Alphabet (GOOGL) closed at a new record high on Friday at $299.66, up 3.56%, and the stock is trading higher again in pre-market trading today. The stock is now up about 59% year-to-date, supported by growing optimism around Google’s AI plans, steady cloud demand, and a better earnings outlook as the company leans deeper into artificial intelligence.
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AI Progress Drives Optimism
Much of the renewed excitement comes from Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 3, which has sparked major buzz across the industry. Developers said it outperformed its rival by 17% when writing code and handling instructions. Analysts also highlighted its strong speed and reasoning skills, and it has done very well in recent tests.
The progress has even caught the attention of OpenAI (OPAIQ) CEO Sam Altman, who recently told employees that Google may have pulled ahead for now and warned that public perception could be “rough for a bit.”
The company has also introduced an updated Tensor Processing Unit to support larger AI workloads. The chip is 30 times more power-efficient than the 2018 version, which could help Google Cloud attract more customers as demand for AI computing continues to grow.
Waymo Expansion Boosts Future Growth
Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, is also gaining attention as the robotaxi race heats up. The company plans to test its autonomous ride-hailing service in three new U.S. cities, marking another step toward broader commercial rollout. The new testing areas will help Waymo improve safety, build better maps, and gain more real-world driving data before moving to full service.
This progress also puts pressure on Tesla (TSLA) and other rivals while giving Alphabet another future revenue stream beyond ads, search, and cloud.
Google Strengthens Its Core Business
Google is working to address earlier concerns about slowing advertising growth. The company has added ads to its conversational search tool, AI Mode, which helps protect its main revenue source rather than risk losing users to new AI search rivals.
The company’s recent earnings results also reinforced this progress. In Q3, earnings per share came in at $2.87, well above the consensus estimate of $2.26. Revenue rose 16% to $102.35 billion, topping expectations of $99.94 billion. In addition, the cloud business continued to show strong momentum, growing from $11.35 billion to $15.2 billion year-over-year and beating forecasts of $14.74 billion. YouTube advertising sales also came in stronger than expected at $10.26 billion, adding another source of strength.
Is GOOGL Stock a Buy?
The stock of Alphabet has a consensus Strong Buy rating among 38 Wall Street analysts. That rating is based on 31 Buy and seven Hold recommendations issued in the last three months. The average GOOGL price target of $312.00 implies 4.12% upside from current levels.
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