AI research tool and AI-powered ‘key moments’ that explain why a stock moved.”

This is happening as consumers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for tasks such as organizing their personal finances, as PYMNTS Intelligence research has shown.

For instance, the data shows that 62% of Generation Z consumers surveyed by PYMNTS were willing to use AI for “what if” financial planning.

Among AI’s most fervent adherents, upwards of 60% access AI primarily via a smartphone app, a sign that that artificial intelligence has “moved from occasional browser experimentation to habitual daily behavior,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this year.

“Every additional touchpoint where consumers engage with AI expands the surface area where AI can trigger or influence a financial outcome.”

Google introduced Google Finance in the U.S. last year and has since been steadily updating the tool. Last month, the company expanded the offering to Europe.

In the cloud computing world, there are several major players. They range from tech titans like Alphabet (GOOG 0.79%) (GOOGL 0.86%) to upstarts like CoreWeave (CRWV +1.43%). There are also different focuses, with Alphabet having an AI computing segment but also offering broad cloud computing services, while CoreWeave is completely focused on AI.

But which company is the better investment in this space? 

Image source: Getty Images.

Alphabet has a more diversified business For CoreWeave, it's AI cloud computing relevancy or bust. The neocloud company must build out its data center footprint on a wide scale and then become profitable. Neither are easy tasks, and it may not succeed in the end. Furthermore, a large chunk of CoreWeave's business comes from just two customers right now: Microsoft and Meta Platforms. Each of these companies has its own cloud infrastructure and is a CoreWeave client to obtain more computing power faster and to reduce the number of data centers they have to build themselves. If either of those megacaps terminates its contract with CoreWeave, it would be in a world of hurt.

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Alphabet is a far more conservative pick. While cloud computing is an important and growing part of its business, it only made up $20 billion of Alphabet's $90 billion in Q1 revenue. Alphabet also has a far more diversified customer base in its cloud computing business unit, with no single customer accounting for a majority of revenue. Additionally, Alphabet has other profitable business units such as Google Search and YouTube generating the cash flow to fund its data center build-out.

This makes Alphabet stock the safer choice, and the majority of investors are likely to prefer its stability.

Winner: Alphabet

CoreWeave's growth is better Unsurprisingly, CoreWeave is growing more quickly than Alphabet's Google Cloud segment, but not by as much as you'd expect. In Q1, CoreWeave's revenue increased by 112% year over year to $2.1 billion. That's about a tenth of Alphabet's Google Cloud revenues for the period, but with a backlog of nearly $100 billion, CoreWeave has a lot of room to grow.

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Google Cloud grew at a 63% pace during Q1, and has a backlog of about $462 billion. But for Alphabet as a whole, the top-line growth rate was just 22% -- though that's still impressive for a megacap.  With major growth ahead for both companies, the future is bright for each. However, CoreWeave should be able to continue growing faster than Alphabet due to its smaller size, giving it the win here.

Winner: CoreWeave

CoreWeave's and Alphabet's valuations are hard to compare Because CoreWeave is spending every dollar it can get its hands on to build out its cloud computing empire, it should come as no surprise that it is unprofitable. As a result, the best metric available for valuing the stock is the price-to-sales ratio. Trading at less than 9 times sales, CoreWeave's stock isn't that expensive for the industry it's in.

CRWV PS Ratio data by YCharts.

However, it has a long way to go before it could start turning consistent profits, and this valuation reflects that. Interestingly, Alphabet's P/S of 10 is only marginally higher, but for profitable companies, it's better to use a P/E ratio.

And by that metric, Alphabet is more expensive than it has been at most times over the past year.

GOOG PE Ratio data by YCharts.

While that P/E ratio of almost 27 doesn't disqualify it from consideration as a stock buy now, it does raise some valuation concerns.

Declaring a winner on this front is tricky because CoreWeave's stock seems priced correctly, but with no profits, it's harder to derive a meaningful valuation. Alphabet's stock may be more expensive than it has often been recently, but it's still appropriate compared to its big tech peers. I'm therefore inclined to call this category a tie.

