Alphabet klesl o dvouciferné procento v posledních týdnech, ale Warren Buffett a Greg Abel zůstávají klidní. Firma dál zvyšuje investice do AI infrastruktury a poptávka po ní je podle ní rekordní.
Last year, Warren Buffett corrected one of his previous investing mistakes. He initiated a sizable position in Google parent Alphabet (GOOG 2.15%) (GOOGL 1.73%), several years after admitting that he regretted not buying the stock earlier.
After Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA +1.60%) (BRKB +2.08%) CEO at the end of 2025, his successor, Greg Abel, more than tripled the conglomerate's stake in Alphabet. The stock now ranks as Berkshire's fifth-largest holding.
But Google's stock has fallen by double digits over the past few weeks. Are Buffett and Abel worried that they made a mistake buying the stock? I don't think so. If you own shares of Alphabet, here's why you shouldn't be worried, either.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why the stock's decline isn't really scary Three factors explain Alphabet's decline since May. None of them should be scary to investors, in my opinion.
First, Alphabet's first-quarter update revealed another significant increase in planned capital expenditures. The company provided capex guidance of $180 billion to $190 billion for full-year 2026. Some investors have become jittery over the sky-high spending on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure by Alphabet and other tech giants.
Second (and related to the first factor), Alphabet announced in June that it was raising $80 billion through private placement equity offerings. The company said that these offerings are part of the plan "to fund investments in its world-class AI compute infrastructure to meet its unprecedented customer demand."
Third, two high-profile defections last week caused the stock to experience its worst day in more than a year. Noam Shazeer, Google's vice president of engineering and one of the leaders of the Gemini AI models, announced he was leaving to join OpenAI. Two days later, Google DeepMind vice president and engineering fellow John Jumper announced that he was leaving to join Anthropic. Jumper received a Nobel Prize with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for developing AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts protein structures.
Anat Askkenazi, CFO of Alphabet and Google, said in the Q1 update that the company continues to see "unprecedented internal and external demand for AI compute resources." Ashkenazi pointed out that investments in AI infrastructure are driving record revenue and backlog growth.
What about the departures of key AI leaders? It is somewhat concerning. However, this kind of musical chairs is commonplace in the industry. Alphabet still has a huge level of AI talent and the money to recruit more people.
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I have no doubt whatsoever that neither Buffett nor Abel is losing sleep over the factors behind Alphabet's recent sell-off. For one thing, Abel led the charge for Berkshire's additional $10 billion investment in Alphabet that was part of the private placement. If he had any qualms about Alphabet spending more on AI infrastructure, he would never have committed such a significant amount of Berkshire's capital.
It's important to remember Buffett's perspective on stock declines. At Berkshire Hathaway's 2010 annual shareholder meeting, he said, "If you have a temperament that when others are fearful you're going to get scared yourself, you know, you are not going to make a lot of money in securities over time, in all probability."
What's more, the legendary investor gave a decidedly contrarian opinion. He stated that some investors buy a stock and then "think if it goes up it's wonderful, and if it goes down it's bad." Buffett explained, "We think just the opposite. When it goes down, we love it, because we'll buy more. And if it goes up, it kills us to buy more."
An opportunity for long-term investors As usual, Buffett was right. A pullback in a wonderful company's share price presents an excellent buying opportunity for long-term investors. And Alphabet remains a wonderful company.
The record Google Cloud backlog provides excellent revenue visibility. Google Search continues to grow, with generative AI serving as a tailwind rather than the "Google killer" some predicted. Waymo is the leader in autonomous ride-hailing. Alphabet is even now part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.09%), reflecting how important it has become to the U.S. economy.
Don't be surprised if Berkshire's next 13-F filing reveals that the conglomerate took advantage of Alphabet's decline to load up on more shares. After all, that's the Warren Buffett way.
Alphabet klesl asi 15 % pod své maximum, ale pokles je podle článku spíš důsledkem rotace v AI sektoru než zhoršení fundamentů. Google Cloud v 1. čtvrtletí poprvé překonal 20 miliard USD tržeb.
Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL has been one of the most impressive mega-cap stories of 2026, climbing to a fresh all-time high of $408.61 as Google Cloud accelerated, its AI roadmap expanded, and investor sentiment around the company reached its strongest point in years. But over the past few weeks, the stock has cooled.
With GOOGL now trading about 15% below that high, the pullback has left investors asking a familiar question: Is this the start of something more concerning, or an opportunity in disguise?
