Google has spent the previous 12 months coping with two of the biggest threats in its 25-year history: the rise of generative AI and the rising drumbeat of regulation. AI, particularly, has shaken the corporate to its core: it’s made big search changes, realigned the Search, Android, and hardware teams round AI, and launched its personal Gemini AI model to capitalize on the chance.
Google execs reduce initiatives and laid off employees to refocus, and yesterday, it introduced its first-ever dividend and a $70 billion share buyback alongside its Q1 2024 earnings.
Traders, at the very least, are consuming it up: Google dad or mum firm Alphabet has lastly formally hit and maintained a $2 trillion market cap for a complete day of buying and selling after briefly touching $2 trillion in November 2021. Google is the fourth most useful public firm on this planet, behind Nvidia ($2.2 trillion), Apple ($2.6 trillion), and Microsoft ($3.0 trillion). Amazon is presently at $1.8 trillion, and Meta is at $1.1 trillion.
In contrast to Meta, whose inventory worth fell 10 % after Mark Zuckerberg said it would take years to make money in “massive” bets on generative AI, Google stated yesterday that it’s already discovering some small methods to promote it — for instance, it’s serving to advertisers goal individuals with AI in its Efficiency Max device and that these advertisers are “63 % extra more likely to publish a marketing campaign with good or glorious advert energy.”
The corporate additionally says Uncover Monetary is rolling out AI instruments to just about 10,000 name heart brokers and that Ikea is seeing a rise in a single type of income from “value-based bidding options.” And whereas it’s not but speaking about monetizing AI solutions in Google Search, CEO Sundar Pichai stated, “…we’re very assured we are able to handle the price of methods to serve these queries.”
For now, Google says it doesn’t wish to disrupt search an excessive amount of: “We’re being measured in how we do that, specializing in areas the place Gen AI can enhance the search expertise whereas additionally prioritizing site visitors to web sites and retailers,” stated Pichai.
Google’s present companies appear to be doing simply advantageous, too: the corporate made $23.7 billion in revenue on $80.5 billion in income, based on the Q1 2024 earnings report it launched yesterday. Not solely is that 15 % extra income 12 months over 12 months — it’s 14 % extra revenue than it made throughout the vacation quarter when search and advert income have been each a bit greater.
And whereas Google may have cut a thousand-plus employees to assist enhance these income, it appears layoffs might have slowed or paused. We reported last quarter that Google spent $700 million on layoffs in January alone, and but, the brand new Q1 report reveals Google solely spent $716 million on “severance and associated fees” throughout January, February, and March.
Q1 search and promoting income have been every up 14 % 12 months over 12 months, YouTube advertisements have been up practically 21 %, and “subscriptions, platforms, and units” have been up 18 % 12 months over 12 months — largely attributable to premium YouTube subscriptions, stated Google chief enterprise officer Philipp Schindler (so not essentially Pixel 8 gross sales).
Google stated it’s enhancing its capacity to challenge TikTok and Instagram Reels, too, with Schindler speaking about how 50 % extra creators are importing YouTube Shorts shortform movies and the way the monetization price of Shorts has elevated 12 % over the past quarter alone.
Google will host its developer convention, Google I/O, on May 14th.