Winner: Tie

Your preferred pick will depend on your investing style If you favor investing in steady, solid growers with good upside, then Alphabet is probably the better stock for you, but you can be sure that it won't double in a year. If you want greater upside potential and are willing to risk more to get it, then CoreWeave is probably your better option. Each of these stocks could make for a solid AI investment, and if everything pans out, both will provide solid gains for investors.

HomeStock IdeasLong IdeasCommunication Services

SummaryAlphabet is a strong buy, as the market still underestimates its multi-layered AI monetization potential despite a premium valuation.GOOGL’s AI-driven Search, Cloud, and TPU monetization are accelerating operating income growth even amid a historic capex cycle.Google Cloud’s $462B backlog and 63% YoY revenue growth provide hard evidence of robust AI infrastructure demand and operating leverage.Agentic commerce and richer AI-powered search queries are expanding Google’s addressable ad market, supporting sustained earnings compounding through 2029. Getty Images

AI will kill Google. That was the 2023 debate. It is stale now. At a roughly $4.4 trillion market capitalization and close to 28x trailing earnings, Alphabet is clearly priced as one of the dominant AI beneficiaries. But even after the rerating, the market

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of GOOG 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 (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Not financial advice

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Honeywell International (HON +2.22%) is spinning off Honeywell Aerospace on June 29 as the final phase of breaking up its conglomerate structure to accelerate growth. In May, I predicted that Honeywell's spin-off would trigger a shake-up of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI +0.35%) that would open the perfect window for Alphabet (GOOG 0.36%) (GOOGL 0.33%) to join the index.

The prediction came true on June 23, when S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that while the streamlined Honeywell Technologies would remain in the Dow, Alphabet would replace Verizon Communications (VZ 2.25%) before the start of trading on June 29.

Here's what the news means for the Dow and for Alphabet investors.

Image source: Alphabet.

Alphabet has been knocking on the Dow's door for years The Dow turned 130 years old earlier this year. Throughout its history, the index has been weighted by price, meaning the cost of a single share of a company's stock. This is in contrast with the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 0.43%) and the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.10%), which are weighted by a company's market cap. 

There are plenty of S&P 500 companies that have been terrible investments for years, or even decades, that have remained in the index simply because they have stayed above the index's market-cap threshold. But the Dow, with just 30 components roughly representing stock market leadership, is much more selective. And if a former industry leader underperforms for too long, it stands a good chance of getting booted from the index.

This is exactly what happened to Verizon. To quote the June 23 press release by S&P Dow Jones indexes: "Verizon represents only one-half of one percentage point of the DJIA due to its lower share price. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price weighted index, and thus persistently lower-priced stocks have an immaterial impact on the index." In sum, Verizon had become so small -- its stock was trading around $45 as of June 24 -- that moves in its stock price had a negligible impact on the Dow, which isn't the index's purpose.

Alphabet used to have the opposite problem -- as of July 2022, its share price had soared over $2,200. But a 20-for-1 stock split that summer set the stage for the company to become a top prospect in the Dow pipeline. Alphabet is up big since its split, but it is still within the bounds of an acceptable addition. At the time of this writing, Alphabet's share price of $346.13 would make it the Dow's sixth-largest component, just behind Amgen and ahead of American Express, with a 4.1% weighting in the index.

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Alphabet checks all the boxes for a stock to buy now Although Alphabet is a tech-focused company, it is technically in the communications sector, which is why replacing fellow communications stock Verizon made perfect sense. However, the Dow has become significantly more tech-focused in recent years. Microsoft, Apple, International Business Machines, Nvidia, Salesforce, and Cisco Systems account for 15.3% of the Dow. Throw in Amazon (consumer discretionary sector) and Alphabet (assuming a 4.1% weighing), and that's 22.2% of the Dow.