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Alphabet’s Pullback Looks More Like Rotation Than TroubleAlphabet Today
$337.39 -6.32 (-1.84%)
As of 06/26/2026 04:00 PM Eastern
52-Week Range$171.73▼
$408.61Dividend Yield0.26%
P/E Ratio25.74
Price Target$413.13
The decline has been driven more by sentiment and sector rotation than by anything fundamental. A broad AI-related selloff has weighed on the megacap technology names in recent sessions, and Alphabet has not been spared. Adding to the noise, several high-profile AI researchers have reportedly departed Google for rivals, including Anthropic, potentially drawn by pre-IPO equity, raising concerns about talent retention at a critical moment in the AI race.
It is worth keeping this in perspective. None of these developments alters the core earnings power of the business. Alphabet generated $132.17 billion in net income over the trailing 12 months on net margins of nearly 38%, and Q1 2026 results blew past expectations with earnings per share of $5.11 against a $2.64 estimate. The pullback has compressed the forward price-to-earnings ratio to roughly 24, a level that looks reasonable for a company growing the way Alphabet is, and the stock is still up close to 10% on the year.
Bulls Need the $340 Breakout Zone to HoldFrom a technical perspective, while the stock has pulled back considerably from its 52-week high, it remains in a higher-timeframe uptrend. Importantly, the $340 area it is currently finding some support near will be vital in the future, as it is the level it broke out of at the end of May before surging to new all-time highs. If it takes that area out, the 200-day SMA comes into focus, near $320. But if it can bounce from this important zone near $340, a higher low could be marked within this uptrend, and the bulls may look to regain control of the stock.
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) Price Chart for Sunday, June, 28, 2026
Alphabet’s Bull Case Still Runs Through Cloud and AIBeyond the chart, the fundamental story that drove Alphabet to its highs has not changed. Google Cloud crossed $20 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time in Q1, growing 63% year over year, with a backlog approaching half a trillion dollars. The company is investing aggressively in AI infrastructure, recently raising roughly $85 billion in a heavily oversubscribed debt offering anchored by Berkshire Hathaway, a clear signal that demand for its compute capacity is outstripping supply. And the Other Bets segment, home to Waymo and Wing, continues to scale in the background.
There is also a fresh catalyst on the horizon. Alphabet is set to join the Dow Jones Industrial Average before the open on June 29, 2026, replacing Verizon Communications NYSE: VZ. While index inclusion does not change the fundamentals, it does add a layer of structural buying from funds that track the Dow.
Analysts remain firmly constructive. The consensus rating across 54 analysts is Moderate Buy, with a price target of $413.13, implying nearly 20% upside from current levels. That is a meaningful gap between where the stock trades and where Wall Street believes it is worth.
Alphabet’s Dip: Reason to Worry or Time to Buy?The honest answer is that this pullback looks far more like healthy digestion than the start of a genuine breakdown. The decline has been driven by sector-wide AI rotation and a handful of sentiment-driven headlines, not by any deterioration in Alphabet's actual business.
Health Indicator for Alphabet TradeSmith's Health IndicatorA long-term volatility-based measure designed for securities held 12 months or longer.
Green: Strong and healthy uptrend with normal pullbacks.
Yellow: Significant pullback but still within expected volatility.
Red: Dropped beyond expected volatility; considered unhealthy.
Yellow Zone (6d)
1-Year History
Jun 25 Sep 25 Dec 25 Mar 26 Jun 26
For the last 6 days, GOOGL's financial health has been in the Yellow zone, according to TradeSmith.
One caution worth noting is that the stock's TradeSmith Health Indicator recently slipped into its Yellow Zone after a long stretch in the green, a reminder that the near-term trend has weakened and the $340 level genuinely matters.
For long-term investors, a quality compounder trading 15% off its high, at a reasonable forward multiple, with a major catalyst days away and nearly 20% of implied upside to consensus, is the kind of setup that tends to reward patience. The key, as always, will be whether that $340 zone holds. If it does, this pullback may well prove to be one of the better entry points GOOGL has offered in months.
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Google omezil Meta přístup k modelům Gemini poté, co sociální síť požádala o větší výpočetní kapacitu, než jí mohl dodat. Nedostatek zpomalil a zdržel některé interní projekty AI společnosti Meta.
