Latest news with #Alphabet
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Google's AI push pays off with solid second quarter, but doubts about company's future persist
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google's accelerating shift into artificial intelligence helped propel its corporate parent to another quarter of solid growth while a crackdown on its internet empire looms in the background. The results released Wednesday for the April-June period provided the latest sign that Google is deftly navigating the technological landscape's tilt toward AI while still capitalizing on well-worn techniques that have made it the internet's main gateway for the past quarter century. That balancing act helped Google parent Alphabet Inc. earn $28.2 billion, or $2.31 per share, during the second quarter, a 19% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 14% from a year ago to $96.4 billion. Both figures easily eclipsed analysts' projections. 'We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said. 'We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace. AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum.' The numbers were initially overshadowed by a disclosure that Alphabet is increasing this year's budget for capital expenditures by $10 billion to $85 billion as part of its effort to fend off intensifying competition from AI startups such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Perplexity. Besides those threats, a federal judge who declared Google's search engine to be an illegal monopoly is now weighing a range of countermeasures that include requiring the sale of its popular Chrome browser. Alphabet's shares dipped 1% in extended trading after the quarterly report came out. After initially dipping following the disclosure about the rising costs of AI, Alphabet's stock price rebounded and rose by more than 1% in extended trading. The performance covered a stretch that saw Google bring even more AI technology into its search engine in an effort to maintain its dominance, including the May release of its own version of a conversational answer engine called AI Mode. That addition supplemented its more than year-old use of extensive summaries called AI Overviews that Google now frequently highlights at the top of its results page while decreasing the number of its traditional links to other websites. The shake-up has resulted in even more interaction with Google's search engine and steady earnings growth to support Alphabet's $2.3 trillion market value, said Jim Yu, chief executive of BrightEdge, a firm that analyzes search trends. Google's search-driven ad revenue totaled $54.2 billion in the past quarter, a 12% increase from the same time last year. 'All this AI stuff is not slowing Google down, they are doing a very good job of evolving with the times,' Yu said. The AI boom has also been fueling demand in Google's Cloud division that sells computing power and other services. Google Cloud continued to thrive in the past quarter with revenue rising 32% from a year ago to $13.6 billion. The division is under pressure to deliver robust growth from investors to help justify Google's huge investments in AI technology.
The Hill
22 minutes ago
- Business
- The Hill
Google's AI push pays off with solid second quarter, but doubts about company's future persist
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google's accelerating shift into artificial intelligence helped propel its corporate parent to another quarter of solid growth while a crackdown on its internet empire looms in the background. The results released Wednesday for the April-June period provided the latest sign that Google is deftly navigating the technological landscape's tilt toward AI while still capitalizing on well-worn techniques that have made it the internet's main gateway for the past quarter century. That balancing act helped Google parent Alphabet Inc. earn $28.2 billion, or $2.31 per share, during the second quarter, a 19% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 14% from a year ago to $96.4 billion. Both figures easily eclipsed analysts' projections. 'We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company,' Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said. 'We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace. AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum.' The numbers were initially overshadowed by a disclosure that Alphabet is increasing this year's budget for capital expenditures by $10 billion to $85 billion as part of its effort to fend off intensifying competition from AI startups such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Perplexity. Besides those threats, a federal judge who declared Google's search engine to be an illegal monopoly is now weighing a range of countermeasures that include requiring the sale of its popular Chrome browser. Alphabet's shares dipped 1% in extended trading after the quarterly report came out. After initially dipping following the disclosure about the rising costs of AI, Alphabet's stock price rebounded and rose by more than 1% in extended trading. The performance covered a stretch that saw Google bring even more AI technology into its search engine in an effort to maintain its dominance, including the May release of its own version of a conversational answer engine called AI Mode. That addition supplemented its more than year-old use of extensive summaries called AI Overviews that Google now frequently highlights at the top of its results page while decreasing the number of its traditional links to other websites. The shake-up has resulted in even more interaction with Google's search engine and steady earnings growth to support Alphabet's $2.3 trillion market value, said Jim Yu, chief executive of BrightEdge, a firm that analyzes search trends. Google's search-driven ad revenue totaled $54.2 billion in the past quarter, a 12% increase from the same time last year. 'All this AI stuff is not slowing Google down, they are doing a very good job of evolving with the times,' Yu said. The AI boom has also been fueling demand in Google's Cloud division that sells computing power and other services. Google Cloud continued to thrive in the past quarter with revenue rising 32% from a year ago to $13.6 billion. The division is under pressure to deliver robust growth from investors to help justify Google's huge investments in AI technology.
