Meta just attached a price tag to its AI ambitions, and traders are now asking whether a consumer subscription can justify one of the biggest capital budgets in tech history while a key rival takes an immediate hit.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) put a price tag on its AI buildout Tuesday evening with Muse, a personal AI agent sold through a tiered consumer subscription, and investors moved quickly Wednesday morning. The launch answers the standing bear case that Meta Platforms’ capital spending carried no direct consumer revenue line, and the reaction reads as a company-specific repricing rather than a broader bid for AI names. Overnight endorsements from commerce and startup leaders added credibility to the rollout heading into the open.
Meta Platforms stock is up 6% to $649.20 Wednesday morning, the first meaningful vote for the company’s AI monetization since its July earnings report. Meanwhile, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock is down 2% to $330.53 as investors read Muse as encroachment on Gemini’s consumer agent footprint.
For broader market context, the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) is down 0.5% to $714.55. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is down 0.3% to $763.38, confirming today’s move is a single-name story rather than a sector rotation.
Muse Puts a Price on the AI Spend [chart symbol=”META”]
Meta Platforms launched Muse Tuesday evening as a personal AI agent available through a dedicated app and through WhatsApp. Muse can use a browser, run in the background, connect to a user’s existing services, and complete tasks including sending email, organizing calendars, planning trips, filling forms, and making payments. The agent runs on Meta Platforms’ Muse Spark model, which the company said drove a 60% jump in daily interactions with Meta AI after integration.
Meta Platforms introduced paid plans at $20 per month and $100 per month above a free tier, the first direct consumer revenue line attached to its AI buildout. Alexandr Wang, chief AI officer at Meta Platforms, said Muse follows a “principle of least privilege,” with users deciding which connectors are enabled and whether the agent can read or modify data. Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP) CEO Tobi Lütke and Y Combinator’s Garry Tan publicly praised the launch overnight, positioning Muse as an ecosystem asset rather than a walled-garden play.
The launch matters because Meta Platforms has faced sustained criticism for pouring capital into AI without a subscription line to model against. Meta Platforms reported Q2 2026 capital expenditures of $30.1 billion and guided full-year 2026 capex to $130 to $145 billion, with operating margin compressing to 31% from 43% a year earlier. Muse gives investors the first pricing anchor to weigh against that spend.
Alphabet Slips as the Repricing Stays Company-Specific [chart symbol=”GOOGL”]
Alphabet reported Q2 2026 revenue of $119.8 billion, up 24.2% year over year (YoY), with Google Cloud growing 82% to $24.77 billion and the Gemini App reaching 950 million monthly active users. That’s a strong AI adoption story, yet Alphabet stock is falling today because Muse targets the consumer agent surface Google has been building around Gemini.
Alphabet’s Q2 capital expenditures hit $44.92 billion, its free cash flow turned to negative $5.9 billion, and the company suspended its stock buyback in Q2 2026. Traders want to see who wins the consumer agent race before paying up further for Alphabet stock, and Muse arriving with a WhatsApp distribution footprint compresses that timeline.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Shopify sit adjacent to the story without occupying the same seat. Microsoft’s fiscal Q4 2026 results showed Copilot crossing 30 million paid seats with Azure past $100 billion in annual revenue. Amazon’s AWS grew 37% to $42.23 billion in Q2 2026, with its AI business at a $25 billion annualized run rate (we profiled seven suppliers powering that data-center buildout, from power to cooling, in a free AI infrastructure report). Shopify remains a commerce-AI adjacency, and Lütke endorsing Muse frames it as a distribution partner for merchants rather than a rival.
What to Watch Meta Platforms delivered $60.8 billion in Q2 2026 revenue against that full-year capital budget, and its free cash flow narrowed to $784 million from $8.55 billion a year earlier. A subscription line at those price points has to scale meaningfully before it moves that math. Today’s rally is sentiment moving ahead of evidence.
Meta Platforms stock is down 2% year to date (YTD), so Wednesday’s gain narrows a losing year rather than extending momentum. Investors can watch for early Muse adoption disclosures, WhatsApp attach rates, and any read-through in the Q3 2026 earnings call, when Meta Platforms will need to translate agent engagement into a monetization curve.
Traders weighing their exposure should calibrate their holdings carefully given a Muse thesis that rests on a consumer subscription yet to prove it can offset a capital budget of this size. A moderate position that reflects both today’s monetization catalyst and Meta Platforms’ free cash flow compression is the sensible frame from here.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Google announced Wednesday it will invest at least €13 billion (around $15 billion) in Finland over the next two years, covering data centers, clean energy and local community projects.
The company called it the largest single investment it has ever made in Europe.
The plan builds on Google’s history in the country.
Fifteen years ago, Google converted a former paper mill in the coastal town of Hamina into a data center.
That site has since grown into one of the anchors of Google’s European cloud network, and the new investment will expand it further while adding three entirely new data centers in Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala.
Google says the construction phase, running through 2027 and 2028, will support more than 37,000 jobs across Finland and add €3.6 billion (approx. $4.1 billion) a year to the country's GDP.
Roughly 16,000 of those jobs will be in construction itself, according to Google's own figures, generating an estimated €911 million (approx. $1 billion) a year in labor income for that sector alone.
Once the sites are running, Google expects them to support around 7,000 permanent jobs, spanning engineers, technicians, security staff and catering, with average pay about 24% above Finland's national median wage.
The company is also putting €31 million (approx. $35.5 million) into community programs across Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala over the next four years.
That includes AI training for more than 4,400 workers, through partnerships with local colleges, and new training slots for 100 Finnish students aiming for careers in data centers.
Google said €10 million (approx. $11.5 million) of that community fund is earmarked specifically for local research and innovation work.
A large part of the announcement centers on power, not just compute.
Google has signed a 22-year agreement with Finnish energy company Fortum to support a life extension of the Loviisa nuclear plant, which currently supplies about 10% of Finland’s electricity and employs roughly 580 people.
Google is also adding new onshore wind capacity and has contracted for a 94-megawatt battery system near its Kajaani site, expected to be operational in late 2027, aimed at keeping the grid stable during cold, low-wind periods when demand spikes.
Google is separately working with Finnish grid operator Fingrid and the agency Business Finland to plan future data center sites around grid capacity, an approach it’s positioning as a model for responsible AI infrastructure build-outs elsewhere in Europe
Finland’s cold climate and largely low-carbon power grid have made it an increasingly popular destination for data center investment, and Google isn’t alone there.
Microsoft and ByteDance have also pursued data center projects in the country in recent years, drawn by similar cooling and energy advantages.
For Google, the timing lines up with the broader AI infrastructure race among the major cloud providers, all of whom are racing to add compute capacity to support AI products like Google’s Gemini.
Ruth Porat, Google’s chief investment officer, said the company was proud to deepen its roots in Finland with its largest single investment in Europe.
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Credit: Markus Winkler from Pexels Google said Wednesday that it would invest at least 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in digital infrastructure, including data centers to power artificial intelligence models, in Finland over the next two years.
"This is Google's largest single investment in Europe and a testament to Finland's leadership in responsibly building AI infrastructure," the company said in a statement, adding that the investments included "clean energy projects."
The investment includes data centers and supporting infrastructure as well as partnerships in the municipalities of Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala.
The infrastructure would power several of the tech giant's services, including its AI chatbot Gemini.
Google said the investments also covered "clean energy projects, and dedicated nature and community funds to support local biodiversity, education, research, and workforce development."
"Google's decision is a clear testament to our strengths. The value of the data economy extends far beyond direct investment into spurring innovation, research and development," Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in Google's statement.
"Deepening our collaboration with Google will deliver lasting benefits for both parties," he added.
Since buying a former paper mill and transforming it into a data center in the coastal city of Hamina in 2009, Google has gradually increased its presence in the country.
The construction phase of the new investments is expected in 2027 and 2028, and Google estimated it would boost Finland's GDP by 3.6 billion euros annually and "support more than 37,000 jobs" across the Nordic country.
An estimated 16,000 of these jobs will be in the construction sector.
After the construction phase, the operation of the "digital infrastructure" will support around 7,000 jobs annually, including "on-site facility and technical roles, upstream suppliers of equipment and services, and the local shops, restaurants and amenities supported by these workers and their families."
With its cool climate and relatively stable, inexpensive electricity thanks to nuclear plants as well as extensive wind and hydropower, Finland has seen a boom in data centers in recent years, with dozens already under construction.
Attracting investments in the sector has been a priority for Orpo's right-wing government as the Nordic country grapples with record-high unemployment and sluggish economic growth.
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Alphabet just posted blowout earnings and yet the stock has shed more than 10% from its peak, leaving investors caught between soaring Cloud growth and a balance sheet that suddenly looks very different from a year ago.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction) trades at $338.86 after slipping 10.39% over the past month from its recent high of $404.23. Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Alphabet is $433.88, implying 28.19% upside over the next 12 months. The recommendation is buy at high confidence (90%). In plain terms, we view this dip as an entry opportunity.
Metric Value Current Price $338.86 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $433.88 Upside 28.19% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% Why Alphabet Sold Off Despite a Blowout Quarter Alphabet is up 6.5% year to date and 57.9% over the last year, but the stock has cooled since summer. The pullback came despite strong results.
Q2 2026 revenue hit $119.80 billion, up 24.23% year over year, with EPS of $9.11 versus a $3.0427 estimate. Google Cloud grew 82% to $24.8 billion and Cloud backlog reached $514 billion.
Investors focused on the cost side: capex was $44.92 billion, free cash flow turned negative $5.86 billion, long-term debt climbed to $98.2 billion, and management suspended the buyback while guiding 2026 capex of $175 billion to $185 billion.
That level of spend has to go somewhere, and the power, cooling, and networking suppliers behind these data centers are the subject of a free report on seven AI infrastructure names that aren’t chipmakers. That fear is why GOOG is on sale.
Why Bulls See a Breakout to $450 and Beyond The bull case rests on Cloud and Gemini. Cloud growth has accelerated four straight quarters, from 34% to 48% to 63% to 82%. CEO Sundar Pichai said Alphabet is “more bullish on the opportunities ahead” for generative AI than a year ago.
Gemini API traffic now runs at 22 billion tokens per minute, and nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 use Gemini Enterprise. Analyst coverage skews strongly positive at 57 Buy and 5 Hold ratings, and our bull-case scenario tops out at $450.80.
What Could Send GOOG Back to the Low $300s The bear case starts with the balance sheet. Long-term debt more than doubled to $98.2 billion, interest expense is up roughly 5x year over year, and free cash flow went negative in Q2.
Bulls will counter that Q2 free cash flow was distorted by inventory buildup for TPU deliveries, and management expects the vast majority of TPU revenue to land in 2027. Insider activity is another yellow flag, with 205 recent transactions net selling, though executive selling at mega-caps is routine. Our bear-case price is $364.77.
How Alphabet Compares to Microsoft and Meta Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the closest peer on cloud and enterprise AI. MSFT trades at $510.83 and commands a much richer multiple than GOOG. On the same forward P/E of 16, Alphabet looks cheap for a business where Cloud is growing 82% versus Azure’s slower comparable growth. That valuation gap is the core of our buy thesis.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) at $612.79 is the right digital-advertising comparable. Meta’s ad business is growing fast, but Alphabet pairs Search and YouTube ($11.06 billion in Q2) with a hyperscale cloud Meta cannot match. The peer set makes our $433.88 target look reasonable, arguably conservative.
Company Forward P/E Current Price Alphabet 16 $338.86 Microsoft n/a $510.83 Meta n/a $612.79 Verdict: A High-Confidence BUY Setup My verdict is buy with high confidence, and the 24/7 Wall St. price target of $433.88 reflects both the fundamentals and the factor overlay. The tipping factor is Cloud’s 82% growth against a forward multiple of 16.
The bullish scenario depends on Alphabet converting its $514 billion Cloud backlog into revenue on schedule. The bearish scenario is 2026 capex above $175 billion keeping free cash flow negative into 2027.
Looking further out, here is where our model projects Alphabet could trade, assuming Cloud continues scaling and AI monetization tracks the current trajectory.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $361.84 2027 $433.88 2028 $516.01 2029 $593.39 2030 $645.76 These projections assume Alphabet executes on Gemini adoption and Cloud backlog conversion. Significant upside could come from Waymo scaling; the largest downside risk is a regulatory forced separation of Search or ad tech.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Last October, Google said it would bring an Iowa nuclear power plant back from the dead. Now the facility’s owner, NextEra Energy, has received a $1.9 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to finance the refurbishment.
The sizable loan is the second of its kind, suggesting that the Trump administration views revived nuclear power as a key source of electricity for tech companies seeking to power their AI data centers. Last year, the Department of Energy extended a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island.
James Danly, Deputy Secretary of Energy, said that the Iowa power plant’s restart in 2029 will “drive down electricity costs,” though he did not explain how. Just 50 megawatts will be set aside for the local power cooperative, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said during an earnings call last year. That capacity would cover 18% of Iowa’s demand growth since 2021, the year before ChatGPT was released.
Google is reportedly looking to build up to six data centers near the Duane Arnold Energy Center, which hasn’t operated since 2020 when an intense rainstorm damaged the power plant. Rather than repair it, NextEra decided to mothball it. At the time, cheap natural gas was flooding the market, making nuclear power economically unappealing.
A lot has changed in the last six years, though. After decades of little growth in demand, the sudden rise of AI coupled with broader electrification of the economy meant that utilities and power providers were suddenly scrambling to find new generating sources of electricity. New data centers are expected to nearly triple the sector’s electricity demand by 2035.
Shuttered nuclear power plants are becoming one of the tech industry’s favorite choices to quickly provide clean, firm power.
Microsoft signed a deal with Constellation Energy two years ago to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that last operated in 2019. The reactor is scheduled to restart in 2028 and generate 835 megawatts.
Another facility in Illinois, Constellation Energy’s Clinton Clean Energy Center, was in danger of closing down before its parent found a new customer in Meta, which is buying all of the clean energy attributes from the 1.1 gigawatt power plant. The arrangement will see Clinton sending its electrons to the local grid, while Meta will use the certificates to offset emissions it is producing elsewhere. The tech giant’s Hyperion AI data center, for example, will need 10 natural gas power plants to operate. If completed, the data center will consume more electricity than all of South Dakota.