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
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Alphabet za měsíc oslabil o 13 %, ale výnosy Google Cloud v prvním čtvrtletí vzrostly o 63 % na zhruba 20 miliard USD. Celkové tržby dosáhly 109,9 miliardy USD, meziročně o 22 % více.
Is Alphabet's (GOOG 2.19%) (GOOGL 1.73%) run finally over? The company's shares had been performing very well, but over the past month, Alphabet has lost momentum, with its stock price declining 13%. There are several factors behind Alphabet's recent dip, but the company's prospects remain intact, making it an excellent stock to buy right now. Here's why.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The spending is justified Alphabet has recently lost some key employees, including John Jumper, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert and Nobel laureate, who left the company to join Anthropic. On top of that, investors are increasingly worried about Alphabet's AI-related spending. The company recently announced an $80 billion equity capital raise to fund its AI ambitions. The tech leader expects capex spending -- which should be in the $180 billion to $190 billion range this year -- to rise significantly in 2027.
If Alphabet's spending doesn't pay off, we could see decreased revenue growth as profits and margins compress. However, the data we have suggests that Alphabet is right to invest heavily to fuel its AI business. In the first quarter, the company's revenue from its cloud segment, Google Cloud, was about $20 billion, up 63% year over year. It grew much faster than the rest of the business. Alphabet's total revenue came in at $109.9 billion, 22% higher than the year-ago period. Google Cloud's sales growth also accelerated significantly from the already impressive 48% it posted in Q4 2025.
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One of the key drivers of this performance was Alphabet's AI business. The company reported that sales from products built on its generative AI models grew by almost 800% year over year in the first quarter. Further, Alphabet ended the period with a cloud backlog of $462 billion, which almost doubled from the previous quarter. This highlights sustained -- and even accelerating -- demand for its cloud services, especially its AI products, which are helping drive incredible growth. So, it makes sense that Alphabet continues to spend, as there may still be lucrative opportunities to tap into.
Multiple other growth drivers One of the great things about Alphabet's business is its relative diversification. Cloud computing and AI may be driving much of the growth right now, but the advertising business is also performing well. Alphabet has a nearly insurmountable lead, with the undisputed top search engine in the world, a strong brand name associated with it, and network effects that allow it to grow search queries and improve results, thanks to the massive data at its disposal.
That's to say nothing of the company's strong position in video sharing and streaming through YouTube, which also generates substantial ad sales and recurring subscription revenue. The best part is that the digital advertising market is still on a growth path and will continue contributing massively to Alphabet's results for a long time, and the streaming market should also expand over the next decade.
Beyond that, Alphabet has potential opportunities that aren't currently contributing to sales growth but might eventually do so, such as its work in the autonomous vehicle market through Waymo. All of these initiatives highlight Alphabet's attractive long-term prospects. And after the company's recent slump, it is a great opportunity to buy its shares on the dip and hold them for the long term.
Google tlačí vydavatele do nového programu AI: za propagaci v AI Overviews chce širší přístup k jejich obsahu včetně tréninku modelů. Kdo nepřistoupí, může přijít o platby z programu Showcase.
Google is reportedly looking to bleed publishers yet again — threatening to exclude them from a lucrative new artificial-intelligence partnership unless they allow the tech giant to train its AI bots on their valuable content.
In recent months, Google has been pitching news and entertainment publishers on a new pilot program that would promote their content in Google’s AI Overviews – a big boost to organizations that have faced significant declines in web traffic, the Information reported.
But in exchange, Google wants broad access to the publishers’ content, including the right to potentially use it to train AI bots, a person familiar with the project told the Information.
Google is reportedly taking a tough stance in negotiations with publishers. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Google, which launched its Gemini chatbots in 2023, is driving a hard bargain.
It warned publishers that if they don’t agree to the new program, they will eventually lose out on payments from the current content-licensing arrangement, known as Showcase. Showcase is being ended, Google reportedly told some companies.
“This is Google’s game. They’re gonna dominate here,” said Jason Kint, chief executive of Digital Content Next, a trade group that represents online publishers including the New York Times, the Washington Post and News Corp, The Post’s owner.
“There’s no fair deal discussions that can happen with Google. It’s really a matter of how much money they want to drop on an individual organization,” Kint told The Post.
A spokesperson for Google told The Post: “As people’s news preferences change, we’ve been expanding our partnerships through our News AI pilot program, working with a wide range of publishers to explore how AI can drive more engaged audiences.”
