Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has become the fourth business in history to reach a market value of $4 trillion, joining Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple at the very top of the corporate world.
The milestone is the latest sign of how powerful the artificial intelligence boom has become for technology stocks, even as some analysts warn that prices may be running ahead of reality.
AI hype lifts Alphabet to new heights
Alphabet’s share price has surged about 75% over the past year and is already up nearly 7% since January, driven largely by investor excitement around AI.
One of the biggest recent boosts came from Apple, which announced it would use Google’s Gemini AI model to help upgrade Siri. While the value of the deal has not been made public, it was widely seen as a strong endorsement of Google’s AI ambitions.
After OpenAI’s ChatGPT stunned the industry and briefly put Google on the defensive, the company moved quickly to catch up. Its latest system, Gemini 3, has received strong early reviews and has beaten rivals in several performance tests. Google says the model reaches 72% accuracy on a standard benchmark and is better at combining text, images and code when answering questions.
Unlike start-ups such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which rely heavily on outside funding, Google can bankroll its AI development using profits from its existing businesses — a major advantage in a costly race.
Still, competition is intensifying. OpenAI and Perplexity have launched their own web browsers, while Microsoft has embedded its Copilot assistant into Edge. The fight over how people search and use the internet is clearly entering a new phase.
Legal pressure eases, business keeps growing
Alphabet’s rise has also been helped by a key court ruling in the US last September. Regulators had pushed for tough measures over Google’s dominance in search, but a judge stopped short of ordering the company to be broken up. While Google must now share some search data with competitors, it was allowed to keep control of its Chrome browser.
That decision removed a major cloud hanging over the stock.
“Search is still the heart of Alphabet’s business, and the antitrust outcome has reduced a lot of the risk there,” said Ben Barringer, technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot.
But search is far from the whole story. YouTube, cloud computing and the self-driving unit Waymo are now major contributors too.
In its most recent earnings report, Alphabet posted stronger-than-expected revenue. Google Cloud sales jumped 34% to $15.2 billion, while YouTube advertising grew 15% to just over $10 billion.
Cloud wars and cautious optimism
The cloud business is one of Alphabet’s fastest-growing areas, though it faces tough competition from Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure.
To strengthen its position, Google has struck deals such as supplying up to one million of its custom AI chips to Anthropic. Originally built for Google’s own use, these chips are now being offered to other cloud customers, giving smaller companies access to hardware that would otherwise be out of reach.
Market analysts say Alphabet’s strength lies in its diversity.
“It’s really a sum-of-the-parts company, with several businesses leading their fields,” Barringer said. “If it can steady ad revenues and keep cloud growth strong, there’s room for further gains.”
Others urge caution. Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said Google has navigated the AI race well so far, even as fears grow that today’s tech leaders could become tomorrow’s laggards.
Alphabet may now be worth $4 trillion on paper, but its valuation assumes the AI boom will keep accelerating. If that momentum fades, investors could start asking harder questions about just how high tech stocks can climb.