Duane Arnold is smaller, but in the process of refurbishment, NextEra will squeeze an additional 14 megawatts from the facility, bringing the total to 615 megawatts.
Altogether, the three power plants represent the lowest hanging fruit in the U.S. There might be one or two more, according to a report from Utility Dive, though those candidates, including San Onofre in California, have been shuttered for longer and would require more work to bring back online.
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Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].
AWS and Google Cloud are both burning through tens of billions in capex every quarter, but only one is converting that spending into free cash flow at hyperscale margins right now. Which model actually wins when the 2027 capacity cliff…
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Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) both reported Q2 FY2026 results that put the same question in front of investors: how fast does cloud capex turn into cash? AWS delivered its fastest growth in 18 quarters, while Google Cloud accelerated to 82% year-over-year growth. Both are spending like wartime generals. Only one is monetizing at hyperscale margins today.
AWS Prints Profit. Google Cloud Prints Growth. AWS revenue reached $42.2 billion with operating income of $16.6 billion and a 39% operating margin. Andy Jassy said the AWS backlog now sits at $496 billion, roughly two and a half times the level of Q3 2025. Trainium and Graviton are doing real work here: Graviton is used by 98% of Amazon’s top 1,000 EC2 customers, and the AI chips business already runs at more than $25 billion.
Google Cloud posted $24.77 billion in revenue, smaller than AWS but growing more than twice as fast. Sundar Pichai said nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 now use Gemini Enterprise, and the Gemini App has 950 million monthly active users. That is the full-stack pitch: models, TPUs, Search, and YouTube all reinforcing one another.
Business Driver AWS Google Cloud Q2 Revenue $42.2B $24.77B YoY Growth 36.7% 82% Segment Operating Margin 39% Not disclosed this quarter Capex Bills Come Due Differently Amazon spent $53.1 billion on cash capex in Q2 and expects to double its power capacity by the end of 2027 versus 2025. Alphabet’s capex hit $44.92 billion, up 100.1% year over year. Both companies ran negative free cash flow in the quarter.
The funding paths diverge sharply. Amazon covers its bills largely through operating cash flow of $45.4 billion plus debt. Alphabet raised approximately $70 billion in combined equity and debt, and suspended buybacks. Long-term debt jumped from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion.
AWS Wins on Pure Profit. Alphabet Wins on Speed. Jassy said server investments break even in a little less than three years, then generate cash across a 30-plus year data-center life. That is a long, patient conversion curve backed by proven margins. Alphabet’s speed advantage is different: 82% cloud growth paired with 34% companywide operating margin means demand is compounding faster than at AWS, even if segment profitability lags.
Watching the 2027 Capacity Cliff I want to see whether Amazon’s $496 billion backlog actually flows through to free cash flow as promised, and whether Alphabet’s Gemini enterprise footprint keeps pulling ahead of the growth curve into 2027. Memory and SSD inflation, flagged by Brian Olsavsky, could squeeze both.
Why I Split the Two for Different Investors If you want proven cloud economics and a slower, surer cash payoff, AWS inside Amazon looks cleaner to me. The 39.4% AWS margin is doing real work while retail scales. If you want faster top-line acceleration and full-stack AI optionality, Alphabet fits, especially with 46.21% one-year returns already earned. I would hesitate on both if capex keeps outrunning cash into 2027.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
At face value, Alphabet (GOOG +0.02%) (GOOGL -0.03%) stock looks undervalued at just 17 times trailing earnings, compared with the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.58%) at 25 times trailing earnings. However, that doesn't paint the full picture. Alphabet had some one-time effects that dropped the valuation to that level, and it isn't an accurate assessment of how the company is valued.
Let's take a look at alternative ways to value Alphabet's stock and see whether it truly is undervalued.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Using forward-looking projections can cut through one-time effects Alphabet took a position in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +3.73%) over a decade ago, which grew to become a massive investment win after SpaceX went public at around a $2 trillion valuation. Under accounting rules, Alphabet had to report those gains as profits on its income statement, thereby artificially boosting its earnings per share (EPS). Since June 30 (when Alphabet's quarter ended), SpaceX's stock has dropped, which requires Alphabet to report a loss in its third quarter (unless SpaceX reaches a new high before then). This effect will eventually wash out as SpaceX's stock reaches a growth rate similar to Alphabet's earnings growth.
Still, there could be another boost when Anthropic eventually goes public, as Alphabet is a major investor in that firm.
Premium Feature
Moneyball Superscore
93/100
Today's Change
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-0.03
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It's safe to say that Alphabet's price-to-earnings ratio will be pretty useless over the next year or two, so investors need to find a different way to value the stock.
A valuation tool many investors often use is free cash flow, as it eliminates any of the one-time effects an investment gain may have. The problem with this metric is that free cash flow is calculated using capital expenditures, and Alphabet is spending around $200 billion on capital expenditures this year, so its free cash flow is nearly nonexistent. So, I think the best metric to value Alphabet's stock is one of the line items above on the income statement: operating profit or operating cash flow. Using both of these compared with historical figures gives investors an idea of how Alphabet is truly valued from a historical standpoint, without the noise of investment gains or hefty capital expenditures.
GOOG Operating PE Ratio data by YCharts
From this standpoint, aside from a dip from 2022 to 2026, Alphabet's valuation seems to be about average to above average. I think this definitely shows that Alphabet isn't undervalued like it was a few years ago, but also isn't horribly overpriced. I think that gives investors the thumbs-up to invest in the stock, but it isn't a general buying opportunity for the stock like it was in April 2025.
Google is reportedly warning that new regulatory changes in Europe will worsen the search experience for users. As Reuters reported, the tech giant on Tuesday (Sept.
3 Stocks to Buy and Hold for Higher Interest RatesGoogle Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOG is seeing accelerating enterprise demand for its cloud infrastructure, artificial-intelligence products and cybersecurity offerings, citing growth in customer additions, large contracts and cross-selling across its product portfolio.
Speaking at a company conference, Kurian said Google Cloud has more than 17 product lines with annual revenue above $1 billion. He said new-customer acquisition has grown more than twofold year over year, while deals exceeding $100 million have increased more than twofold both quarter over quarter and year over year.
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Morgan Stanley Eyes Good Things Ahead for Meta After $18 Billion Legal SettlementKurian said customers that make commitments to Google Cloud typically spend more than 50% above their initial commitments, which he said reflects adoption and expansion within the existing customer base.
Integrated AI Stack Kurian emphasized Google Cloud’s strategy of offering first-party products across the technology stack, including its own tensor processing units, or TPUs; NVIDIA GPUs; Arm-based processors; Gemini models; data-management tools; security products; and enterprise applications such as Workspace.
3 Stocks Built for Higher Rates—And 2 That Could Break“Some people buy us for silicon, some people use our models, some people use our data platforms,” Kurian said, describing a business model designed to capture revenue through multiple channels as AI monetization evolves.
He said the company offers what it characterizes as 2.7 times better price performance for AI training, 80% better price performance for inference and 30% better price performance for CPUs. Kurian attributed the economics to Google Cloud’s ability to co-design technology across the stack.
Google Cloud’s accelerator business, including TPUs, is more than twice the size of the next-largest hyperscaler’s TPU business, Kurian said. He added that aggregate payback on AI servers is less than two years, while payback on Google’s own silicon is roughly half that period. Most infrastructure contracts are long-term commitments of about five years, he said.
Gemini Enterprise Adoption Kurian said Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise platform is used by more than 90% of the Fortune 100 and by thousands of smaller businesses. The platform is designed to help companies deploy AI agents that can analyze company data, execute workflows, generate content and assist with security tasks.
According to Kurian, 80% of Google Cloud customers use its AI products. Customers using AI use 1.8 times as many Google Cloud products as those that do not, he said, while the company estimates that the five-year lifetime value of a cloud customer using its Gemini portfolio is 1.5 times higher.
Kurian cited use cases including Signal Iduna’s claims and underwriting analysis, PepsiCo’s supply-and-demand planning, and Macy’s retail-commerce activities. He also described Citigroup’s work on a Gemini Enterprise-based wealth-adviser platform that combines an AI avatar, financial-data analysis, security tools and infrastructure designed for real-time streaming.
Google Cloud differentiates Gemini Enterprise by enabling customers to select different AI models for different tasks, rather than relying on a single model, Kurian said. He argued that using multiple models can be particularly important in cybersecurity, where different models may identify different vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Models Kurian said Google Cloud’s acquisition of Wiz was driven by the growing ability of AI systems to understand software code and system configurations, potentially making them more effective at finding vulnerabilities.
Wiz helps organizations identify applications, assess risk, prioritize systems for review and find vulnerabilities, he said. Google Cloud has also developed a product called CodeMender with Wiz to repair code and test whether vulnerabilities have been addressed.
“You can only defend a threat from an AI model by using a combination of a security platform and an AI system,” Kurian said. He said more than 90% of the Fortune 100 use Google Cloud’s cyber-defense tools.
On infrastructure deployment, Kurian said Google Cloud offers TPU systems through cloud subscriptions, capital purchases for customer data centers and neocloud offerings. He said the company has established a neocloud with Blackstone.
Providing systems in customer data centers can be important for high-performance computing and capital-markets customers that need infrastructure close to large existing data sets or trading venues, Kurian said. Hardware sales can also reduce Google Cloud’s need to fund data-center space and power for those deployments, he added.
Partner and Industry Focus Kurian said Google Cloud is using forward-deployed engineers to work with major customers on industry-specific AI applications, build reusable implementation tools, and develop training and certification programs for partners. He said the company recently announced an agreement with Accenture to build a Gemini Enterprise business group.
Going forward, Google Cloud is concentrating its partnership strategy on eight industries, systems integrators and AI specialists, and data providers. In financial markets, Kurian cited data providers including Bloomberg, FactSet and MSCI as examples of firms whose information is available on Google Cloud’s platform for AI-driven analysis.
About Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)Alphabet Inc NASDAQ: GOOG is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as "Other Bets." Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company's history.
Alphabet's core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company's ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].
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Google's biggest competitive fear is not appearing in traffic data Summary
Bank of America says Google’s traffic remains stable despite explosive chatbot adoption, suggesting AI is expanding the search market rather than replacing its leader
Bank of America sees a reassuring Google parent Alphabet GOOGL stock signal: fast-growing AI rivals are not eroding the search giant's enormous traffic base.
According to Similarweb, Google's global daily web visits increased 3% year over year to 2.8 billion during August and were flat monthly.
ChatGPT's web traffic declined 5% year over year to 181 million, but rose 4% month over month. Google's Gemini traffic surged 261% annually, while Claude climbed 533%, Meta AI rose 175% and Grok gained 10%.
U.S. traffic was resilient. Google visits increased 3% to 534 million, while ChatGPT grew 13% to roughly 6% of Google's traffic. Gemini rose 177%, Claude 432%, Meta AI 109% and Grok 24%.
Mobile usage also preserves Google's scale advantage. Google's daily active users grew 12% to 2.3 billion. ChatGPT reached 469 million after increasing 37%, while Gemini jumped 284% to 126 million.
Why Bank of America's Data Matters for Google StockJustin Post said Google traffic remained “largely stable” as AI adoption expanded the search market. Consumers appear to be adding chatbots without abandoning Google.
Alphabet also owns fast-growing Gemini, giving it exposure to both traditional search and the behavioral shift toward conversational answers.
However, traffic alone does not settle the investment debate. ChatGPT now exceeds one billion users and its advertising business has reached a reported $1 billion annualized revenue run rate.
Bank of America does not expect a meaningful impact this year because the Western digital advertising market exceeds $600 billion. Still, September and October advertising checks should receive greater investor attention.
For Google shareholders, the key question is moving from traffic preservation to monetization. Investors should monitor search-query growth, advertising pricing, Gemini engagement and whether ChatGPT attracts valuable commercial searches.
For now, AI appears to be expanding discovery rather than replacing Google. That makes steady traffic more significant than the headline growth rates posted by much smaller rivals.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google will invest at least €13 billion ($15.1 billion) in artificial intelligence infrastructure in Finland over the next two years and has signed its first nuclear power contract outside the U.S., it said on Wednesday.
The Finnish deal includes a 22-year purchase agreement for up to 50% of the energy output of one of Finland's two nuclear plants, its operator Fortum (FORTUM.HE) said separately.
Nuclear power, as a source of large amounts of low-carbon energy, is one of the attractions Finland offers as companies including Microsoft (MSFT.O) and TikTok owner ByteDance as well as Google seek sites for data centres while containing energy costs and meeting climate goals.
"This is Google's first nuclear energy deal outside of the United States, and we think it's a really important cornerstone to everything that we are doing here," the U.S. company's Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat told reporters in Helsinki.
Fortum and Google will also explore the development of new nuclear and renewable energy in Finland, the companies said.
Fortum's share price rose 10% by 0825 GMT, outperforming a 1.4% increase in the Helsinki benchmark stock index.
BIGGEST DEAL SO FAR IN EUROPE
Alphabet this year increased its global investment to between $195 billion and $205 billion as it seeks to capture growing computing demand. Google said the AI investment deal in Finland is the biggest yet in Europe.
The investments will include data centres, electricity grid improvements and clean energy and battery projects driving services such as Gemini, Search, Maps and YouTube, Google said in a statement.
"The new digital infrastructure will serve as building blocks for Finnish and broader European digital readiness, innovation, and AI development," the company said.
The investment, to be undertaken in 2027 and 2028, will contribute some $3.6 billion to Finland's gross domestic product during the construction phase, and is projected to support some 7,000 jobs annually once operational, Google said.
Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in a statement Google's decision was "a clear testament to our strengths".
"The value of the data economy extends far beyond direct investment into spurring innovation, research, and development," he added.
In its statement utility Fortum said the long-term purchase deal provided economic certainty for a lifetime extension and upgrade of the Loviisa power plant through 2050. The plant is situated near Google's Hamina data centre.
Apart from copious amounts of low-emission power, Finland's cold climate lowers costs because it reduces the amount of energy needed to cope with the heat produced by data centres.
