Google's transition into the era of artificial intelligence continued to pay off for its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., which on Wednesday announced another quarter of the stellar growth that helped to more than double its already lofty market value during the past year. Alphabet earned $62.6 billion, or $5.11 per share, during the January-March period, an 81% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 22% from last year to $109.9 billion. Both numbers easily surpassed the analyst projections that steer investors. Alphabet's stock price rose by more than 6% in extended trading, putting the shares on trajectory toward a new peak in Thursday's regular trading.
Apple will lean on Google to help finish its bungled attempts to smarten up its virtual assistant Siri and bring other artificial intelligence features to the iPhone as the trendsetting company plays catch up in technology's latest craze. The deal that allowing Apple to tap into Google's AI technology was disclosed Monday in a joint statement from the Silicon Valley powerhouses. The partnership will draw upon Google's Gemini technology to customize a suite of AI features dubbed "Apple Intelligence" on the iPhone and other products. Apple announced plans to use AI to turn Siri into a more conversational and versatile multitasker in 2024, but that promise remains unfulfilled.
Google's digital ad sales continued to grow at a healthy clip during the holiday season, but that wasn't enough to offset investors' worries about whether its big bet on artificial intelligence will be as lucrative as once envisioned. The October-December results released Tuesday by Google parent Alphabet Inc. showed the company is continuing to reap even more profits from its dominant search engine and other peripheral services. Alphabet's profit climbed 28% from the previous year to $26.5 billion to eclipse analyst projections, but revenue fell slightly below forecasts. More importantly, revenue growth in the Google Cloud division tethered to the AI craze wasn't as robust as had been anticipated.