Alphabet was long overdue for inclusion in the Dow. It is the third-most-valuable company in the world, behind Nvidia and Apple. It dominates internet services with Google Search. YouTube alone generated $9.9 billion in revenue in Alphabet's first quarter of 2026. For context, Netflix did $12.3 billion -- meaning YouTube could surpass Netflix in revenue in the coming years.

Google Cloud is the third-largest global cloud infrastructure provider, behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. But Alphabet also has a leading large language model with Gemini. And Alphabet is ahead of Amazon and Microsoft in artificial intelligence chip production, rolling out its eight-generation Tensor Processing Unit chips (one for AI training and one for AI inference) earlier this year. Alphabet also owns Android, makes the Google Pixel and other devices, is a leader in quantum computing, and is involved in self-driving cars through Waymo.

In sum, Alphabet has a unique balance of diversification and high-margin growth, an exceptionally rare combination for a company of its size. Alphabet implemented its first-ever dividend in 2024. Every Dow stock except for Amazon and Boeing pays dividends. And to top it all off, Alphabet trades at 24.3 times earnings estimates for the next 12 months, which is a reasonable premium to the S&P 500's 20.8 forward price-to-earnings ratio considering Alphabet is a much higher-quality company than the typical S&P 500 component.

American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Daniel Foelber has positions in American Express, Netflix, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, American Express, Amgen, Apple, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Honeywell International, International Business Machines, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, S&P Global, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Top AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, according to Bloomberg. Per the report, Adler and Pritzel played key roles in the development of Google’s Gemini model.

TechCrunch reached out to Google for comment.

These departures are part of a concerning trend for Google. Last week, legendary AI researcher Noam Shazeer announced that he was leaving Google for OpenAI. Shazeer had been at Google since 2000, save for the three years he spent building his controversial chatbot startup, Character.AI (which Google effectively acquihired for $2.7 billion, in part to bring Shazeer back to work on Gemini).

Just days after Shazeer made his announcement, Google DeepMind Director John Jumper said he was leaving Google for Anthropic. Alongside DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, which can predict 3D protein structures from animo acid sequences.

As OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public, this trend could continue — it’s a great time for the companies to recruit top AI talent with a promise of equity.

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google's DeepMind. Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images The release date for Google's next frontier AI model has been pushed to July, Business Insider has learned.

The company previously said it planned to roll out the new Gemini 3.5 Pro model in June. However, it is now targeting a July launch as it spends extra time gathering feedback from early testers and tweaking the model, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Google teased the new model at its I/O developer conference in May but said it wasn't quite ready. At the time, CEO Sundar Pichai said the model would launch "next month."

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

With this upcoming model, the pressure is on for Google at a moment of intense competition among the AI labs. While Gemini 3 outperformed expectations last year, Anthropic and OpenAI are continuing to pull ahead of Google in coding, which has emerged as the first major enterprise use case for modern AI.

The source said that Google pushed the launch date back so it could spend more time gathering real-world use cases from early testers. The new model has been available to some users on Google's Antigravity platform and on the AI benchmarking site LMArena, they said.

The new Gemini 3.5 Pro model is expected to be better at long-horizon tasks and powering agents.

Google has also incorporated feedback from its recent Flash 3.5 model into 3.5 Pro, the source said, confirming a theory that Business Insider floated at I/O. That includes criticisms that Flash consumed tokens too quickly.

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Google Alphabet AI More Artificial Intelligence Exclusive

Alphabet shares GOOG rose 1.8% on Wednesday after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that the Google parent will replace Verizon Communications in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ahead of the opening of trading on June 29.

The move will also result in changes to the S&P 500, with Honeywell Aerospace set to replace Conagra Brands on the same date.

The update marks one of the most significant changes to the 30-stock Dow in recent years and increases the index’s exposure to large-cap technology companies.

Following the adjustment, five of the so-called Magnificent 7 companies will now be included in the benchmark.

S&P Dow Jones Indices said Verizon’s low share price meant it had an “immaterial impact” on the price-weighted index.