Google on Wednesday said it would invest at least 13 billion euros ($15.1 billion) into AI infrastructure in Finland, marking the tech giant's largest single investment in Europe.
Finland has emerged as a key location for data centers amid the AI boom, with hyperscalers and developers eyeing its available land and power, which is in short supply throughout most of Europe.
Google will deploy the capital through 2028, including into data centers and other supporting investments like energy projects, the company said in a statement.
It added that it has signed a 22-year life extension power purchase agreement (PPA) with Finnish energy company Fortum — which saw its stock jump 11% on the news.
"Google is proud to deepen our roots in Finland with the company's largest single investment in Europe, building on more than 15 years of sustained investment in Finland," Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, said in a statement.
"This investment underscores Google's commitment to grow our presence responsibly, pairing the expansion of our technical infrastructure with new energy capacity, grid enhancements, and energy affordability initiatives."
Finland's booming data center sectorSeveral data center projects with potential capacities of hundreds of megawatts have been announced in Finland in recent months.
Pure DC said in July it would invest 1.5 billion euros ($1.74 billion) to build a 110-megawatt campus in Finland, with the potential to scale beyond 550 megawatts. Arcem has plans for a site with up to 500 megawatts capacity. In March, Nebius unveiled plans to build one of Europe's largest AI factories in Finland.
"Finland is seeing huge demand for AI infrastructure right now, I've heard it called the 'Texas of Europe' at industry events," Matti Lajunen, partner of real estate at Finnish law firm Hannes Snellman, told CNBC. "What we're now seeing is weekly new inquiries for market entry into Finland from new players."
Texas has become one of the leading locations for AI data centers globally, with a number of huge projects announced by hyperscalers and AI labs, including Meta, Microsoft and Anthropic. Google in November said it would invest $40 billion in Texas through 2027.
Alongside Fortum, Google said it would "work to identify new business models to improve the commercial viability of potential new nuclear reactors" at its Loviisa site, a town in Southern Finland.
Finland has also been an attractive location for digital infrastructure supporting social media workloads, with TikTok planning on expanding its data center capacity in the country.
"The value of the data economy extends far beyond direct investment into spurring innovation, research, and development," said Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. "Deepening our collaboration with Google will deliver lasting benefits for both parties."
For the first time in well over half a century, the trillion-dollar conglomerate built by Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA -0.20%)(BRKB -0.04%), entered the year in uncharted territory. The Oracle of Omaha's well-telegraphed retirement as CEO on Dec. 31 meant his understudy, Greg Abel, would take the reins and oversee Berkshire's $360 billion investment portfolio.
Abel didn't waste much time making his presence felt. During the first quarter, he jettisoned 16 stocks from the portfolio and more than tripled Berkshire's stake in Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL -0.03%)(GOOG +0.02%). During the June-ended quarter, Abel oversaw an additional $17 billion in Alphabet stock purchases, making it his company's No. 3 investment holding.
Warren Buffett retired as Berkshire's CEO on Dec. 31. Image source: The Motley Fool.
But Alphabet isn't the company Warren Buffett or Greg Abel has sunk their teeth into deepest. It's not iPhone maker Apple (AAPL -1.17%), either. Collectively, Berkshire's bosses have spent more than $82 billion buying a stock that's rallied more than 6,000,000%!
It's Abel's turn to pile into the Oracle of Omaha's favorite stockTypically, Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly Form 13F filing is highly anticipated by investors. A 13F provides a snapshot of which stocks Wall Street's savviest money managers purchased and sold in the latest quarter.
However, what's interesting about the stock Buffett and Abel have spent more than $82 billion buying is that you won't find it in Berkshire's quarterly 13Fs. Rather, you'll need to peruse the company's quarterly operating results. On the final page before the executive certifications, you'll find detailed buying activity of the stock Buffett held nearest and dearest to his heart...Berkshire Hathaway.
BERKSHIRE IS BUYING STOCKS AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2022:
- Bought $25B of stock, sold $3.7B
- Bought Taylor Morrison Home for $6.8B
- Invested $10B in Alphabet $GOOGL during Q2, now a top 5 holding
- Even bought $4.5B of their own stock back
berkshire’s back
— amit (@amitisinvesting) August 8, 2026 Prior to mid-July 2018, Buffett could only repurchase his company's stock if shares fell to or below 120% of its book value. With shares not retracing to this mark, the Oracle of Omaha didn't spend a dime on share buybacks.
On July 17, 2018, Berkshire's board amended the buyback rules to give Buffett and now-late right-hand man Charlie Munger more freedom to execute share repurchases. The new rules allowed for unlimited buybacks as long as Berkshire had at least $30 billion in combined cash, cash equivalents, and U.S. Treasuries on its balance sheet, and Buffett perceived shares to be intrinsically cheap.
For 24 consecutive quarters (July 2018-June 2024), Berkshire's chief investor bought back his company's stock totaling around $78 billion.
Following a 21-month hiatus (June 2024-February 2026) in which no capital was allocated to buybacks, Abel has picked up where his predecessor left off. After repurchasing $234 million worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock in March, Abel green-lit $4.53 billion in buybacks in the June-ended quarter.
Since mid-July 2018, more than $82 billion has been spent to retire nearly 13% of the company's outstanding shares.
BRK.A Shares Outstanding (Quarterly) data by YCharts
The beauty of stock buybacks is twofold. First, they incentivize long-term investing. As Berkshire's share count declines over time, existing investors become incrementally larger stakeholders. Since Berkshire doesn't pay a dividend, buybacks are a logical way to reward its long-term shareholders.
Secondly, a steady diet of share buybacks by companies (e.g., Berkshire Hathaway) with neutral or growing net income can increase earnings per share and make them more fundamentally attractive to value-seeking investors.
As long as Berkshire Hathaway's shares remain below a 50% premium to book value, Abel will likely be a buyer of the stock Warren Buffett holds nearest and dearest to his heart.
Sergey Brin launched Google from a garage nearly three decades ago. Lionel Hahn/Getty Images; BI
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Google's AI destiny is being cooked up in a California kitchen.
On the second floor of Gradient Canopy, a tent-like structure that rises east of Google's Mountain View headquarters, is a microkitchen filled with many of the typical fixings: coffee beans, grinders, an espresso machine, a fridge. Less typical is the U-shaped formation of desks, used by Google cofounder Sergey Brin and a handful of mission-critical leaders who are steering Google through an AI race it can't afford to lose.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai visits the break-turned-war-room several times a week. Employees from other parts of the building sometimes saunter in for an extended snack break, hoping to overhear gossip that could reveal Google's next big move. There are whispers that cofounder Larry Page has been spotted there.
This unlikely nerve center has gained more influence in the weeks since Google shook up its AI leadership.
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who was helping steer the company's AI efforts from London, relinquished his title and became Alphabet's chief scientist. Koray Kavukcuoglu, who moved from London to the US last year and now sits alongside Brin in the microkitchen, was appointed SVP of Google DeepMind, effectively replacing Hassabis. Jeff Dean, Google's longtime chief scientist, left the company after 27 years.
Brin's role in the new power structure went unmentioned.
However, the man who helped launch Google from a garage nearly three decades ago has become increasingly influential over Gemini, eight current and former employees told Business Insider, in part thanks to his unique ability to pull resources for critical work and cut through the tech giant's bureaucracy. The latest changes at the top, some of them said, could give Brin even more sway over Gemini.
It's a role seen by some inside Google as necessary after the 2023 merger of the company's two central AI labs led to friction over the direction of Gemini that slowed progress and prompted a stream of departures. Some of Mountain View's leaders became frustrated with Hassabis and other researchers in London, believing they weren't as pragmatic about making Gemini more competitive to rivals, two people familiar with the matter said.
Up against the corporate machinery of Google, the microkitchen has acted as something of a startup inside the larger company, allowing Brin, Kavukcuoglu, and other leaders to make decisions faster. "The promise of the kitchen is that it can help you cut through the politics," said one former employee familiar with the setup.
Many of Google's top AI researchers work in the Gradient Canopy building. Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group Such decisions are more crucial than ever. Google has fallen behind the frontier, which is putting more pressure on it to make its next model, Gemini 4, a blockbuster event. The company has lost top talent in recent months, including star computer scientists John Jumper and Noam Shazeer. Against this backdrop, Brin has urged employees to double their efforts on Gemini.
"Demis is obviously very talented, but he's moving farther away, not closer, to the operational part. This glimmer of hope is this notion that Sergey will get more involved," said Gil Luria, head of technology research at the investment bank D.A. Davidson. "They need a big change that will cut through that bureaucracy."
Google declined to comment on this story, and declined to make Brin and other leaders available for interviews.
Letting Brin cookBrin's position is highly unusual.
He no longer holds an executive title at Google, yet he and Page have decisive influence over the company's board due to a special controlling stock.
After he and Page stepped back from running Alphabet in 2019, Brin spent his time building airships, partying at Burning Man, and writing about physics. When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, and Google was suddenly playing catch-up, Brin said the temptation to return to the trenches was just too much. "As a computer scientist I've never seen anything as exciting as all of the AI progress that's happened in the last few years," he said during the All-In Summit in Los Angeles in 2024.
Brin's unique perch inside Google makes him a powerful ally for any Googler who wants to accrue more support for their project or idea. Getting access to Google's chips, even for the Gemini team, can be difficult. The official route is to submit a formal document and get buy-in from higher-ups. Another route is to strike a deal with a different team inside Google to use their chips in exchange for, say, building Gemini features for their products, two people familiar with such arrangements said.
The other, less official route is to go to Brin.
"Koray has more explicit power in the hierarchy, but Sergey is the founder of Google," said a former senior employee. "He's able to cut through bureaucracy and clear red tape in a way no one else can." People who have worked at Google DeepMind said Kavukcuoglu and Brin have a good rapport, and that when Brin wants something done, he will often do it through Kavukcuoglu. However, Brin usually gets his way, three people said.
Koray Kavukcuoglu became SVP of Google DeepMind in the August reshuffle. Lester Cohen/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize Over the past two years, the microkitchen's gravitational pull has grown stronger. Kavukcuoglu moved from London to Mountain View last year and now sits close to Brin. Sebastian Borgeaud, a research engineer, also moved across the Atlantic last year and was appointed to lead work on improving Gemini's coding abilities, two people familiar with the move said. A huddle of desks was set up for the coding strike team inside the microkitchen, close to Brin and Kavukcuoglu, a person familiar with the matter said.
"Sergey wants to run Gemini like a startup," said a former employee with direct knowledge of the arrangement. "If you want to be part of the startup, you have to be in the microkitchen."
Emanuel Taropa, a Google fellow and a legendary name in the AI research community, often sits in the kitchen, two people said. So does Enrique Piqueras, a senior research engineer on Gemini, who insiders described as an especially close ally of Brin's. Another oft-spotted face in the kitchen is Rahul Arya, a physics Olympiad who has played a central role in improving Google's AI chips. Insiders say that Google has made a concerted effort not to publicize some of its most important stars for fear of them being poached.
If you can't handle the heatBrin has largely involved himself in the technical aspects of Gemini, weighing in on discussions about model sizes, release windows, and paths to artificial general intelligence, according to current and former employees. He also got involved in some internal disagreements last year over how Gemini should be integrated into Google products, two people said.
One idea Brin pushed earlier this year was to use software to monitor some Google employees as they coded, believing it could be a useful reinforcement learning technique to improve Gemini's coding abilities, a person familiar with the project said.
At times, Brin has made calls that have frustrated some staff. In 2025, Dean, Google's now-former chief scientist, was leading efforts to build a chip that would embed a version of the Gemini model architecture directly onto the silicon, a project internally codenamed Frozen. The project was unpopular among some Gemini leaders, two former employees said. Brin made the call to cut the project — a decision that frustrated Dean, who told some colleagues around that time he was considering leaving the company, said one of the people who heard the remarks.
The project was later revived as Frozen v2; however, some of its resources were stripped away from it earlier this year, the person added. Dean left Google in August to launch his own startup. He declined to comment on this story.
Jeff Dean left Google in August after 27 years to launch his own startup. Bloomberg/Getty Images Some employees bristled at a post Brin made in an internal Google DeepMind work channel in 2025, stating that working about 60 hours a week is the "sweet spot" for productivity, which was first reported by The New York Times. One former manager said that they told their employees to ignore Brin's memo.
Earlier this year, during a Q&A session at San Francisco's AGI House, Brin was asked how he was splitting his responsibilities with Kavukcuoglu and Hassabis. Brin said he worked closely with Kavukcuoglu and would often "poke and prod" the teams when he was unhappy with their direction, describing himself as "sometimes a little bit disruptive."
"I'll be honest, I'm a little bit of a rabble-rouser," he said.
Brain trustWhen Google announced in 2023 that it would combine DeepMind with its core Brain AI team, it capped a near-decade journey for Hassabis. Since selling DeepMind to Google in 2014, the Nobel laureate had fought to keep his lab independent, determined to pursue research free of Google's bureaucracy and untethered from products he considered irrelevant to his north star: building artificial general intelligence.
The 2023 merger was evidence to some inside DeepMind that any hopes of exercising independence under Google were misplaced. It was also around this time that Brin began showing up to work on Gemini. While Google said nothing publicly about Brin's return, there were clues. A March 2023 post on LinkedIn showed Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel meeting Pichai, Google's global affairs president Kent Walker, and — wearing sweatpants — Brin.
Google was in wartime mode, but there was also a battle brewing within. Brain and DeepMind had different cultures, three people who worked there at the time said. Brain typically worked more closely on improving Google's products, and teams in DeepMind had focused more on longer-term research that often didn't have near-term commercial viability. "There was tension in the DNA of what DeepMind wanted to be," said a former employee. "Do they want to be a 10-year research bet working on things that make humanity incredible, or are they going to win this 3-6 month horizon race between the labs?"
Demis Hassabis is now Alphabet's chief scientist. Karl Mondon / AFP via Getty Images In 2023, Kavukcuoglu chose to build Gemini using some of the people and infrastructure behind Chinchilla, a prior language model developed by the London DeepMind team, rather than on Google's PaLM 2. The decision was unpopular with some researchers in Mountain View, who saw it as favoritism toward the London group, two people said.