Fast Company
22 minutes ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Alphabet's Q2 revenue beats estimates as cloud computing surges
BY Alphabet beat Wall Street estimates for its second quarter on Wednesday, and cited massive demand for its cloud computing services as it hiked its capital spending plans for the year to about $85 billion. The search giant beat estimates for quarterly revenue and profit on the back of new AI features and a steady digital advertising market. Google Cloud's revenue growth surged nearly 32%, well above estimates for a 26.5% increase. 'With this strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services, we are increasing our investment in capital expenditures,' CEO Sundar Pichai said in an earnings release. Shares of the company, which have risen more than 18% since its previous earnings report in April, were down 1% in extended trading. Google had earlier pledged about $75 billion in capital spending this year, part of the more than $320 billion that Big Tech is expected to pour into building AI capabilities. The companies have defended their aggressive AI spending amid rising competition from Chinese rivals and investor frustration with slower-than-expected payoffs, saying those massive investments are necessary to fuel growth and improve their products. Alphabet reported total revenue of $96.43 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of about $94 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. Google's advertising revenue, which represents about three-quarters of the tech major's overall sales, rose 10.4% to $71.34 billion in the second quarter, beating expectations for $69.47 billion, according to data from LSEG. —Deborah Sophia and Kenrick Cai, Reuters The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is this Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. Sign up for our weekly tech digest. SIGN UP This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Privacy Policy
TechCrunch
22 minutes ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Google's AI Overviews have 2B monthly users, AI Mode 100M in the US and India
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai shared an update on the adoption of consumer-facing AI apps and features, including Google Search's AI Overviews, Gemini, and AI Mode. On the company's Q2 2025 call with investors, Pichai shared that AI Overviews — a Google Search feature offering an AI summary of search results available in 200 countries and territories — now has 2 billion monthly users, up from 1.5 billion in May 2025. In addition, Google's Gemini app has grown to 450 million monthly active users. 'We continue to see strong growth and engagement with daily requests growing over 50% from Q1,' Pichai said of the app. Meanwhile, AI Mode — a way to use Google Search via an AI chat experience to get more in-depth answers — has 100 million monthly active users. The service is available in the U.S. and, more recently, India, but is still rolling out. On the developer front, Google said more than 9 million have built with Gemini and over 70 million videos have been produced with the Veo 3 AI model since May. Google Vids, a Veo-powered feature for text-to-video AI generation in Google Workspace, now has nearly 1 million monthly active users. In Google Meet, over 50 million people used AI-powered meeting notes in Google Meet, the company also said. The stats are meant to illustrate consumer demand for AI features, though it's arguably difficult to determine how many people have truly and willingly turned to AI in Search, when the feature has been thrust upon them as aggressively as it has been. Across Google's platform and products, Google quantified its growth by monthly tokens processed, saying that it had announced at its developer conference in May that it had processed 480 trillion monthly tokens, and that figure has now doubled to 980 trillion monthly tokens. 'We are seeing significant demand for our comprehensive AI product portfolio,' Pichai told investors. 'Of course, this is all possible because of the long-term investments we have made in our differentiated, full-stack approach to AI.' Investors, however, reacted negatively to Google's plans to increase its capital expenditure spending to keep up with the AI race, which sent the stock slipping shortly after earnings were announced.
Mint
23 minutes ago
- Business
- Mint
Googles AI push pays off with solid second quarter, but doubts about companys future persist
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google's accelerating shift into artificial intelligence helped propel its corporate parent to another quarter of solid growth while a crackdown on its internet empire looms in the background. The results released Wednesday for the April-June period provided the latest sign that Google is deftly navigating the technological landscape's tilt toward AI while still capitalizing on well-worn techniques that have made it the internet's main gateway for the past quarter century. That balancing act helped Google parent Alphabet Inc. earn $28.2 billion, or $2.31 per share, during the second quarter, a 19% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 14% from a year ago to $96.4 billion. Both figures easily eclipsed analysts' projections. 'We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said. 'We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace. AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum.' The numbers were initially overshadowed by a disclosure that Alphabet is increasing this year's budget for capital expenditures by $10 billion to $85 billion as part of its effort to fend off intensifying competition from AI startups such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Perplexity. Besides those threats, a federal judge who declared Google's search engine to be an illegal monopoly is now weighing a range of countermeasures that include requiring the sale of its popular Chrome browser. Alphabet's shares dipped 1% in extended trading after the quarterly report came out. After initially dipping following the disclosure about the rising costs of AI, Alphabet's stock price rebounded and rose by more than 1% in extended trading. The performance covered a stretch that saw Google bring even more AI technology into its search engine in an effort to maintain its dominance, including the May release of its own version of a conversational answer engine called AI Mode. That addition supplemented its more than year-old use of extensive summaries called AI Overviews that Google now frequently highlights at the top of its results page while decreasing the number of its traditional links to other websites. The shake-up has resulted in even more interaction with Google's search engine and steady earnings growth to support Alphabet's $2.3 trillion market value, said Jim Yu, chief executive of BrightEdge, a firm that analyzes search trends. Google's search-driven ad revenue totaled $54.2 billion in the past quarter, a 12% increase from the same time last year. 'All this AI stuff is not slowing Google down, they are doing a very good job of evolving with the times,' Yu said. The AI boom has also been fueling demand in Google's Cloud division that sells computing power and other services. Google Cloud continued to thrive in the past quarter with revenue rising 32% from a year ago to $13.6 billion. The division is under pressure to deliver robust growth from investors to help justify Google's huge investments in AI technology.