Alphabet, by contrast, has a stock price of around $350 compared with Verizon’s roughly $47, making it more influential in a price-weighted structure such as the Dow.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index, meaning companies with higher share prices carry greater influence regardless of market capitalization.

As a result, Alphabet is expected to account for approximately 4.0% of the index based on Tuesday’s closing price, making it the seventh-largest component.

S&P Dow Jones Indices said in a press release that “Alphabet’s diversified technology and digital services portfolio spans advertising, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, hardware, autonomous mobility, healthcare technology, and media distribution.”

It added: “Adding Alphabet will broaden and strengthen the DJIA’s exposure to these dynamic areas of the US economy.”

Both Alphabet and Verizon are classified as communications stocks by S&P Dow Jones.

The inclusion also reflects a broader shift in the Dow’s composition over recent years.

Nvidia and Sherwin-Williams were added to the index in November 2024, replacing Dow Inc. and Intel.

After the latest change, most major technology companies—including Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon.com and Nvidia—will be represented in the Dow.

Honeywell International will remain in the index following the spinoff of Honeywell Aerospace.

Despite the announcement, Alphabet’s share price reaction is expected to be limited.

The stock has fallen about 11% over the past month amid investor concerns about its artificial intelligence strategy and heavy spending.

Market history suggests index additions to the Dow do not typically generate sustained share price gains.

Because the Dow is not widely tracked by passive funds in the same way as the S&P 500, there is little forced buying pressure when companies are added or removed.

When Nvidia and Amazon.com joined the Dow in 2024, both stocks saw muted immediate reactions, with Nvidia falling 0.8% and Amazon slipping 0.1% on the day of inclusion, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

While the direct impact on Alphabet shares may be limited, the inclusion underscores the increasing dominance of large technology companies in major US equity indices and the continued rebalancing of traditional benchmarks toward the tech sector.

Google-Parent Alphabet To Join Dow Jones Industrial Average, Replacing Verizon Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) will be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Verizon (VZ) on June 29. The move further cements the Dow Jones' shift into megacap techs. Google stock will be the fifth Magnificent Seven member in the Dow, following Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Nvidia (NVDA). Google stock rose slightly in extended action. Verizon stock…

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Related news Cathie Wood Loads Up On Palantir, Cerebras, These Mag 7 Players 6/24/2026 Cathie Wood and ARK Invest on Tuesday purchased $49 million of Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Palantir, CoreWeave and Cerebras.

6/24/2026 Cathie Wood and ARK Invest on Tuesday purchased $49 million...

Children playground miniatures are seen in front of displayed Youtube logo in this illustration taken April 4, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SummaryCompaniesTrial will go forward against Meta, Snap and TikTok in JulyCompanies face thousands of similar lawsuitsSeveral other trials are scheduled in the coming monthsJune 23 (Reuters) - Google's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab YouTube has settled a lawsuit brought by a minor who claimed the platform damaged his mental health, his lawyers said Tuesday, ahead of a ‌second California trial over social media's role in the youth mental health crisis.

The terms of the settlement of the state court lawsuit were confidential, the lawyers said on Tuesday. The suit named four defendants — YouTube, Meta's (META.O), opens new tab Instagram, Snap Inc's (SNAP.N), opens new tab Snapchat and ByteDance's TikTok — and the remaining three companies are still set to face trial in July.

Learn about the latest breakthroughs in AI and tech with the Reuters Artificial Intelligencer newsletter. Sign up here.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said ​in a statement that the lawsuit had been amicably resolved. "Our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on ​that promise,” Castaneda said.

John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, attorneys for the plaintiff, known by his initials R.K.C., said in ⁠a statement: "YouTube's decision to resolve this case before having to face a jury speaks for itself."

"We will continue fighting on behalf of all those ​affected by social media addiction to bring these companies to justice and compel them to prioritize the safety of their young users over their bottom ​lines."