After Brin returned to the trenches in 2023, he began working in the microkitchen. Taropa, the Google fellow, was also a core founding member of the kitchen office. Over time, more desks were added, and the space became the de facto command center, often referred to by staff as "Sergey's microkitchen." At one point, an overflow space was added because many employees wanted to be closer to what had quickly become the power center of Gemini.
'AGI-pilled'Brin has spent less time in the kitchen in recent months, sometimes showing up on alternating weeks, according to two people who have seen him there. Ahead of a possible new billionaire's tax, the Google cofounder moved some of his personal assets out of California last December and purchased homes in Florida and Nevada.
The measure, if it passes on a November ballot, would impose a one-time tax on California residents with a net worth exceeding $1 billion. Brin, who has mounted a large-scale opposition effort against the tax, could be liable to pay $14 billion if he were considered a resident.
Ahead of the recent leadership shuffle, Brin appeared frustrated with the pace at which Google is moving on Gemini and has pushed employees for more focus on recursive self-improvement (RSI), the point where systems can improve themselves, current and former employees said. "He's very invested in RSI. He's very AGI-pilled," said one former employee. Reuters previously reported on some of Brin's remarks around RSI.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page launched Google out of a suburban Silicon Valley garage in 1998. JOKER/Martin Magunia/ullstein bild via Getty Images Insiders described the August reorg as a win for the more technical side of the company and the further erosion of DeepMind's independence, underscoring the commercial reality of the AI race. In recent weeks, the company has shown signs of positive progress. It recently rehired Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines Labs cofounder, in what some insiders said could be a big win for Google. The company has said its latest Gemini model shows "significant" improvements in coding.
Will it be enough? Google is still bleeding talent. The AI coding software market has fast become crowded, which could make it harder for Google to break in meaningfully, said Luria, the analyst. What Google needs, he said, is a major breakthrough that will vault its models to the state of the art. "Short of that, everything is tactical, and they'll continue to need to catch up," he said.
The September release of ChatGPT's Astra model appears to have pushed the frontier forward again, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has suggested even smarter models are waiting in the wings.
Google needs momentum, and with Brin more involved than ever, some employees are hopeful it will find it. From a garage to a kitchen, Google's most consequential work has a habit of happening in unlikely rooms.
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Hugh is a senior correspondent at Business Insider where he writes about Google, tech, and wealth. His work has been cited by The New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.Get an alert whenever I publish a story.Got a tip? You can reach him using the secure messaging app Signal (hughlangley.01) or email ([email protected]). We can keep sources anonymous.
Alphabet (GOOG -1.05%) (GOOGL -1.11%) and Meta Platforms (META +1.00%) are often compared because they are both advertising giants. Alphabet gets its ad revenue from its Google Search engine, YouTube, and other platforms connected to these two. Meta operates some of the leading social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, and Messenger. These two are the biggest advertising companies by far, but which one makes for the best investment in September?
Let's look at these two and see which one makes the most sense.
Image source: Getty Images.
AI is becoming a big part of these two companies' business Both Alphabet and Meta Platforms want to capitalize on one of the biggest tech movements in history: artificial intelligence (AI). Both companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers this year to increase their computing capabilities. Each of them has already shown some level of innovation, as they have integrated various AI tools and features into their platforms to drive better ad conversions or increased prices.
While this has had a noticeable effect on revenue, it's not as much as investors want. The reality is, comparing these two advertising businesses is like splitting hairs: Both are dominant and have their strengths and weaknesses. With both companies spending big on AI, I think it's better to compare this segment, as it clearly indicates the direction the company is going.
Premium Feature
Moneyball Superscore
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Alphabet has both AI models and a cloud computing business. Although the AI model segment of its business has an unknown payback, the cloud computing side is growing at a rapid rate and dramatically improving in profitability. This gives investors a real return on investment to score its investments by, which is something that Meta cannot say.
Meta is spending big on AI, but its models are open-source and free to use. That's not really a monetizable business strategy, and it has investors questioning why Meta is spending hundreds of billions on capabilities if it can't make any money from it. This has the market questioning Meta's path, and even though Meta insists it's playing the long game on AI and that this is the right path to take, it certainly doesn't look like it right now.
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As a result, I think Alphabet's business strategy is far better than Meta's, but that isn't the only thing to consider.
Meta is growing faster and is cheaper Despite Meta having a questionable path forward, it is growing faster than Alphabet and has done so for a while. However, that gap is closing.
GOOG Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts
If Alphabet's growth rate continues to accelerate, which it probably will, given how much it's investing in the computing capabilities of its cloud computing wing, Google Cloud, I think it's inevitable that Alphabet will become a faster-growing business than Meta.
Another factor investors need to consider is valuation. Right now, Alphabet's price-to-earnings ratio is skewed by one-time gains on investments, making a direct comparison impossible. But if we use operating profits to value the companies, it removes that one-time effect. From this perspective, Meta is far cheaper than Alphabet.
GOOG Operating PE Ratio data by YCharts
Cheaper doesn't always mean better. In fact, I think it means that the market is skeptical of Meta's plans versus Alphabet's. These two used to trade in lockstep, but they now have diverged after Meta's initial AI path seems like a flop while Alphabet's is working out.
So, which is the better buy? On paper, Meta is technically still growing faster and is far cheaper. But I think it's cheap for a reason, and Meta's growth may not be sustainable. As a result, I think that Alphabet is the better buy because its AI strategy is sound and appears to be working out well for it.
Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google on Tuesday rolled out changes to its online search results in Europe to satisfy EU antitrust regulators, a move which it said will degrade users' experience and ratchet up costs for European businesses.
The changes mark the largest reduction in quality of service at the world's most popular internet search engine in its 29-year search history, Google official told Reuters.
Google said the EU pitched the changes as levelling the playing field for companies to advertise. However, Google said it sees that in reality the changes favour price comparison sites, also known as vertical search services (VSS), linked to sectors including hotels, airlines and restaurants, such as Expedia or Booking.com. They get more prominence in search results over companies in those sectors that are listed with just a link to their websites, telephone numbers and address.
The U.S. tech giant was hit with a €460 million ($534 million) fine in July for favouring its own services in shopping, hotels, transport and sports results in search results in breach of the EU's Digital Markets Act seeking to rein in the power of Big Tech.
The European Commission gave it 60 days to comply with the DMA or risk periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.
The revamped search results will highlight one specialised search engine at the top of the page, followed by two others with fewer details while a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants for example will sit below them with key features such as real-time prices stripped out. The rankings will be determined by Google's algorithm.
"To comply with DMA requirements, we're making significant changes to Search in Europe," Nick Fox, Google's senior vice-president, knowledge & information, said in a statement to Reuters.
"These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans - boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, and removing helpful features people rely on every day. Users outside the EU will not be impacted by these changes," he said.
Google said past changes to comply with the DMA led to a 30% drop in free, direct booking traffic to European businesses and the latest changes are expected to hit them.
The company said it has tested the changes with millions of users in Europe, which show a high level of dissatisfaction as they have to retype queries to find what they want.
Google has racked up total EU antitrust penalties of €10.38 billion over nearly two decades.
The EU fines drew fire from U.S. President Donald Trump who threatened to launch a probe into the bloc's "robbing" of American companies.
Cathay's ultra-long-haul trial gives Alphabet a climate showcase, although commercial terms remain undisclosed. Summary
More than 80 flights tested technology targeting a major source of aviation warming.
Alphabet GOOGL, Google's search, cloud and artificial-intelligence powerhouse, expanded its contrail-fighting AI program with Cathay Pacific Monday. More than 80 flights in the initial trial delivered an estimated 40% reduction in contrail-related warming. U.S. markets were closed, leaving Alphabet at its previous closing price of $335.31.
The partnership takes Google's technology into Asia-Pacific and, for the first time, onto ultra-long-haul routes. Its platform blends satellite images, weather intelligence and AI-generated forecasts to flag atmospheric zones where pilots can change altitude and reduce persistent contrail formation.
Alphabet's latest quarter generated $119.8 billion in revenue, with Google Cloud contributing $24.8 billion. The chart shows Alphabet trading 32.75% above its $252.58 GF Value estimate, signaling that investors already expect plenty from its AI ambitions. Cathay disclosed neither a contract value nor a commercialization plan, making this a sharp demonstration of real-world AI utility—but not yet a meaningful revenue engine.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
BENSALEM, Pa., Sept. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Law Offices of Howard G. Smith continues its investigation on behalf of Alphabet Inc. (“Alphabet” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GOOG) investors concerning the Company’s possible violations of federal securities laws.
IF YOU ARE AN INVESTOR WHO SUFFERED A LOSS IN ALPHABET INC. (GOOG), CONTACT THE LAW OFFICES OF HOWARD G. SMITH ABOUT POTENTIALLY PURSUING CLAIMS TO RECOVER YOUR LOSS.
Contact the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith to discuss your legal rights by email at [email protected], by telephone at (215) 638-4847 or visit our website at www.howardsmithlaw.com.
What Happened?
On July 16, 2026, Bloomberg news reported that Alphabet’s Google is “months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model” due to the Company’s ongoing coding efforts. Specifically, “[l]ate last month, Google updated the data being used to train Gemini in an attempt to improve [its] skills, but the results were disappointing.”
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell $16.40, or 4.4%, to close at $353.81 per share on July 16, 2026, thereby injuring investors.
Then, on July 22, 2026, Alphabet released its second quarter 2026 financial results, announcing, among other things, a significant expansion of expected full year 2026 capital expenditures to $195 billion to $205 billion. The Company also disclosed that, for the quarter, it had a negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion. The Company further disclosed that "given the supply constrained environment, we plan to expand the use of third-party capacity in Q3 as a bridging strategy," however this "will create modest margin pressure in the near term."
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell as much as 7% during intraday trading on July 23, 2026, thereby injuring investors further.
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If you purchased Alphabet Inc. securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact us:
Law Offices of Howard G. Smith,
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When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, investors did not waste time picking which tech companies they thought would be winners from the new artificial intelligence (AI) trend. At first, the market went shopping for pick-and-shovel companies. Nvidia (NVDA +0.84%) sells the graphics processing units (GPUs) that provide the computing power to train and run generative models. Micron Technology (MU +6.10%) sells the high bandwidth memory (HBM) and DRAM that store and rapidly supply the vast quantities of data that those processors work on.
Since the AI revolution started roughly three-and-a-half years ago, the scoreboard has been almost cartoonish. Since ChatGPT's public release, Nvidia stock has risen 1,290%, while Micron has soared 1,630%. These are not typical numbers, even for a bull market.
The reason behind their parabolic ascents is simple. Hyperscalers are spending more than $700 billion annually on AI infrastructure, and large slices of those checks are being allocated to GPUs, CPUs, HBM, and DRAM. Nvidia dominates the accelerator conversation, while Micron is one of only three companies that make the memory stacks that sit next to Nvidia's chips. As long as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet (GOOGL -1.11%) (GOOG -1.05%) keep building data centers, Nvidia and Micron will continue cashing the invoices.
That story is not wrong, but it is incomplete. The quiet winner of the infrastructure cycle may be one of the companies writing a lot of these checks. Alphabet already dominates the consumer and enterprise demand side, the software side, and, increasingly, it's designing its own silicon. Wall Street has spent nearly four years treating all of that as a footnote. Warren Buffett and his new successor, Greg Abel, are not.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Berkshire Hathaway is plowing into Alphabet stock Berkshire Hathaway's first disclosed purchase of Alphabet stock showed up in the third quarter of 2025, a position of 17.8 million shares. The conglomerate sat on that stake through the end of the year before it accelerated its buying activity. During the first quarter of 2026, it nearly tripled its position in Alphabet. During the second quarter, Berkshire once again added shares on the open market and, more tellingly, wrote a $10 billion check for new shares as part of a larger private placement.
Buffett has been quite blunt about the origin story of Berkshire's position in Alphabet. "I initiated it," he told CNBC's Becky Quick during a recent interview.
Greg Abel, who succeeded Buffett as CEO at the start of 2026, has been aggressively adding to the position. Berkshire now holds around 106 million Alphabet shares worth nearly $38 billion. The position comprises about 13% of Berkshire's total stock portfolio, behind only Apple and American Express.
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What makes Alphabet an attractive AI investment? Nvidia sells the engine that powers AI models, and Micron sells the tanks for the fuel that keeps the engine running. Alphabet, by contrast, is building the car, the roads, and a growing share of alternative engines. Google Search is a money-printing machine, while YouTube draws the attention of billions of viewers. Meanwhile, Android sells smartphones and other consumer hardware around the globe. On top of these assets sit Gemini, Google Cloud, Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and the Waymo autonomous vehicle fleet.
The recent performances of Google Cloud are something that should make chip bulls pay attention. In the first quarter, its revenue rose 63% year over year to $20 billion, with operating margins coming in at 33%. During the second quarter, sales from Google Cloud jumped 82% year over year to 24.8 billion, with an operating margin of 36%. Moreover, Google Cloud's backlog was a jaw-dropping $514 billion at the end of the second quarter. Cloud infrastructure is not a little side hustle for Alphabet -- it's turning into a second core profit engine alongside the core advertising segment.
On the silicon side of the cloud division are TPUs -- a type of custom silicon that can handle AI workloads at a lower cost than GPUs. Google designed them for its own specific AI workloads, and it used to keep the chips in-house, but now, it has started selling some to enterprise customers that want the custom silicon that trains Gemini models in their own data centers. This is another example of how Alphabet is turning what was once a cost center into a monetized product.
Waymo services now run on the order of 500,000 paid robotaxi rides a week across more than a dozen cities. A February funding round valued that business at $126 billion. As agentic AI applications enter wider production, Waymo could swiftly emerge as a business that contributes meaningful unit economics to Alphabet's broader ecosystem, much in the same way Google Cloud has scaled up over the last couple of years.
The thread stitching Alphabet's fabric together is Gemini. Search, YouTube, Android, Workspace, Cloud, and even the robotaxis increasingly run on a unified family of models. That structure is the difference between selling critical components and compounding an ecosystem.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet stock looks like a bargain value Alphabet's vertically integrated stack is how the company manages to remain consistently profitable. Cloud, which was actually losing money as recently as 2022, is now one of the juiciest parts of the company. The reason? AI has become the accelerant. Alphabet's companywide operating margin is around 34% and moving upward. That's impressive for a business that's spending like a utility building a new power grid.
