Research archive for GOOG

Would you pay for search? Google is considering charging money for its AI-powered search engine. Historically the service has been subsidised by advertising but because the back-end AI expertise is proving to be quite expensive, Google thinks a paywall might be the answer.

Google parent Alphabet is reportedly contemplating acquiring online marketing software company Hubspot. Hubspot is currently valued at $34 billion, such a move would mark Google's largest acquisition to date, far surpassing its previous purchases of Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2011 and cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion in 2022.

During the recent Google results coverage, I mentioned how AI is helping advertisers improve their conversion rates. Two weeks ago, Google announced the expansion of Gemini (their most capable AI model) into Google Ads. Beta access is now available in the US and UK and will be rolled out to global English-language advertisers over the coming weeks.

On Tuesday night Google released Q4 earnings. Revenues were up by 13%, its fastest sales growth since early 2022. Earnings also came in ahead of consensus due to better margins, while shares in issue declined by 2.5% year over year thanks to share buybacks. This business is in fantastic financial shape. They have net cash of $100bn and quarterly free cash flow of around $18bn. Lovely.

Google recently introduced a cool new product called Circle to Search. It is an AI-powered feature on touchscreen phones whereby you can circle an image, and it will search that picture for you via Google. So for example, if you see a pair of shoes you like on Instagram, you can simply circle them using your finger on your phone and it will direct you to the site where you can buy them.

As mentioned above, Google released a new AI program called Gemini. This is Google's answer to Open AI's ChatGPT (OpenAI is basically part of Microsoft now). According to Google, Gemini is ahead of ChatGPT in many areas. Early reviews by industry experts suggest that they have similar capabilities, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses. Not surprisingly, Google's version will be more powerful when it comes to search-related tasks.

Google (also known as Alphabet) reported numbers on Tuesday night. They posted solid revenue and profit numbers but frustratingly, the share price dropped. The problem was that cloud computing only grew by 22%, instead of the 30% mark that analysts had been expecting.

Yesterday, I wrote about Google and their fight with the US Department of Justice. Today I'm looking at the amazing power of Google search. This post on their in-house blog has the title 'Think with Google', and I was struck by how easily they can monetise their user data.

Google is currently in a battle with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) about default search slots. We have mentioned this in the newsletter before but here's a brief reminder of what's at stake. Basically, Google pays Apple over $10 billion a year to make Google search the default on Safari. So when you type in a word on your iPhone browser it automatically uses Google search.

When Google (aka. Alphabet) released its latest results, a lot was said about the strong advertising revenues at YouTube. The numbers coming from the video-sharing platform were just staggering.

Google reported earnings on Tuesday evening which pleased the market. The share price closed up a handsome 5.8% on Wednesday. Revenues came in better than expected, especially from YouTube and Search. Their Cloud business is also showing good form, growing 27% to $8 billion in sales for the quarter.

Selling clothes online is challenging because the customer can't try on the garments, to check the look and fit. Well, Google have created a virtual try-on feature using artificial intelligence image creation. Here is an extract from the Google blog that explains the service.

Alphabet Inc, also known as Google, reported better-than-expected first-quarter results last week with ad revenues of $58.07 billion, beating analysts' estimates of $56.98 billion. Total revenue came in at $69.8 billion, up 2.6% year-on-year.

With one tweet, Google managed to wipe about $100 billion off its market cap. On Tuesday night, the company tweeted a promotional video of their AI competitor Bard answering a question on interesting facts about the James Webb Space Telescope. Unfortunately, not all the facts given by Bard were accurate. It incorrectly said that JWST was the first to capture an image of a planet outside of our solar system. Hmm, I wonder why someone at Google didn't fact-check such an important announcement.

Yesterday I wrote that Google will launch a competitor to Microsoft's ChatGPT in the coming months. It turns out that the launch date is now. Google's version is called 'Bard', and is only accessible to a select few trusted users, while it does some more testing. The plan is to release it to the public in the next few weeks.