R.K.C., a 16-year-old boy from Florida, said he started using social media when he was about eight, according to court filings. He became addicted to it, losing sleep and suffering from depression and anxiety, according to the filings.

R.K.C.'s lawsuit is set to be the second trial in California state court testing claims by individuals who say they were harmed by social media ​platforms deliberately designed to be addictive. The trial is scheduled to kick off July 27.

THOUSANDS OF CASES REMAINMore than 3,300 lawsuits involving addiction claims ​against social media companies are pending in California state court. Another 2,600 cases brought by individuals, school districts, municipalities and states are pending in California federal court.

The ‌companies ⁠have denied the allegations and say they take extensive steps to keep teens and young users safe on their platforms.

The first trial, which ended in March, was in the case of a woman who said she became addicted to YouTube and Meta's Instagram at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design. A jury found the companies negligent and ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million in damages and Google to pay $1.8 million. Earlier this month, the judge rejected ​the companies’ bid to set aside that ​verdict.

The first trial in federal ⁠court had been set to begin in June in a lawsuit brought by a Kentucky school district against Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube. All of the companies settled before trial, paying the district a combined $27 million.

In addition to the ​cases in Los Angeles and in federal court, nearly every state in the country has filed lawsuits ​in its local courts ⁠against the companies. The lawsuits accuse the companies of misrepresenting the safety of their platforms for young users and of designing them to addict children.

In the first of the lawsuits by states to go to trial, a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay the state $375 million after finding the company misrepresented ⁠the safety ​of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. A judge is weighing whether to order the company to make ​changes to its platforms as part of a separate phase in the lawsuit.

Meta will face a trial in a lawsuit brought by Tennessee next month.

In August, a trial in federal court ​over the combined claims of multiple states will go forward against Meta.

Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Jamie Freed, Alexia Garamfalvi and Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Diana reports on product liability, litigation, mass torts and the plaintiffs' bar. She previously worked at Law360 and the Chicago Sun-Times.

When Greg Abel took over for Warren Buffett as CEO in January, many were wondering what the new Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.68%) (BRKB +0.66%) would look like. It hasn't taken long to see an early picture, as Abel has worked quickly to leave his mark.

Berkshire's new CEO has been deploying the company's cash hoard, including multiple investments in Alphabet (GOOG +0.74%) (GOOGL +0.95%). For investors, this shows not only that a new era of Berkshire is in full swing but also that Berkshire is offering a ringing endorsement of Alphabet.

Image source: Getty Images.

Not business as usual The first signal worth watching from this deal with Alphabet is Berkshire's aggressiveness. Since taking over for Buffett as CEO, Berkshire has exited multiple positionsand has agreed to acquire the homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home in an all-cash deal worth roughly $6.8 billion.

In addition, Berkshire's investing in Alphabet may indicate more openness to tech investments in the future. While Berkshire is still picking its spots and acting with purpose, it appears to be striking faster under Abel's early tenure. For some shareholders, that's welcome news, as they wanted to see some of the company's $397 billion cash pile (as of the end of March) put to use.

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A $1 trillion endorsement The second signal to watch from this news is the seal of approval Berkshire is placing on Alphabet. When a company worth more than $1 trillion wants to keep buying shares of a stock, it's about as strong an endorsement as you can get; Berkshire has been steadily buying shares of Alphabet since Q3 2025.

With Alphabet's market cap above $4 trillion as of June 22, it can be difficult to view it as undervalued. But Berkshire still worked out a deal in Alphabet's $80 billion equity offering.

It received $10 billion in Alphabet common stock in a private placement at a discount of more than 6% to Alphabet's June 1 closing price. Those shares were split between $5 billion in class A voting shares and $5 billion in class C nonvoting shares.

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The cost of being a leader In 2026, investors have seemed less patient than before with companies that talk about their artificial intelligence (AI) spending and have little to show for it. While Alphabet expects capital expenditures to fall in a range of $180 billion to $190 billion this year, the results from its spending are also showing up in its quarterly earnings reports.