GOOGL Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.
The capital cycle is the objection everyone already knows. Alphabet has said it plans for between $195 billion and $205 billion in capital expenditures this year. While the company's free cash flow has gone temporarily negative and it has paused its stock buybacks, the bigger picture isn't as ugly as it might appear in a spreadsheet. In fact, this is simply a repeat of the same pattern Google Cloud already survived: Absorb operational pain, then watch the profit margin show up once the capacity you paid to build is fully subscribed.
On valuation, Alphabet stock is not priced like a company that is at the forefront of AI. The company trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16. That is nearly identical to the long-run average forward P/E of the S&P 500. For a business with Search's moat, YouTube's scale, Cloud's backlog, its own accelerator roadmap, and an autonomous robotics play that has yet to contribute much more than a rounding error to its financials, this is not an expensive stock.
Don't get me wrong: Nvidia and Micron will keep winning every time a hyperscaler or neocloud orders another server. But smart investors realize they are not the only companies getting paid. Alphabet is a rare business selling the infrastructure, running frontier models, owning multiple distribution channels, and still generating the kind of profits Buffett spent a lifetime buying. Against this backdrop, I see Alphabet as a no-brainer opportunity to buy hand over fist and hold onto throughout the AI infrastructure era.
Google Cloud is growing at twice the rate of Azure while GOOG trades at half the valuation multiple, and the gap between perception and reality may be the biggest opportunity hiding in plain sight among mega-cap tech stocks.
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Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction) may be the most overlooked story in the Magnificent 7. Google Cloud grew 82% last quarter, Gemini App just hit 950 million monthly active users, and yet GOOG trades at a trailing P/E of just 14x.
Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Alphabet is $434.01, implying 29.58% upside from today’s $334.86. The 24/7 Wall St. model rates GOOG a buy with 90% confidence.
24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $334.86 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $434.01 Upside 29.58% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% A Rough Month Masking a Blockbuster Year GOOG is down 3.29% over the past week and 6.9% over the past month as investors digest capex sticker shock. Zoom out and the picture flips: Alphabet is up 55.94% over the past year and 5.95% year to date.
Q2 2026 delivered $119.8 billion in revenue, up 24% year over year, the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Google Cloud revenue hit $24.8 billion with cloud backlog swelling to $514 billion.
Adding fuel to the narrative, Barron’s reported this week that Fervo Energy will supply geothermal power to Google, another signal that Alphabet is locking down long-dated AI power infrastructure.
Why Bulls See a Breakout Past $450 The bull thesis writes itself. Google Cloud operating margin expanded to 35.6% from 20.7% a year ago, with operating income more than tripling. Nearly 90% of Fortune 100 companies now use Gemini Enterprise. Alphabet’s model APIs process 22 billion tokens per minute.
AI Mode surpassed 1 billion monthly active users since global expansion. If Cloud sustains anything close to 82% growth into 2027, the bull case scenario of $450.76 looks conservative. Analysts remain overwhelmingly positive with 13 strong buys and 44 buys against zero sells.
What Could Go Wrong The bear case centers on capital intensity. Q2 free cash flow swung to negative $5.9 billion as capex hit $44.9 billion, up 100% year over year. Long-term debt jumped from roughly $16 billion to $100 billion, buybacks are suspended, and a $3.5 billion EU competition fine adds regulatory pressure.
Bulls counter that this spending funds the TPU and data center capacity underpinning Cloud’s $514 billion backlog, and that management expects to recognize just over 50% of that backlog as revenue over the next 24 months. The bear scenario still lands at $364.42, above today’s price.
How Alphabet Compares to Microsoft and Meta Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the natural hyperscaler comp. Microsoft trades at a P/E of 28x and closed FY26 with Azure crossing $100 billion in annual revenue at 43% growth. Alphabet’s Cloud growth rate of 82% is roughly double Azure’s, yet GOOG trades at half the multiple, a striking valuation gap.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is the closest ad-driven peer. Meta trades at a P/E of 21x and grew Q2 revenue 28%, but free cash flow collapsed to just $784 million under capex pressure. Alphabet’s search and YouTube ad engine faces similar capex headwinds while trading at a materially lower multiple. The peer group makes our 24/7 Wall St. price target look conservative rather than aggressive.
Company P/E Ratio Market Cap Alphabet 14x $4.10T Microsoft 28x $3.68T Meta 21x $1.31T Alphabet Price Prediction 2026-2030 The 24/7 Wall St. price target of $434.01 reflects a buy rating with 90% confidence. The tipping factor is valuation. You are paying a market multiple for hyperscaler growth.
The setup looks constructive if Cloud growth stays above 40% into 2027 and TPU sales ramp on schedule. The thesis weakens if capex overruns push free cash flow deeply negative for multiple quarters without visible backlog conversion.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $363.97 2027 $444.17 2028 $511.07 2029 $579.05 2030 $644.06 These projections assume Alphabet keeps executing on Cloud, Search AI monetization, and Waymo scaling. Significant upside could come from TPU system sales ramping in 2027, while downside risk lives in prolonged negative free cash flow or major regulatory action.
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The "Magnificent Seven" technology stocks have powered the S&P 500 higher in recent years, and this is thanks to their position in the growth area of artificial intelligence (AI). Most of these players are involved to a certain degree in the field, and at the same time, they offer investors well-established, profitable businesses. So, when you buy a "Magnificent Seven" stock, you gain the safety of a company that's proven itself and the potential for a new wave of growth ahead.
You might expect these particular stocks to trade at lofty valuations, but many of them actually are quite reasonably priced right now. And one in particular -- a company that's already delivering billions of dollars in revenue from its AI efforts -- is dirt cheap. This is the best bargain in the "Magnificent Seven" right now. Let's check it out.
Image source: Getty Images.
A group of AI leadersFirst, let's start out by identifying these exciting tech players. They are Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (GOOG -1.05%) (GOOGL -1.11%), Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. They specialize in different tech fields -- from smartphones to cloud computing and even electric vehicles -- but they each are involved in AI to some extent, so they may benefit as this technology evolves.
Of this bunch, today, the best bargain is also the cheapest in relation to forward earnings estimates, and this is Alphabet.
Trading at only 16x forward earnings estimates, it looks dirt cheap considering its track record of growth and long-term prospects.
AAPL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Most of us know Alphabet best for something we may use daily. And that's Google Search. The platform is the most popular search engine worldwide, with more than 90% market share, and is also the key to Alphabet's billion-dollar revenue. Advertisers pay to promote their products and services to us across the Google platform, and this has created a steady revenue growth engine for Alphabet.
In the recent quarter, Google ad revenue climbed 14% to more than $81 billion -- this is on a total of $119 billion in revenue for the company.
So, this is a revenue stream the company can rely on, and that creates a certain sense of safety for investors. This is a long-proven business model that works.
The potential for explosive growth aheadMeanwhile, investors also may benefit from potentially explosive growth in the quarters to come as Alphabet has become a major player in AI. The company has built its own large language models, such as Gemini, and these are helping Alphabet in many ways. Alphabet's AI is making Google Search better, improving the ad experience and results for advertisers, and expanding the offerings of Google Cloud. Today, customers rush to Google Cloud for both AI and non-AI products and services, and all of this is significantly lifting revenue.
For example, in the second quarter, Google Cloud revenue surged 82% to more than $24 billion. In the second quarter of last year, cloud revenue already was considered strong with 32% growth to reach about $13 billion -- but this now seems small compared to today's figures.
And just recently, Alphabet announced more good news. The Gemini app surpassed one billion monthly users, a move that makes it Alphabet's fastest-growing product ever. This is key because it shows users are spending more and more time on Google, something that should support growth in advertising.
Alphabet stock has advanced about 8% so far this year, but with this performance, it's underperforming the market.
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Why hasn't the stock climbed higher? Investors have worried about tech companies' heavy investments in AI infrastructure and whether the revenue opportunity will make it all worthwhile. This has prompted some to shy away from players such as Alphabet, which has poured billions into compute and data centers.
I see this as creating a fantastic buying opportunity. Demand for AI remains high, and this is likely to continue as AI is applied to real-world needs. All of this favors ongoing growth at Alphabet, and this, along with current valuation, makes it the best bargain in the "Magnificent Seven."
Cathay Pacific and Google said on Monday they were expanding trials of an AI-powered technology designed to help cut climate-warming aircraft contrails.
Billionaire Bill Ackman runs Pershing Square, one of the 20 most successful hedge funds in the world as measured by net gains since inception, according to LCH Investments. That makes him a good source of inspiration for individual investors
Ackman made a number of trades in the second quarter, but the two listed below warrant closer inspection:
Ackman sold his stake in Alphabet (GOOGL -1.11%) (GOOG -1.05%), an AI stock up 100% in 18 months.Ackman started a position in Netflix (NFLX -5.35%), a mega-cap stock down 42% from its record high.Here's what investors should know about Alphabet and Netflix.
Bill Ackman speaks at an event for the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet reported strong financial results in the second quarter despite missing estimates on the bottom line. Revenue rose 24% to $120 billion, marking the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Meanwhile, GAAP operating income (which eliminates unrealized gains from its investment in SpaceX) increased 31% to $41 billion.
Alphabet is primarily a digital advertising company supported by a plethora of popular web properties, such as Google Search and YouTube. Advertising products and services still account for more than two-thirds of total revenue, but cloud computing has become an increasingly consequential part of the big picture.
Google Cloud revenue rose 82% in the second quarter, the fifth consecutive acceleration, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. For the first time, the company earned revenue by selling custom AI accelerators called tensor processing units (TPUs) to external customers, representing an attempt to compete more directly with the market leader Nvidia.
Meanwhile, CEO Sundar Pichai said Gemini APIs (i.e., interfaces that let outside companies integrate Gemini models into their own applications) now process about 22 billion tokens per minute, up from 16 billion one quarter earlier. Pichai also said 90% of Fortune 100 companies use Gemini Enterprise, an AI platform for business work.
In total, Google gained two percentage points of market share in cloud infrastructure and platform services in the past year, and custom chips and proprietary models could certainly drive further share gains in the future. Google Cloud is running circles around its two largest rivals, Amazon and Microsoft, which reported cloud revenue growth of 37% and 43%, respectively, in the most recent quarter.
So, why did Bill Ackman sell his shares? While Alphabet is well-positioned for long-term growth, it faces near-term headwinds related to AI infrastructure spending. In the second quarter, Alphabet reported negative free cash flow for the first time as a public company. It also raised its 2026 capex guidance to $200 billion, up from $91 billion last year.
Negative free cash flow could make the stock volatile as bulls and bears squabble about whether the company is spending too much money on AI infrastructure. Indeed, the stock fell sharply following the second-quarter earnings report, and still trades 2% below the pre-report level as of Sept. 4.
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Netflix: The stock Bill Ackman boughtThe streaming industry has become much more crowded over the last decade, but Netflix is still the dominant player by virtually every important metric. It has more monthly active users, generates more revenue, boasts better retention rates, and accounts for a larger percentage of TV viewing time than any other subscription streaming service.
In turn, Netflix has a data advantage. With deep insight into viewing behavior, the company has an edge when personalizing content and making production decisions. Indeed, Netflix consistently produces more engaging content than its rivals. Among the 10 most-watched original streaming series and movies in the final week of August, Netflix made four of the series and six of the movies.
Netflix is down 42% from its high in June 2025, primarily because the market is worried about the company's growth prospects after it failed to win bidding wars for Warner Bros. Discovery and Roku. However, I think the market is underestimating Netflix. The company has pricing power in the streaming space, a market forecast to grow at 10% annually through 2030, and it has largely untapped opportunities in advertising, live sports, and theatrical releases.
Wall Street estimates Netflix's earnings will increase at 21% annually over the next three years. That makes the current valuation of 24.7 times earnings look cheap. Indeed, most analysts view the stock as undervalued. Netflix has a median target price of $94 per share, which implies 20% upside from the current share price of $78. Patient investors should feel comfortable buying a small position today.
Indian space tech startup Pixxel said on Monday it had raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Singapore state investor Temasek and British space-technology venture firm Seraphim (SSIT.L), marking the single-largest funding round by a space technology company in India.
Google -backed Pixxel's latest round included existing investors Radical Ventures and growX Ventures, as well as new investors 360 ONE Asset and IMM Investment, bringing its total funding to $195 million, the company said.
Pixxel is one of the Indian space startups that emerged after the government opened the sector to private players. Founded by Awais Ahmed, Pixxel began with hyperspectral satellites that could reveal information about the Earth's surface beyond what conventional imagery could capture.
Since then, it has expanded its scope to include Aurora, its Earth intelligence software, and satellite systems for both commercial and sovereign space missions. Together, these form the core of Pixxel's planetary infrastructure vision, connecting sensors, software, and space systems to help governments, industries, and institutions turn Earth observation into actionable intelligence, its statement said.
The fresh capital will help Pixxel expand its sensing capabilities through its Honeybee satellite constellation and high-resolution optical imaging satellites, while further developing Aurora as a platform that combines these datasets into decision-ready insights.
Adam Lampe believes there's still plenty of upside potential in markets even as the macro front faces a new test in renewed tensions between the U.S. and Iran. In the tech space, he says Alphabet (GOOGL) remains a key AI play "even as the market writes its own obituary" for some aspects of the company.
Whatever Google has done to improve its artificial intelligence assistant app, called Gemini, over the past year has clearly been worth it.
From 400 million monthly users in May 2025 to 1 billion monthly users as of last month, the app has become the fastest-growing product in Alphabet's (GOOG -1.05%) (GOOGL -1.11%) history. It's the sort of progress that almost makes the $200 billion the company has budgeted for AI infrastructure investments this year worth it.Almost.
Whatever the case, Alphabet's leadership on multiple AI fronts -- regardless of the cost -- makes its stock worth stepping into, particularly following its weakness since May.
The free, consumer-facing version of Gemini was never the point Congratulations are in order. Not only has Alphabet's Gemini dramatically expanded its user base, but it's taking market share away from OpenAI's market-leading ChatGPT (according to numbers from Sensor Tower), as well as from Grok and Perplexity.
