Alphabet Inc.
Alphabet Inc. offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. It is also involved in the sale of apps and in-app purchases and digital content in Google Play and YouTube; and devices, as well as the provision of YouTube consumer subscription services, such as YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium, NFL Sunday Ticket, and Google One. The Google Cloud segment offers consumption-based fees and subscriptions for AI solutions, including AI infrastructure, Vertex AI platform, and Gemini enterprise. It also provides cybersecurity, and data and analytics services; Google Workspace that include cloud-based communication and collaboration tools for enterprises, such as Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Meet; and other enterprise services. The Other Bets segment sells transportation and internet services. Alphabet Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
What does it do?
Alphabet is the parent company of Google — the search engine that roughly 9 out of 10 people on Earth use to look things up online. When you watch a YouTube video, use Google Maps to navigate, or ask Google Assistant a question, you're using Alphabet's products. The company also runs Google Cloud, which rents computing power to businesses, and has a collection of experimental projects it calls 'Other Bets' — things like Waymo, its self-driving car company. Think of Alphabet as the landlord of the internet: almost everyone passes through its properties every single day.
Alphabet is the third-largest company in the world by market value at $4.4 trillion, which means what happens to it moves the entire stock market. Right now, investors are watching it closely because artificial intelligence is threatening to reshape internet search — the golden goose that funds everything else — and Alphabet is simultaneously the most at risk and one of the best-positioned companies to handle that shift. Its next move in the AI race could define the internet for the next decade.
How does it make money?
Alphabet made $402.8 billion in revenue last year, up from $350 billion the year before — a 15% increase. The vast majority comes from advertising: every time you search on Google or watch a video on YouTube and see an ad, Alphabet gets paid. Google Cloud is the fast-growing second engine, selling businesses access to servers, storage, and AI tools in competition with Amazon and Microsoft. A small slice comes from the Google Play app store, hardware like Pixel phones, and the long-shot bets like Waymo.
Why do investors care?
The core story is that Alphabet sits at the centre of two massive, compounding trends: digital advertising continues to grow globally, and businesses are pouring money into cloud computing and AI tools. Google Cloud is growing faster than the overall company and becoming a serious profit generator — that matters because it reduces Alphabet's reliance on ads. The big question investors are betting on is whether Alphabet's AI — especially its Gemini model woven into Search — keeps users loyal or whether a rival like ChatGPT chips away at Google's stranglehold on how people find information.
Deep Dive
MemberA full investor briefing on Alphabet Inc. — history, leadership, risks, and outlook.