In its 2026 first-quarter earnings report, Alphabet's cloud division reported that revenue increased 63% to $20 billion,with total revenue increasing 22% to $109.9 billion.

The investment from Berkshire provides financial backing, and it also offers a vote of confidence in Alphabet's vision. If it keeps building out AI infrastructure and the demand shows it justifies the costs, Berkshire and Alphabet shareholders will both be happy.

Since my prior "Buy" article in March, Alphabet has continued to outperform the S&P 500 index. The company's robust Q1 2026 results were powered by explosive growth in Google Cloud, continued double-digit percentage growth in Google Search, and scaling consumer AI and subscriptions. Google boasts an AA+ S&P credit rating with a stable outlook.

Alphabet (GOOG +2.50%) (GOOGL +2.56%) initiated a dividend about two years ago, paying a minuscule $0.20 per share each quarter. It's since raised that dividend to $0.22 per quarter, for a yield of approximately 0.24% on its common stock. That's not exactly a dividend that has income investors salivating.

But investors searching for yield and exposure to the massive AI stock now have another option. Alphabet recently raised $85 billion in capital by issuing new equity. About 20% of that came in the form of mandatory convertible preferred stock. Those shares currently yield over 6%, and you can buy them right now under the tickers GOOGM (tied to Class A common stock) and GOOGN (tied to Class C shares).

But there are a few important details you'll need to know before pulling the trigger on Alphabet's new high-yield shares.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

What exactly is this share class? First, it's important to understand exactly what you're buying when you buy a share in one of Alphabet's new issues.

The shares are preferred stock. Preferred stock is a class of shares that have priority over common stock in the case of a liquidation event. They typically pay a fixed dividend, and that gets paid before the common stock dividend.

The shares issued by Alphabet are convertible to common stock, which means their value is also influenced by changes in the value of common stock. In fact, they're mandatory convertible shares, and all shareholders will see shares convert to their corresponding common stock on May 15, 2029.

That's important, because once the shares convert, the dividend yield will drop to whatever Alphabet pays on its common stock. That 6% yield will only last for the next three years. Investors looking for long-term income from their portfolio should probably look at other high-yield investment options.

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Meanwhile, investors need to note the conversion rate. The number of shares each issue converts into is capped for both the upside and the downside. Shares will convert into a maximum of 0.1408 (Class A) or 0.1421 (Class C) shares, regardless of the share price. That means that if the stocks trade below about $355 (Class A) or $352 (Class C) at the time of conversion, the preferred shares will participate in any further downside.

Likewise, the minimum number of shares for conversion is 0.1126 (Class A) and 0.1137 (Class C). As a result, shares will be worth the same amount at conversion until the shares reach $444 (Class A) and $440 (Class C). The shares will then participate fully in any upside from those prices.

It's important to note that Class A and Class C Alphabet common stock currently trade very close to their downside cutoffs. Meanwhile, the upside cutoffs represent annualized returns above the 6% yield on the preferred shares. So, for the preferred shares to prove a good investment over the next three years, investors are betting that Alphabet shares will trade modestly higher, but not well past the high end of the conversion range.

While the preferred shares offer an interesting option for investors seeking income while maintaining exposure to Alphabet, most investors bullish on the company will be better off buying the common stock.

Back in June 2024, researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner left OpenAI’s superalignment team and predicted that Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) stock would “explode.” Two years later, that call has aged remarkably well. The stock has done exactly what he said it would, and the underlying business matches the picture he sketched.”I care about it once you get the AI beta. Right. And so at some point Google will get $100 billion of revenue from A.I. probably their stock will explode.”

The Stock Did Explode When Aschenbrenner recorded that episode, Alphabet was trading at $173.81. As of Friday’s close, shares sit at $359.68, a 107% gain from the day his episode aired. The one-year return alone is 105%. I have owned Alphabet since April 2012, and the last 24 months have been the most validating stretch I can remember for the AI thesis.