Just don't lose perspective on the dynamic. Although it's difficult to measure, it would be short-sighted to ignore that Gemini's traffic is at least partially cannibalizing some of Google's search engine queries, even if Gemini's traffic is somewhat comparably monetized.
Don't worry about it too much either way, though. See, the bulk of Alphabet's AI spending was never really about a consumer-facing version of Gemini anyway.
Image source: Getty Images.
Don't misunderstand. There's a consumer AI assistant market to be sure.
The crux of the AI investments that the company is making this year, however, is the construction of new AI data centers and hardware that won't necessarily serve a large number of users, but will more deeply serve a smaller number of more active paying customers with tools like Gemini Robotics ER (embodied reasoning), or Gemini Enterprise for Legal, meant for legal professionals.
Then there are the solutions that aren't interfaced through any iteration of Gemini at all, like machine learning platform Document AI, or AutoML Image, the latter of which trains a platform to understand what digital images are portraying.
These institutional uses of Alphabet's tech were always going to be the company's bigger AI profit center, even if they aren't yet. A recent outlook from Precedence Research suggests the enterprise-level artificial intelligence industry is poised to grow just under 40% between now and 2035, from last year's $21 billion to 2035's expected $592 billion.
Given this, Alphabet's seemingly aggressive AI capex budget of $200 billion this year is justified, as long as Alphabet remains ahead of its competition and keeps itself positioned to win at least its fair share of this growth.
A must-do, but worth it Much can change in 10 years, of course. In the meantime, $200 billion is a lot of money to spend... even for Alphabet. It's not as if this is an ironclad, risk-free spending plan that will be painless to execute.
It's a spending plan the company must execute, however, if for no other reason than because most of its competitors are spending similarly for the same reason. It will be worth it in the long run. It's just got next to nothing to do with how many non-paying consumers are now regularly using the free version of Gemini.
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz continues its investigation of Alphabet Inc. (“Alphabet” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GOOG) on behalf of investors concerning the Company’s possible violations of federal securities laws.
IF YOU ARE AN INVESTOR WHO LOST MONEY ON ALPHABET INC. (GOOG), CLICK HERE TO INQUIRE ABOUT POTENTIALLY PURSUING A CLAIM TO RECOVER YOUR LOSS.
What Is The Investigation About?
On July 16, 2026, Bloomberg news reported that Alphabet’s Google is “months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model” due to the Company’s ongoing coding efforts. Specifically, “[l]ate last month, Google updated the data being used to train Gemini in an attempt to improve [its] skills, but the results were disappointing.”
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell $16.40, or 4.4%, to close at $353.81 per share on July 16, 2026, thereby injuring investors.
Then, on July 22, 2026, Alphabet released its second quarter 2026 financial results, announcing, among other things, a significant expansion of expected full year 2026 capital expenditures to $195 billion to $205 billion. The Company also disclosed that, for the quarter, it had a negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion. The Company further disclosed that "given the supply constrained environment, we plan to expand the use of third-party capacity in Q3 as a bridging strategy," however this "will create modest margin pressure in the near term."
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell as much as 7% during intraday trading on July 23, 2026, thereby injuring investors further.
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Voice features reach Gmail, Docs and Keep, but the enterprise rollout still waits. Summary
Alphabet is using existing distribution—not another chatbot—to widen AI subscriptions.
Alphabet GOOGL, Google's search, cloud and artificial-intelligence giant, traded at $335.35 as Gemini moved deeper into Gmail, Docs and Keep. Gmail Live can search an inbox through natural conversation. Docs Live turns spoken ideas into working drafts. Keep Live transforms rambling thoughts into organized notes.
Google is putting its newest AI tools behind the paywall. Gmail Live and Keep Live are rolling out first to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers, while Docs Live requires a Pro or Ultra plan. Workspace business customers will gain access later. Alphabet's quarterly filing showed subscriptions, platforms and devices revenue surging 15% to approximately $12.9 billion.
The strategy is simple—and powerful. Google does not need users to discover another AI app because Gemini is entering products they already use every day. But the stock leaves little room for a slow payoff. At $335.35, Alphabet trades 33.01% above its $252.12 GF Value estimate. These voice tools now need to drive more subscriptions, stronger retention or higher pricing before convenience becomes meaningful shareholder value.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Alphabet (GOOGL) is an all-weather stock built for the long term. Geoff Nielsen, Chief Digital Officer of Info-Tech Research Group, details how the company's diversified portfolio positions it for continued growth and resilience.
Every quarter Wall Street warns that Alphabet's AI spending will finally crack the business, and every quarter the company hands back a receipt that says otherwise. Here is why one investor keeps adding shares despite the loudest capex alarm bells…
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I bought more Alphabet last Friday, and if the stock cooperates I will buy more this Friday. The market keeps telling me the AI capex bill is going to break this company, and every quarter the company keeps handing me a receipt that says otherwise.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) owns the pipes that answer humanity’s questions, hosts the video humanity watches, and rents the compute that trains humanity’s models. Sundar Pichai told investors “nearly 90% of the Fortune 100” uses Gemini Enterprise, and the Gemini App has 950 million monthly active users. Those are the numbers of a company doing the disrupting.
Three Numbers That Keep Me Buying Start with segment growth. In the June quarter, Google Cloud revenue reached $24.77 billion, up 82% year over year, Search & other grew 17%, and YouTube ads grew 13%. Pichai credits AI-powered features for driving Search query growth. The supposed Achilles heel is accelerating.
Then quality. Return on equity sits at 35.7%, return on invested capital at 29.6%, and operating margin expanded to 34% last quarter. Interest coverage of 175.3x tells me the debt panic is theater.
Then valuation. A P/E of 15 on a business compounding revenue at 24.23% is the kind of mispricing retirement accounts get built on. The 2026 EPS consensus has climbed to $20.6043 across 53 analysts, with 47 upward revisions and zero downward revisions in the trailing 30 days.
Why Not Microsoft, Amazon, or Meta The obvious alternatives are Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) on cloud, and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) on ads. I own some of those too. My incremental dollar goes to Alphabet because Cloud grew 82% while the stock trades at a P/E of 15, and the Cloud backlog nearly doubled sequentially to over $460 billion. Against Meta, Alphabet runs three growth engines instead of one, and the ad business alone did $81.63 billion in the June quarter.
The self-funding argument gets lost in the capex screaming. Full-year 2025 operating cash flow was $164.71 billion, and the balance sheet carries over $120 billion in liquid assets. Alphabet builds custom silicon (TPUs) and data centers primarily out of internal cash while peers lean harder on the corporate bond market.
One Risk I Actually Take Seriously Capex is real. 2026 guidance sits at $175 billion to $185 billion. Q2 free cash flow was negative $5.86 billion, long-term debt climbed from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion, and the buyback was paused. If AI demand softens, I own a company that just doubled its physical footprint into a headwind.
My answer: that same $460 billion Cloud backlog is the customer signing the receipt before the concrete cures. Gemini processes 22 billion API tokens per minute. And after the recent ruling under which Google avoided another business breakup attempt, the antitrust tail risk that hung on the multiple for years is measurably thinner.
I will keep buying Alphabet at a P/E of 15 for as long as Wall Street insists on treating a self-funded AI monopoly like a leveraged science project.
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Forecasts could soon become faster, sharper and more local Summary
Google says its new weather model is five times sharper
Google GOOGL is making a major upgrade to weather forecasting that could eventually mean faster, sharper and more frequently updated forecasts for everyday users. The company has launched WeatherNext 3, its most advanced global weather-prediction model yet, using artificial intelligence and live satellite observations to refresh forecasts every hour.
The consumer impact could be significant. Instead of relying on forecasts built from data that may already be several hours old, WeatherNext 3 continuously incorporates fresh satellite information, potentially allowing Google products to react more quickly when storms, rainfall, temperature shifts or other conditions change.
“By ingesting a mosaic of live, global geostationary satellite data, our new model gains a rich, continuously updating view of the atmosphere,” Google said.
The company says WeatherNext 3 can generate a new forecast every hour, compared with roughly six-hour update gaps common with existing forecasting systems.
The model also offers substantially more detailed geographic information. It can map temperature and moisture conditions at resolutions as fine as 5 kilometers, surface variables at around 10 kilometers, and atmospheric factors such as wind speed at roughly 25 kilometers.
That makes its weather picture up to five times sharper than WeatherNext 2.
Google developed the system through Google DeepMind and Google Research, combining AI with raw satellite observations rather than relying exclusively on traditional forecasting techniques.
For consumers, the most important development is where those forecasts appear. Google says WeatherNext 3 predictions will be made available across its products globally, potentially improving the weather information people encounter through Google services.
The technology also has broader commercial implications. More precise short-term forecasts could help airlines, transportation companies, energy operators, commodity traders and supply-chain managers respond faster to changing weather.
For Google users, however, the pitch is much simpler: weather forecasts could become more current, more local and potentially more useful when conditions change quickly.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Alphabet just came off its longest monthly losing streak in over a decade, and a massive capital spending bet has free cash flow running negative. So why are analysts lining up to call this the cheapest growth story in mega-cap…
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Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) at $342.48 looks compelling on the fundamentals, and the reason hides in plain sight: Alphabet is the only hyperscaler running its foundation models on proprietary silicon while also renting that silicon to everyone else. After the longest monthly losing streak in over a decade and a legal win that spared the company from another forced breakup, the setup into fall earnings looks unusually clean.
Alphabet owns Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud, and it now sits behind Gemini, the fastest-growing consumer AI app in its stable. The stock traded as high as $408.37 in the past year before pulling back on capital-spending anxiety, which is what created this entry. The question is whether the AI infrastructure buildout is a moat or a money pit.
Why the TPU Advantage Changes the Math Google Cloud grew 82% year over year in Q2 FY26, an acceleration from 34%, 48%, and 63% across the prior three quarters. That reflects ongoing acceleration. Backlog nearly doubled quarter over quarter to over $460 billion in Q1, giving Cloud years of visible revenue.
The kicker is unit economics. Alphabet runs Gemini inference on its own Tensor Processing Units while also selling TPU capacity to cloud customers, avoiding the merchant-GPU tax that squeezes rivals. Gemini already reaches 950 million monthly active users and nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 use Gemini Enterprise. On $20.06 in trailing EPS and a P/E of 15, this is the cheapest growth story in mega-cap tech.
Why the CapEx Bill Could Bite The bear case starts with cash. Alphabet guided 2026 capital expenditures to $175 billion to $185 billion, and Q2 free cash flow already flipped to negative $5.86 billion. Long-term debt more than doubled from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion, interest expense ran roughly 5x higher year over year, and the stock buyback program was suspended.
If AI monetization slips or Cloud margins compress under the weight of new depreciation, the multiple contracts fast. Regulators keep circling too, with a $3.5 billion EU competition fine still fresh and Search facing real query pressure from AI-native rivals.
Why Some Investors Prefer to Wait The patient case is respectable. Reported net income was inflated by a $99.03 billion unrealized gain on equity securities, so headline earnings overstate operating strength. With shares down 9.31% in the past month, waiting for CapEx to peak and Cloud margins to stabilize before adding is defensible. The trigger to buy more aggressively would be a Q3 print showing Cloud operating margin expansion alongside easing capital intensity.
What the Numbers Actually Say Shares change hands near $342.48, versus an average analyst target of $428.07, implying meaningful upside if the consensus is right. Targets are one input among many. Coverage is deep and constructive: 13 Strong Buy, 45 Buy, 5 Hold, and 0 Sell or Strong Sell ratings. Fiscal 2026 EPS consensus sits at $20.60 across 53 analysts, with 47 upward revisions and zero downward revisions in the trailing 30 days.
Performance-wise, GOOGL is up 48.9% over the past year versus 20.11% for the S&P 500. Year to date, the stock lags at 9.56% against the index’s 13.38%, which is precisely what created this entry point.
Bullish Case: The Path Higher From Here At $340, the setup for Google looks constructive. Here is why.
The catalyst path is concrete. Q3 earnings should show Cloud sustaining growth well above 60% off a larger base, Gemini adoption widening beyond the Fortune 100, and Search revenue proving AI-resilient after growing 17% in Q2. Any one of those data points reprices the stock. All three would close the gap to the $428.07 consensus target quickly.
Valuation is the anchor. A P/E of 15 for a business compounding revenue at 24% year over year with 34% operating margins and 175x interest coverage looks like a mispricing. The TPU stack means every dollar of AI capex earns higher returns than a competitor renting NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips.
The thesis breaks if Cloud growth decelerates sharply next quarter, if CapEx guidance jumps again without corresponding backlog, or if a court forces structural remedies on Search. Watch operating cash flow and Cloud operating income each quarter. Both remain healthy so far.
The one-line case: you rarely get a hyperscaler with in-house silicon, accelerating cloud growth, and a market multiple at the same time.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of MSFT 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.
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.
Alphabet (GOOG +1.59%)(GOOGL +1.59%) dodged a breakup on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declined the government's request to force a sale of the company's ad exchange and its publisher ad server, instead accepting most of the parties' proposed behavioral remedies, with modifications of her own. The decision lands about 16 months after the same judge found Google had illegally monopolized key advertising technology markets, and it closes off the most severe outcome the case could have produced.
But the ad tech Google just won the right to keep sits in the one piece of Alphabet that is already shrinking. Revenue in the company's Google Network business, where the contested products live, has fallen for three straight years. And it slipped again in the second quarter while every other revenue line at the company grew.
In other words, Alphabet spent years of legal effort defending what is arguably its least important business. That context matters, I think, before assuming this week's ruling changes much for shareholders.
Image source: Alphabet.
New rules, same ownerThe ruling, entered Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia, stops short of the structural remedy the Justice Department wanted. Google won't have to sell AdX, its ad exchange, or DFP, its publisher ad server -- the two products it bundles together as Google Ad Manager.
Instead, Brinkema accepted most of the behavioral remedies the two sides had proposed, reshaping them where she saw fit. The proposals on the table included requiring Google to make real-time AdX bid data available to rival ad servers and letting publishers set different price floors for individual bidders. They also included ending the first look and last look privileges that gave its exchange the first or final opportunity to win an ad sale.
