By Michael Lietke
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Google’s acceleration into artificial intelligence helps drive corporate parents to another quarter of solid growth, in which the crackdown on the Internet empire looms in the background.
The results released on Wednesday from April to June provide the latest indication that Google is skillfully navigating the slant of the technological landscape towards AI, taking advantage of the sophisticated technology that has become the Internet’s main gateway for the past quarter century.
That balance method saw Google Parent Alphabet Inc. win $28.2 billion in the second quarter, or $2.31 per share, up 19% from last year. Revenue rose 14% to $96.4 billion over a year ago. Both numbers easily overturned analysts’ predictions.
“We had an outstanding quarter, and we had solid growth across the company,” says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet. “We are leading the AI frontier and shipping at an incredible pace. AI has a positive impact on every part of our business and drives strong momentum.”
The figures were initially hidden by the disclosure that Alphabet has increased its capital spending budget this year from $10 billion to $85 billion as part of an effort to intensify with AI startups such as Openai’s ChatGpt and confusion. In addition to these threats, federal judges who declared Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly are considering a variety of measures, including requiring the sale of popular Chrome browsers. Alphabet’s shares fell 1% in extended trading after the quarterly report was released.
After initially soaking down following disclosures about AI’s rising costs, Alphabet’s share price rose more than 1% in extended trading.
This performance covered stretches that Google aimed to bring more AI technology to search engines to maintain its advantage, including the May release of its own version of the conversation answer engine called AI mode.
This addition complemented over a year of use of the extensive summary, which Google calls its frequent highlighting, while reducing the number of traditional links to other websites, while also frequently highlighting at the top of the current results page.
Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, analyzing search trends, said the shakeup has further increased the interaction between Google’s search engine and stable revenue growth, supporting Alphabet’s $2.3 trillion market value.
Google’s search-driven ad revenue totaled $54.2 billion in the past quarter, up 12% from the same period last year.
“All of this AI is not slowing Google down, so they do a very good job of evolving with the times,” Yu said.
AI Boom is also increasing demand in Google’s cloud sector, which sells computing power and other services. Google Cloud has thrived in the past quarter, up 32% from a year ago to $13.6 billion. The sector is under pressure from investors to bring about strong growth to justify Google’s huge investment in AI technology.
Original issue: July 23, 2025, 5:34pm EDT