Aschenbrenner’s framing was straightforward: the market would care about Google’s AI work the moment it showed up in the revenue line. That moment has arrived.

Cloud Is Where the $100 Billion Thesis Lives Google does not break out an “AI revenue” line, but Google Cloud is the closest proxy. In Q1 FY2026, reported April 29, 2026, Cloud revenue hit $20.03 billion, up 63% year over year, with backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter to over $460 billion. That backlog number is contracted future revenue, much of it tied to AI infrastructure and Gemini workloads.

The Cloud growth curve is bending the right way: 32% in Q2 2025, 34% in Q3, 48% in Q4, 63% in Q1 2026. CEO Sundar Pichai said on the last call: “Our AI investments and full stack approach are lighting up every part of the business.” You can read the full release in the company’s Q1 2026 8-K filing with the SEC.

Gemini Is Scaling Like a Real Product The consumer and developer side matters too. The Gemini App crossed 750 million monthly active users by Q4 2025. API usage hit 16 billion tokens per minute, up 60% from the prior quarter. Gemini Enterprise paid monthly active users grew 40% quarter over quarter. Search revenue, which many feared would get gutted by chatbots, accelerated to 19% growth as AI Overviews and AI Mode rolled out globally.

For full-year 2025, Alphabet crossed $400 billion in annual revenue for the first time, finishing at $402.84 billion.

The Bear Case The cost of becoming the AI infrastructure layer is enormous. Capex more than doubled in Q1 2026 to $35.67 billion, up 107% year over year. Management guided 2026 full-year capex of $175 to $185 billion. Free cash flow in Q1 fell 47% year over year. Other Bets losses widened. Insider activity recently shows net selling across 160 transactions.

Prediction markets reflect the tension. Polymarket traders give a 0.34 probability that GOOGL hits $340 in June 2026 and only a 0.049 probability that Google is first to put an AI model at 1550 on Chatbot Arena this year. The crowd is not pricing in another explosion from here.

What I Am Watching Now Aschenbrenner’s prediction has largely played out on revenue and share price. The forward question is whether the capex cycle pays back. Alphabet trades at a forward P/E of 26, with 57 buy or strong buy ratings against 7 holds and zero sells, and an analyst target of $432.83.

If you believe the Cloud backlog converts to revenue and Gemini keeps compounding API usage, the second leg of the explode call is still ahead. If capex outruns monetization, the next year tests that thesis. Either way, the researcher who walked out of an AI lab in 2024 to bet on the incumbents looks a lot smarter today than he did then.

Google on Tuesday released the final version of its Android 17 operating system, as well as its counterpart for smartwatches, Wear OS 7. The latest release, which arrives first on its own Pixel devices, is also accompanied by a Pixel Drop, bringing new features that include support for the latest AI models, like the music-generation model Lyria 3, the multimodal Gemini Omni, and speech-to-translation tools for the Pixel 10a with AudioLM.

The latest feature release underscores Google’s strategy of using its Android and Pixel devices to showcase its latest AI technology. While its rival Apple is focused on catching up in AI with September’s public launch of AI upgrades to Siri and iOS 27, Google’s Android 17 is focused on its newest AI models, Gemini’s role in creation, communication, and other device experiences.

In today’s Pixel Drop, Android Quick Share’s file-sharing feature will become compatible with Apple’s AirDrop on older Pixel 8a and 9a devices. Plus, Gemini Omni will now let you edit videos in a conversation, while Lyria 3 lets users create music tracks with text prompts and/or images in the Gemini app. Pixel 10a devices will also get better speech-to-speech translation tools with AudioLM.

Image Credits:Google Other phone features are arriving, too, such as the ability to record a personalized outgoing audio message for callers when you can’t answer. Plus, the “Take a Message” feature will arrive in more global markets.

The Pixel Drop brings emergency detection features to the Google Pixel Watch as well, meaning that if the watch detects a car crash, fall, or lack of pulse, it will automatically contact emergency services and your selected emergency contacts.