Worth noting: the judge's full written opinion is sealed for about two weeks while both sides review it for confidential material, so the finer details of the remedies aren't public yet.
Google Network includes the revenue Alphabet generates from AdSense, AdMob, and Google Ad Manager -- the money it makes selling ads on other companies' websites and apps instead of on its own properties.
And the decline there isn't new. Network revenue slipped from $31.3 billion in 2023 to $30.4 billion in 2024, then $29.8 billion last year. In its most recent annual report, Alphabet attributed last year's drop primarily to AdSense, and Google Network ad impressions fell 7% for the year.
The slide has continued into 2026. Network revenue fell about 4% year over year in the first quarter and slipped again in the second, coming in at $7.3 billion.
Compare that to the rest of the company. Second-quarter revenue from Google Search & other grew 17% year over year, YouTube ads grew 13%, subscriptions, platforms, and devices grew 15%, and Google Cloud surged 82%, led by demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. Google Network was the only revenue line that shrank.
The business now accounts for about 6% of Alphabet's total revenue. And the new rules, which aim to open Google's auctions to more competition, could pressure that line further.
Does the ruling change the investment case?Not much, I'd argue. The remedies land on tools in a small and fading corner of an otherwise thriving business. The tech company's second-quarter revenue rose 24% year over year, reaching $119.8 billion (the company's 12th straight quarter of double-digit revenue growth). Further, operating income rose 30%, and the company's operating margin expanded 2 percentage points to 34%.
Premium Feature
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Today's Change
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5.36
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The ruling mostly removes a tail risk. After all, a forced sale would have meant years of appeals and a messy separation. Instead, Alphabet gets compliance obligations in a business that matters less to its results with every passing quarter.
Of course, the Justice Department could still appeal, so the case may not be over. Still, the worst case is off the table for now.
Meanwhile, the stock trades around $342 as of this writing, well below its 52-week high of $408.61. With a price-to-earnings ratio of about 23 on the earnings analysts project for next year, shares arguably look reasonably priced for a company growing this fast with an expanding operating margin.
Ultimately, this case was never the reason to buy or avoid Alphabet stock. The growth story runs through Search and Google Cloud -- and the court just confirmed the contested ad tech stays put, with new rules attached. I wouldn't buy or sell shares over this ruling.
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glancy Prongay Wolke & Rotter LLP, a leading national shareholder rights law firm, continues its investigation on behalf of Alphabet Inc. (“Alphabet” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GOOG) investors concerning the Company’s possible violations of the federal securities laws.
IF YOU ARE AN INVESTOR WHO LOST MONEY ON ALPHABET INC. (GOOG), CLICK HERE TO INQUIRE ABOUT POTENTIALLY PURSUING CLAIMS TO RECOVER YOUR LOSS.
What Happened?
On July 16, 2026, Bloomberg news reported that Alphabet’s Google is “months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model” due to the Company’s ongoing coding efforts. Specifically, “[l]ate last month, Google updated the data being used to train Gemini in an attempt to improve [its] skills, but the results were disappointing.”
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell $16.40, or 4.4%, to close at $353.81 per share on July 16, 2026, thereby injuring investors.
Then, on July 22, 2026, Alphabet released its second quarter 2026 financial results, announcing, among other things, a significant expansion of expected full year 2026 capital expenditures to $195 billion to $205 billion. The Company also disclosed that, for the quarter, it had a negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion. The Company further disclosed that "given the supply constrained environment, we plan to expand the use of third-party capacity in Q3 as a bridging strategy," however this "will create modest margin pressure in the near term."
On this news, Alphabet’s stock price fell as much as 7% during intraday trading on July 23, 2026, thereby injuring investors further.
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Persons with non-public information regarding Alphabet Inc. should consider their options to aid the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower Program. Under the program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Charles H. Linehan at 310-201-9150 or 888-773-9224 or email [email protected].
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With four offices across the country, GPWR’s nearly 40 attorneys have won groundbreaking rulings and recovered billions of dollars for investors and consumers in securities, antitrust, consumer, and employment class actions. GPWR’s lawyers have handled cases covering a wide spectrum of corporate misconduct and relating to nearly all industries and sectors. GPWR’s past successes have been widely covered by leading news and industry publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Reuters, the Associated Press, Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Forbes, and Money.
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A federal judge confirmed Google runs an illegal monopoly in ad tech, then refused to break it up anyway. What that contradiction means for Alphabet investors depends entirely on what comes next.
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A federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s bid to force Google to sell its AdX advertising exchange, even after finding the company illegally monopolized the publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets.
The liability finding stands, while the structural remedy was denied. Shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction, NASDAQ:GOOGL) responded in kind, with Barron’s noting that Alphabet rose as Google avoided another attempt at a business breakup. The detailed remedies remain temporarily under seal, and the DOJ is still weighing its next moves, so the shape of what Google will actually live under is not yet public.
What the Ruling Kept and What It Killed The court declined the divestiture the government sought, but the monopoly finding is intact and behavioral restrictions are coming. An ad exchange is the auction house where publishers sell impressions to advertisers in real time; a publisher ad server decides which ad wins.
Google owned both sides of that transaction, and that was the conduct the court condemned. Reuters reports the case now heads into a compliance regime with an appeal path still open.
Why the Ad-Tech Line Understates the Strategic Stakes Google Network revenue was $7.303 billion in Q2 2026, a rounding line next to Google Services at $94.54 billion and Cloud at $24.77 billion, up 82%. That is exactly why the divestiture threat was never the real drag on the equity. The ad-tech stack matters because it feeds identity, measurement, and pricing data into the rest of advertising, and behavioral remedies will constrain how those pieces talk to each other.
Behavioral remedies still carry a cost, though.
Living under a court-supervised consent structure means monitors, disclosures, and product decisions that route through lawyers. It slows integration work at a time when Sundar Pichai says, “Gemini models now process 22 billion API tokens per minute and the Gemini App has 950 million monthly active users.”
Compliance friction is a tax on speed, and speed is what the AI cycle rewards, which is also why the power, cooling, and networking suppliers behind the data centers keep showing up in our free report on seven AI infrastructure names that are not chipmakers.
Judge Amit Mehta’s separate finding that Google illegally monopolized search still awaits its own remedy conclusion. Search & other delivered $63.27 billion in Q2 2026. That is the figure most exposed to the ongoing search remedy proceedings. This week’s ruling does not touch it.
Is Alphabet Stock a Buy? At $337.12 and a P/E of 15x, Alphabet trades below Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) at roughly 22x, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) at 28x, and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) at 35x, while Cloud grew 82% and the one-year return sits at 59.96%.
Analysts have 58 Buy ratings and 5 Hold ratings, with a target price of $428.07. The setup looks constructive on relative valuation. The ad-tech win is genuine; courts have now declined structural relief against Big Tech three times in recent years, and that pattern is worth more over a decade than any single exchange. The search remedy is still the risk to watch.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Image Credits:Google Google is launching conversational AI features within Docs, Gmail, and Keep that let users ask questions about their inboxes and documents as well as do tasks using natural-language queries and dictation.
The company previewed these features in May during its Google I/O conference. The company is dubbing these features Docs Live, Gmail Live, and Keep Live.
In Gmail, instead of typing in a search box, you can ask questions to a Gemini-powered AI assistant about the contents of your inbox. Users will see a live transcript while chatting with the assistant.
While using Docs, users can describe what they want to write, and the AI assistant will help them create a first draft. It can also get information from Gmail, Drive, chat, and the web to create drafts.
Keep Live, meanwhile, lets you use it as a scratchpad to jot down notes without typing, and can even pull together recipes and lists if you tell it to, for example, list ingredients to make a shakshouka.
Gmail Live is available for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra customers. Docs Live and Keep Live are available for Google AI Pro and Ultra users. All these features will be available in English on iOS and Android. Google said it will roll out these features to Workplace Business customers soon.
Google has been introducing voice-based features across its apps. It added cross-app dictation to its Mac app in April. And the Pixel 11 smartphones got a Gemini-powered dictation tool called Rambler last month, which removes filler words from your speech. In August, the company introduced the Gemini 3.5 Transcribe model for speech-to-text use cases.
Key Takeaways Alphabet is showing signs of renewed momentum after a sluggish 2026.Berkshire's $17B bet, Gemini 3.8 and ad-tech relief could strengthen Alphabet's outlook.ETFs like GXPC, VOX and FCOM offer investors a way to tap Alphabet's potential rebound. This year has been marked by uncertainty and volatility for markets, especially the tech sector, as investors have grown more cautious about Big Tech’s significant AI capital spending. Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) has also seen its momentum slow down, gaining about 66% in 2025 but adding only around 7.5% so far in 2026.
However, September, which has historically been a challenging month for stocks due to the so-called “September Effect,” appears to be off to a more encouraging start for Alphabet.
Despite falling about 1.05% over the past five trading sessions and 7.8% over the past month, GOOGL gained roughly 0.4% on Wednesday and was up another 0.5% in premarket trading on Thursday. The recent strength suggests that the sentiment toward the tech giant may be improving, potentially setting the stage for a broader rebound in GOOGL.
Recent developments are further strengthening the case for Alphabet’s momentum. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel has publicly expressed confidence in Alphabet’s AI position, while Google introduced its Gemini 3.8 Flash model recently. The tech giant also secured a favorable outcome in the case involving its advertising technology business, easing regulatory concerns and adding another tailwind for the stock.
Berkshire’s Abel Signals Confidence in AlphabetBerkshire Hathaway (BRK.B - Free Report) CEO Greg Abel has also expressed confidence in Alphabet’s position in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, calling it a winner in AI. Speaking with CNBC, Abel described Alphabet as a “significant player” in AI and also highlighted that Google is strongly positioned in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Berkshire’s portfolio activity reinforces that optimism. The company added roughly $17 billion of Alphabet shares in the second quarter, making Alphabet the largest addition to its equity portfolio during the period and its third-largest holding, as quoted on the abovementioned CNBC article.
Berkshire’s latest filing shows an approximately $36.6 billion stake in the tech giant, underscoring its growing conviction in the company.
Gemini 3.8 Flash Looks to Add Another Tailwind for AlphabetOn Wednesday, Google unveiled Gemini 3.8, which the company touted as its most capable reasoning and coding model yet. The company also said the new model maintains the speed and low cost of its predecessor, Gemini 3.7.
Google introduced two variants of its new Gemini 3.8 model, Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber. Gemini 3.8 Flash brings significant improvements over Gemini 3.7 across software engineering, agentic tasks and complex reasoning, while Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber focuses on cybersecurity applications, including vulnerability detection and automated patching, making it available to trusted cybersecurity defenders through its new Fairwind Program.
In addition to the software improvements, the low cost of Gemini 3.8 could be another key factor supporting its appeal. According to another CNBC article, Gemini 3.8 Flash carries the same introductory price as its predecessor, at 75 cents per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, despite significant improvements in coding, agentic tasks and reasoning.
Google is also highlighting the cost advantages of its new cybersecurity offering. Tulsee Doshi, senior director of product management at Google DeepMind, said the company is excited to offer a solution at a fraction of the cost and with much faster performance, while still delivering frontier-level capabilities, as quoted on the CNBC article.
Google Scores Another Win in Ad Tech BattleThe tech giant’s prospects for renewed momentum also received a boost from a favorable regulatory development. According to the CNBC article mentioned earlier, a favorable ruling in the Justice Department’s ad-tech antitrust case allowed Google to retain its AdX exchange, with the court choosing behavioral remedies over the structural breakup sought by regulators.
The ruling provided further support for Google’s advertising business, which remains a key growth driver. The business grew 14% in the last reported quarter. It serves as a powerful cash engine for the company.
Into GOOGL’s Stock OutlookAlphabet currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.20 on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations made by 55 brokerage firms. While the ABR is unchanged from a month ago, it has improved from 1.30 two months ago, signaling increasingly favorable analyst sentiment toward the tech giant.
Of the 55 recommendations deriving the current ABR, 48 are Strong Buy and three are Buy. Strong Buy and Buy, respectively, account for 87.27% and 5.45% of all recommendations. While the recommendations remain unchanged from a month ago, Strong Buy recommendations have increased from 81.5% two months ago, indicating improving bullish sentiment among analysts toward Alphabet.
Based on short-term price targets offered by 51 analysts, the average price target for Alphabet comes to $432.26, representing an increase of 28.22% from its current level, with forecasts ranging from a low of $350.00 to a high of $515.00. Currently, GOOGL stock is priced at $337.12 (as of market close on Sept. 2) and has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), along with a Growth Score of B.
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
ETFs to Tap Into Alphabet’s MomentumHere, we have highlighted ETFs with heavy exposure to Alphabet.
Global X PureCap MSCI Communication Services ETF (GXPC - Free Report) has an exposure of 30.79% to GOOGL.
Defiance AI Hyperscale Leaders ETF (AIHY - Free Report) has an exposure of 18.93% to GOOGL.
Vanguard Communication Services ETF (VOX - Free Report) has an exposure of 15.08% to GOOGL.
VanEck Communication Services TruSector ETF (TRUC - Free Report) has an exposure of 14.02% to GOOGL.
Fidelity MSCI Communication Services Index ETF (FCOM - Free Report) has an exposure of 13.88% to GOOGL.
VOX is both the largest and the most liquid option among the above-mentioned funds, with a one-month average trading volume of 253,000 shares and an asset base of $5.67 billion. Regarding charging annual fees, FCOM is the cheapest option, charging 0.08%.
Alphabet delivered exceptional Q2 results with 24% YoY revenue growth, surpassing expectations and demonstrating resilience at scale. GOOGL's Google Cloud posted record 82% growth, outpacing AWS in dollar additions, while Search and AI Overviews continue robust double-digit expansion. Despite strong fundamentals, valuation now stands at 27-29x adjusted P/E, above its 15-year average, and buybacks have paused in favor of significant equity and debt issuance.
Two different federal judges have ruled that Google boss Sundar Pichai runs a monopoly. That doesn't seem like it's going to slow his company down. Bloomberg/Getty Images Last year, a federal judge said Google was illegally monopolizing some ad markets.