The spokesperson added that Google has been “testing features” to “help people cut through information overload, easily decide where to click out, and connect with news in different formats.”
Publishers have complained that traffic to their websites from search results has already plummeted – some by as much as half – since Google launched its AI Overview tool in 2024, which supplies an AI-generated summary of search results at the top of the page.
A Pew Research Center study found that when people see an AI Overview, they are half as likely to ever click a link from Google, and when they find an answer in an AI Overview, they are more likely to end their browsing session altogether.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai visits the company’s new AI hub in France on Feb. 15, 2024. REUTERS Google has said it continues to send billions of clicks to websites every day and that the Pew study’s methodology was flawed.
One year after Google launched its AI Overview tool to the public, CNN saw traffic to its website fall by 30%, while Business Insider and HuffPost’s sites saw traffic plunge about 40%, according to an NPR report citing data from Similarweb.
That is a big hit to news publishers, who are heavily dependent on advertising – which is tied to how many clicks they can drive to their website – as well as audience revenue streams, like subscriptions and other paywalls.
Meanwhile, several publishers have filed lawsuits accusing tech companies of scraping data from their sites for use in training their AI bots – which has sent AI giants racing to secure content-licensing agreements.
Google launched its Gemini chatbots in 2023. Ai – stock.adobe.com In 2023, the New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the ChatGPT-maker had stolen content from its website to train its AI models.
OpenAI has since signed more than a dozen content-licensing deals with news and entertainment publishers.
Kint said tech giants have been holding the reins in these discussions — Google controls 90% of the search-engine market and was ruled a monopoly in a landmark antitrust case in 2024.
Google asked a federal appeals court to reverse the decision in May.
Google is reportedly seeking broader access to use content to train its AI bots. prima91 – stock.adobe.com The company first announced the new AI pilot program in December, with initial partners including the Washington Post and the Guardian.
“They bundled the opt-out from AI training with the Search opt-out. So publishers, if they wanted to say, ‘Hey, you can’t train on my content for AI Overviews,’ then they had to opt out of Search,” Kint told The Post.
“If you’re opting out of Search, then you’re opting out of the internet.”
Publishers that currently participate in Google’s Showcase program, which highlights their content across Google News features, receive a flat annual fee.
If partners do not sign on to the new pilot program, they will continue to receive annual payments as long as Showcase remains in place, but these will end if the program does, according to the Information.
Google said it has been renewing Showcase agreements.
Those who sign up for the new pilot will be agreeing to broader content-use terms for the same flat annual fee, which is giving some publishers pause, the Information reported.
Key Takeaways Alphabet's ad revenues rose 15.5% to $77.25B in Q1 2026, helping lift total revenues by 22% to $109.9B. GOOGL expanded AI across ads, boosting relevance, Maps engagement and Smart Bidding performance. Alphabet deepened its Walmart partnership to improve ad targeting and measure online and in-store sales. Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) is benefiting from rising advertising revenues, which have become a key growth driver of its robust financial performance. In the first quarter of 2026, Google’s advertising revenues increased 15.5% year over year to $77.25 billion and accounted for 70.3% of total revenues.
The company’s consolidated revenues surged 22% year over year to $109.9 billion in the first quarter of 2026, marking the company’s 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The core of this momentum lies in Google Services, where advertising remains the dominant revenue stream. Google Search & other advertising revenues grew 19% to $60.4 billion, while YouTube ads contributed $9.9 billion, up 11% from the previous year.
A key driver behind this surge is Alphabet’s aggressive integration of advanced AI models, particularly Gemini, across its entire ads infrastructure. These AI enhancements have significantly improved ad relevance and user intent understanding, allowing Alphabet to match ads more precisely to user queries, even for longer, more complex searches that were previously difficult to monetize. In the first quarter of 2026, the company announced that Google Maps, with AI-driven improvements, has led to a nearly 10% increase in user engagement with promoted pins, while Smart Bidding powered by Gemini has enabled advertisers to achieve greater precision and performance.
Alphabet’s partnership with Walmart remains noteworthy. The company recently partnered with Walmart Connect to integrate Walmart’s first-party shopper audiences into Display & Video 360, starting with YouTube campaigns. Advertisers can now target high-intent Walmart shoppers and measure how video ads drive online and in-store sales through closed-loop measurement, improving campaign effectiveness and return on ad spend.