Beyond AI, Android 17’s larger update allows users to take advantage of features like a “bubble bar,” which is a new user interface element that lets you organize, move, and then quickly access recent apps that appear as bubbles at the bottom of your screen. The feature is designed to help speed up app interactions and aid in multi-app workflows.

Image Credits:Google (Bubbles UI) Social media users may like Android 17’s new feature that lets them record themselves with the selfie camera and phone screen simultaneously for screen reaction videos that can be shared on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and others.

Image Credits:Google Parental controls and security features were also improved in this latest release, adding a “Mark as Lost” feature in Find Hub, Live Threat Detection, and other threat defenses, alongside screen time limits and content-filtering tools that can now be set with a PIN without linking a Google account.

A new foldable gaming mode offers a 50/50 layout with a dynamic game pad.

Image Credits:Google Meanwhile, watch owners can now receive live updates from phone apps that mirror to the Pixel Watch. Smartwatches will also work better with Google’s upcoming AI glasses and other hardware, such as headphones.

This summer, Wear OS will introduce more Gemini Intelligence features, like tools for making personalized widgets just by describing them, and it will be able to offer “Personal Intelligence” by connecting your Google apps and chat history with Gemini.

Image Credits:Google Battery life improvements — up to 10%, Google claims — as well as multistep automation will also arrive in the new Wear OS.

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Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.

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Chiefs of the world's leading AI companies are descending on the G7 conference in France Wednesday, in a sign of their growing geopolitical influence as artificial intelligence rises to the top of the global agenda.

CEOs including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, alongside around a dozen other tech leaders, will take part in a lunch meeting at the summit in Evian on Wednesday.

Frontier AI risks, infrastructure and sovereignty are all expected to be discussed at the conference. The protection of children online will also be a key part of the discussions, The Élysée Palace, the official residence of the president of France in Paris, said in a press briefing on Thursday.

Other tech chiefs including France-based Mistral's Arthur Mensch, Canada's Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Italian company Domyn's Uljan Sharka, U.K. AI scaleup Synthesia's Victor Riparbelli and German-based Black Forest Labs' Robin Rombach will also be present at the lunch. Salesforce's Marc Benioff, Meta's Alex Wang, alongside the founders of Indian AI company Sarvam and Japan's Sakana are also pegged to attend.

"It just shows that in order to make credible commitments on AI, heads of state now need the cooperation, if not endorsement, of a handful of private sector executives actually building the technology," Jessica Brandt, senior fellow for technology and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told CNBC.

"We're seeing a shift in who gets a seat at the table and a signal of where power sits."

'Inflection point'The G7 summit — which features the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU — comes as Anthropic remains locked in negotiations with the U.S. administration after Washington imposed export controls on the AI lab's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models amid national security concerns.

Recent announcements of powerful AI models with advanced cyber capabilities, including Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 Cyber, have brought a wave of concerns from businesses and governments around digital security weaknesses.

The release of Mythos marked an "inflection point" in AI development, Cameron Kerry, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CNBC, adding that it led the Trump administration to consider regulating the technology.

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U.S. export controls on Anthropic's models have "changed everything," said Emerson Brooking, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

"Multiple G7 nations have previously alluded to the need for sovereign AI investment, but there was always an assumption that this would take place alongside access to the U.S. tech stack," he told CNBC. "Now the U.S. has indicated a willingness to cut off the G7 and even treaty allies from certain AI capabilities."

For tech bosses, a seat at the table during the G7 represents a key opportunity to influence policy debates at the highest level.

"It seems the firms expect to come away with a package of voluntary commitments — youth safety, frontier risk in cyber and bio — pledges that are likely to become the de facto global baseline," said Brandt.

Earlier this month, OpenAI told CNBC it was expecting a set of "voluntary commitments" to be reached by tech companies during the Summit.

"The frontier labs want to shape this debate before any binding rules exist," Brookings told CNBC.