This week, we learned about the punishment Google is likely to receive for its sins: Not much at all.
While the details of Judge Leonie M. Brinkema’s order remain under seal for now, we have the broad strokes: It will likely have to play nicer with competitors — but in a way that’s unlikely to have any real impact on its business, and certainly not on its core business. Most crucially, it will not have to engage in any structural changes, like splitting itself apart.
“This is pretty close to the best case scenario for them,” ad tech veteran and author Ari Paparo tells me.
If that sounds familiar, there’s a good reason: In 2024, a different federal judge also ruled that Google ran an illegal monopoly in search. The next year, he announced the company’s punishment — which also barely affected Google’s business, and did not require “structural” changes, like selling off parts of itself.
It’s become a recurring theme for Google and its Big Tech peers: The US Government — starting with the first Trump administration, and even more so in the Biden years — has been taking them to court, in an effort to reduce the reach and clout they’ve accumulated over the last couple decades. And the feds keep losing.
In Google’s case, the government has “won” twice, but its prizes are barely consolation prizes.
In other cases, it has been a straight-up loss: Last year, Meta beat the federal suit accusing it of being a monopoly, which means it didn’t have to sell off Instagram or WhatsApp. And in 2022, the US tried to stop Microsoft from buying gaming giant Activision — and lost that case three years later.
And given that the US government has never made a serious attempt to pass legislation reining in Big Tech — except for 2024’s TikTok sell-or-ban law, which everyone basically decided to ignore — court cases were supposed to be the one tool the feds had left. They haven’t worked.
The federal effort to slow down Big Tech in the courts isn’t formally over. The government is still appealing its Meta loss. And it still has pending cases against Amazon and Apple.
More important is that there are many other anti-Big Tech court cases.
Meta, for instance, just agreed to pay $18 billion to settle a teen addiction suit brought by several US states. Mark Zuckerberg may reasonably call that settlement a bargain, as my colleague Pranav Dixit argues. But it’s a reminder that Big Tech is still dealing with state suits, civil suits filed by users, and a whole lot of regulatory scrutiny in Europe.
All of which means Big Tech is likely to write more checks in the coming years. But investors seem fine with that — Meta’s stock went up after it announced its potential $18 billion payout; Google stock rose after Wednesday's news.
And that reaction makes sense. These fights are over Big Tech as it used to be — this week’s Google news is about a shrinking part of its ad business that may only account for 1% of revenue today — and not where it wants to go, since none of the suits are about the industry’s headlong plunge into AI.
So maybe Washington and others will be able to make Big Tech pay for the old internet. There’s no sign they will keep the companies from owning the next one.
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Peter Kafka You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Peter covers media and technology for Business Insider; previously he has worked at Vox, Recode, AllThingsD, and Forbes. He was also the first hire at Silicon Alley Insider, Business Insider's predecessor.
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Scientists at Google DeepMind and Google Research released a new artificial intelligence model for weather forecasting today that sees our changing atmosphere more clearly and predicts its behavior more often.
WeatherNext 3 is the latest wave of a sea change in meteorology brought out by deep learning techniques, and Google says it will start feeding into weather information users see in search, Google Maps, and Gemini, as well as being available to users and researchers on Google’s cloud platforms.
“This is going to be the first time that some of the core variables feed and power a lot of the Google products,” Samier Merchant, a Google senior staff engineer, told TechCrunch.
The new model has already proven to be the most accurate among leading contenders tested on Operational WeatherBench, a utility for comparing AI forecasts built by the startup Brightband. It looks at metrics like temperature, windspeed, and humidity.
As well as beating out other deep-learning models built by Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), it also beats traditional forecasts from the U.S. National Weather service and the ECMWF.
Image Credits:Brightband Most weather forecasts come from government-owned supercomputers laboriously churning through mathematical equations written to describe the physics of weather; while these systems have become remarkably accurate, they are expensive and comparatively slow. After the ECMWF released more than half a century of weather data produced by these systems in 2018, deep learning researchers began training models that could make predictions far more quickly and with comparable accuracy to government tools.
“Weather is chaotic, and so small differences really start to perturb massively…Machine learning targets the problem we are really solving, which is approximate noisy physics from incomplete information and finite compute, and so it learns patterns from a lot of data,” said Ferran Alet, a staff research scientist manager at DeepMind.
Since then, model-makers have pushed on the key weaknesses of AI forecasting models: They tend to forecast over a wider area — 15 to 25 square km — than is truly useful, they’re not always great with rain, and they still depend on the formatted data-sets produced by government agencies.
WeatherNext 3 takes on all three challenges. On key variables, researchers told TechCrunch, it can predict down to a resolution of 5km. Its evaluations on rain are 60% improved over WeatherNext 2, and it can now produce hourly forecasts, instead of the standard prediction every six hours.
Image Credits:Google Those improvements are the result of specific choices made by the designers. WeatherNext 3 is a larger model, with 2.4 times more parameters than its predecessor, and tailoring the targets for the decoder heads to give more useful answers. While most weather forecasts output as metrics averaged across a 3D grid, DeepMind researchers have already won plaudits by tuning their model to also visualize cyclone paths.
This time around, the designers also trained the model to target its forecasts to specific weather data stations. This is important not only for offering more granular predictions, but also for being able to evaluate its work against specific, ground-truth data.
“The idea, with a lot of AI applications, is to try to run tasks as end-to-end as possible,” Daniel Rothenberg, an atmospheric scientist at Brightband, said. “Adding a capability where this model is now also predicting, say, what Denver’s airport’s weather station is going to measure on an hourly basis, just connects that forecasting task closer to the core.”
The model is able to forecast more frequently because it can ingest weather satellite data collected in real-time on an hourly basis. Feeding AI models on raw empirical observations, rather than the analysis produced by weather supercomputers, promises a more accurate forecast, but it is still technically challenging to get models to work with unformatted data.
Google says WeatherNext 3 is the “first” AI model to directly incorporate raw observations for a high-resolution global forecast, but the AI weather startup WindBorne says its model, WeatherMesh 6, has been incorporating raw observations from its fleet of weather balloons and other sources since late 2025. Asked about that, Google pointed out that its forecasts are higher resolution across the globe. Regardless, both models still rely on national weather datasets to perform forecasts, so more work will be required for true direct data assimilation.
While LLMs get the bulk of the attention, the transformer revolution in meteorology has been just as important. European and US weather agencies are already using AI models in their forecast products, and their speed and low cost promise to bring economic impact to poorer regions where the expense of high-quality sensors and supercomputers has put accurate forecasts out of reach.
Bill Gates recently cited AI-powered weather forecasting as a crucial benefit of the technology, with better forecasts improving crop yields in developing countries. Alet, the DeepMind researcher, said that higher-resolution forecasts of wind, rain, and cloud cover will be useful to make renewable energy projects more dependable.
“At the end of the day, I think Google is about providing useful information to the user, and a lot of what users are looking for has to do with the weather in some way or another,” Alet said.
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Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) remains in focus after an $18 billion social media settlement removed a major legal overhang, while analysts weighed potential advertising pressure against the company’s expanding artificial intelligence pipeline and rising spending requirements.
Meta Settles Social Media CaseMeta reached the settlement with 29 U.S. state attorneys general during the second week of an August trial over allegations that Instagram and Facebook included design features harmful to younger users.
Under the agreement, Meta will make changes for users under 18, including a two-hour daily usage limit, tighter age verification and restrictions on extreme makeup and cosmetic surgery filters.
Meta will pay the settlement over 10 years and record a $10 billion legal charge in the third quarter. The company otherwise kept its July guidance unchanged.
Full payment of the settlement also depends on Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) YouTube and TikTok implementing similar changes for younger users.
Morgan Stanley Sees AI Product OpportunityMorgan Stanley sees the $18 billion settlement as a potential turning point for Meta and its AI strategy. Analysts told CNBC on Wednesday that the deal could remove a major legal overhang and potentially unlock a faster pace of AI product launches.
They drew parallels with Google, which accelerated AI product and model rollouts after a major legal uncertainty eased last year.
Morgan Stanley pointed to MetaClaw, an upgraded Meta AI, agentic advertising tools for small and medium-sized businesses, new subscription offerings, APIs and potential neocloud opportunities as areas to watch. However, the analysts cautioned that they were not suggesting those products were ready for imminent launch.
Meta is also reportedly preparing to launch consumer AI agent Hatch in early September. An internal memo cited by Business Insider said Hatch could operate within WhatsApp and Instagram and perform tasks including online purchases and restaurant bookings.
Morgan Stanley compared Meta’s position with Google following the resolution of its antitrust case, saying Meta’s product pipeline could begin flowing after the legal clearing event.
The analysts also estimated teenagers account for only about 1% of Meta’s revenue, limiting direct revenue exposure from tighter youth restrictions. They said engagement limits could create a larger long-term headwind for YouTube because youth adoption is higher there than on Facebook or Instagram.
Needham Flags Cost And Execution RisksNeedham maintained its Hold rating and warned about Meta’s costly “strategy diffusion.”
The firm highlighted to CNBC that Meta’s simultaneous expansion into custom chips, data centers, enterprise AI software, business agents, APIs, compute sales, advertising tools, consumer assistants, smart glasses and other hardware.
Needham said spreading management attention, engineering talent and shareholder capital across too many initiatives could reduce Meta’s chances of succeeding in individual areas.
The firm also noted that the settlement payments come as Meta plans up to $145 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, adding another source of pressure as the company ramps AI infrastructure spending.
Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $768.81. Recent analyst moves include:
Wedbush: Neutral (Maintains forecast to $595.00) (Sept. 1) Rosenblatt: Buy (Raises forecast to $886.00) (Aug. 27) Benchmark: Hold (Aug. 27) Top ETF Exposure First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSE:FDN): 9.46% Weight Invesco AI and Next Gen Software ETF (NYSE:IGPT): 8.91% Weight Global X Social Media ETF (NASDAQ:SOCL): 8.76% Weight Significance: Because META carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Price ActionMETA Stock Price Activity: Meta Platforms shares were up 3.24% at $612.07 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
OpenAI, Anthropic and Google were grappling with service problems Thursday, disrupting several of the tech giants’ massive popular artificial intelligence products.
OpenAI said it was investigating “elevated errors across ChatGPT and Codex,” with the problem ongoing for 20 minutes at the time of a status-page screenshot reviewed by The Post.
Anthropic, meanwhile, reported elevated errors across multiple Claude models and said it had identified the cause and was working on a fix.
An illustration shows ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini app icons on Friday, June 5, 2026. REUTERS The affected models included Mythos/Fable 5.1, Mythos/Fable 5, Opus 5, Opus 4.8 and Opus 4.6, according to Anthropic’s status page.
Anthropic first reported the problem just before 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. By 10:49 a.m., the company said it was “continuing to work on a fix for this issue.”
Google’s Gemini was also partially degraded for some developer and API users, according to the supplied reporting.
The ChatGPT app is displayed on an iPhone. AP Photo/Richard Drew Google AI Studio’s status page said the Gemini API was having problems serving recently created API keys, including keys used through OpenAI-compatible libraries, and that the company was investigating.
The problems hit three major artificial-intelligence platforms at roughly the same time Thursday. The Post has sought comment from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
Broadcom (AVGO) beat on the top and bottom line but didn't meet Wall Street's mark for guidance. As Marley explains, the company showed enough strength to reassure investors that the AI trade is accelerating, though customer concentration with companies like Alphabet (GOOGL) present growing risks.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of GOOGL either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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Sundar Pichai promised investors a flagship AI model by June, but what arrived instead has sparked Alphabet's longest stock losing streak in over a decade, raising an uncomfortable question about whether the company's celebrated AI pace is actually working.
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Alphabet’s cadence problem finally has a price tag. CEO Sundar Pichai said Gemini 3.5 Pro would arrive in June, but it still hadn’t shipped as of September 2, 2026. What Google shipped instead was Gemini 3.8 Flash, a cheaper coding model, while pointing investors to Gemini 4 later in the year. That substitution has landed at the worst possible moment for the stock.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction) shares are “on their longest losing streak since 2015,” according to CNBC’s Mackenzie Sigalos, following a brief stint this spring as the world’s most valuable company. The stock is down 10.39% over the past month, trading near $339.79 after opening green on Wednesday.
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A Promised Flagship, a Value-Tier Delivery On the Q2 call, Pichai stayed on message about pace. “Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently in testing and our team is already building the next generation of models,” he told analysts, adding that “we have started our most ambitious pre-training run yet for Gemini 4.” He framed monthly releases as strategy: “Picking up pace and releasing models, you know, almost at a monthly cadence is part of our roadmap as we are building Gemini 4 as well.”
The problem is what the pace produced. The June flagship is absent. The Flash line, which Pichai called Alphabet’s “workhorse model” hitting “a sweet spot of performance, cost, reliability, latency, etc.”, keeps arriving on schedule.
Fundamentals That Argue the Other Way The financials show a company still expanding at scale. Q2 revenue rose 24.23% to $119.8 billion, EPS of $9.11 beat consensus by 199.41%, and Google Cloud grew 82% year over year to $24.8 billion with backlog at $514 billion. The Gemini App now has 950 million monthly active users, and APIs process approximately 22 billion tokens per minute, up from 16 billion a quarter ago.
The bill is steep. Capex hit $44.9 billion, free cash flow swung to negative $5.86 billion, long-term debt jumped from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion, and buybacks were suspended in Q2 2026. Even so, GOOG trades at a P/E of 14.
[company_earnings_history ticker=”GOOG”]
Two Same-Day Offsets Investors Should Weigh Two developments arrived alongside the Gemini 3.8 Flash release. First, a judge ruled that “google will not have to sell its ad exchange”, removing an overhang on the ad monetization engine that Sigalos noted lets “Google compete more aggressively on price because it owns more of the stack and can monetize AI across cloud search and youtube and its ad engine.” Second, token prices are “down more than half from their summer peak, squeezing standalone model labs like openai.”
The accountability gap is real. So is the moat. Whether four down months mark a dip or a re-rating depends on what ships before Gemini 4, and on whether the $44.9 billion capex line keeps translating into cloud backlog rather than stranded silicon (we profiled seven suppliers riding that same buildout, from power to cooling, in a free report you can grab here).
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