Alphabet’s leadership in AI and strong partnerships with major retailers and tech companies position the company for continued growth and further upside in the digital advertising market.
Alphabet Faces Tough CompetitionAlphabet is facing stiff competition from the likes of Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) and Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) . Both Reddit and Meta Platforms are expanding their footprint in the ad space.
Reddit is benefiting from strong demand in its advertising business, which has become a key growth driver of its impressive financial performance and future growth prospects. In the first quarter of 2026, Reddit reported total revenues of $663 million, up 69% year over year, with advertising revenues growing even faster at 74% to $625 million. This marks Reddit’s seventh consecutive quarter of revenue growth above 60%, underscoring the sustained momentum in its ad business.
Meta Platforms’ focus on integrating AI into its platforms, which include Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads, is driving user engagement to boost ad revenues. In the first quarter of 2026, Meta's advertising revenues were $55.02 billion, up 33% year over year.
GOOGL’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesAlphabet shares have risen 9.8% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s rise of 14.5%.
GOOGL Stock Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
GOOGL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 8.95X compared with the broader Computer and Technology sector’s 6.43X. Alphabet has a Value Score of D.
GOOGL's Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $14.30 per share, which has increased by a penny over the past 30 days. This suggests 32.28% 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.
Alphabet vydal prioritní akcie s dividendou 6,25 %, ale jen do konverze na kmenové akcie 15. května 2029. Poté mohou investoři očekávat běžný dividendový výnos 0,25 %.
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.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) both reported Q1 FY2026 earnings that sharpened the autonomy debate in opposite directions. Tesla leaned on a global fleet streaming video into its training clusters. Alphabet leaned on Waymo collecting paid driverless miles across real city streets. Both want the robotaxi crown. Only one is already cashing fares.
Camera Fleet Funds Tesla. Cloud Demand Funds Alphabet. Tesla posted $22.39 billion in revenue, up 15.78% year over year, and EPS of $0.41, beating consensus by 14.14%. Automotive gross margin expanded to 21.1% from 16.2%, and active FSD subscriptions hit 1.28 million, up 51%. R&D climbed to $1.95 billion, much of it pointed at AI5 silicon and the unsupervised Robotaxi rides launched in Dallas and Houston.
Alphabet’s quarter was a different magnitude. Revenue reached $109.90 billion, EPS landed at $5.11 versus a $2.63 consensus, and Google Cloud jumped 63% to $20.03 billion with backlog nearly doubling to over $460 billion. CEO Sundar Pichai noted, “I’m pleased to see Waymo surpass 500,000 fully autonomous rides a week.” That is paid, unmonitored throughput.
Mass Market Fleet vs. Metro by Metro Rollout The strategic split is visible in how each company spends. Tesla pushed millions of customer-owned vehicles streaming real-world video directly into its Cortex training clusters, financed by its own auto margins and a $44.74 billion cash pile. Alphabet, meanwhile, guided 2026 capex to $175 to $185 billion, funded by Search and YouTube ads that still grew 19% and 11% respectively.
Lens Tesla Alphabet Autonomy data source Supervised consumer fleet 10 metro regions of Level 4 driverless Operating margin 4.6% 36.1% Free cash flow (Q1) $1.44B $10.12B Key vulnerability Robotaxi regulatory approval Capex compressing FCF Tesla’s vision-only approach scales cheaply per car. Waymo’s stack is expensive per car, but it is already booking fare revenue while Tesla’s Cybercab is still in pilot production at Gigafactory Texas.
The Next Test Is Commercial Driverless Miles Polymarket traders price a Tesla robotaxi launch in California by June 30 at just 2.3%, and assign a 46.9% probability to Q2 deliveries clearing 475,000 units. I will be watching whether Dallas and Houston unsupervised rides scale into recurring revenue, and whether Waymo’s 500,000 weekly rides keep doubling without safety setbacks.
Alphabet’s Commercial Lead in Context Alphabet currently presents the more commercially proven autonomy exposure. You get a Search and Cloud engine that already funds Waymo, a P/E around 15, and a Cloud backlog that signals demand visibility years out. TSLA is down 16.59% year to date while GOOGL is up 9.95%, a meaningful divergence in year-to-date performance. Tesla still suits investors betting on FSD v14, Optimus, and Cybercab economics arriving on schedule. The view would shift once Tesla demonstrates recurring, unsupervised fare revenue at Waymo’s scale.
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.
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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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.
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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.
