Alphabet's AI Leadership Drives 34% Revenue Growth in Cloud Computing

Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst

GOOGL-0.27%

GOOG-0.24%

BROS-1.32%

Source: Fool

Updated: 2h ago

0mins

Source: Fool

AI Leadership: Alphabet solidifies its position as an AI leader by controlling the entire AI stack and developing its proprietary Gemini large language model, which enables the company to generate more revenue streams.
Cloud Computing Growth: Google Cloud's revenue and operating income soared by 34% and 85%, respectively, showcasing the company's robust performance in the cloud computing market and enhancing its competitive edge.
Digital Advertising Strength: Alphabet continues to perform strongly in the digital advertising space, with AI integration boosting search queries and ad revenue, ensuring sustained growth in the advertising market.
Expansion Opportunities: The company's investments in emerging fields like robotaxis (Waymo) and quantum computing indicate a strategic positioning for future growth potential, further solidifying its status as a top growth stock.

GOOGL

$313+Infinity%1D

Analyst Views on GOOGL

Wall Street analysts forecast GOOGL stock price to fall over the next 12 months. According to Wall Street analysts, the average 1-year price target for GOOGL is 312.00 USD with a low forecast of 236.00 USD and a high forecast of 350.00 USD. However, analyst price targets are subjective and often lag stock prices, so investors should focus on the objective reasons behind analyst rating changes, which better reflect the company's fundamentals.

38 Analyst Rating

31 Buy

7 Hold

0 Sell

Strong Buy

Current: 313.850

Low

236.00

Averages

312.00

High

350.00

Current: 313.850

Low

236.00

Averages

312.00

High

350.00

Citizens

Outperform

maintain

$340 -> $385

2025-12-31

New

Reason

Citizens

Price Target

$340 -> $385

2025-12-31

New

maintain

Outperform

Reason

Citizens raised the firm's price target on Alphabet (GOOGL) to $385 from $340 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm reevaluated its estimates and Alphabet's valuation framework with the shares more than doubling off the May lows. It cites strength in the company's search business for the target boost. Google can further accelerate search revenue in Q4, which is the key question for shares near term, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Citizens views Gemini, cloud, Waymo, and tensor processing units as medium-term catalyst for Alphabet that should "help to inflect results" in 2026 and 2027.

Needham

Buy

maintain

$300

2025-12-23

Reason

Needham

Price Target

$300

2025-12-23

maintain

Buy

Reason

Needham keeps a Buy rating and $300 price target on Reddit (RDDT) but names the stock its 2026 Top Pick and adds it to the firm's "Conviction Buy" list, replacing Roku (ROKU). The firm is positive on the company having 100% human-created content, which optimizes trust, authenticity, and value to LLMs, the analyst tells investors in a research note, further stating that Reddit is already generating over $100M per year in fees from OpenAI and Google's (GOOGL) Gemini, and this "could double" with Anthropic and Perplexity fees. Needham also notes that Reddit is the fastest growing company in its coverage, while its Performance Ads give the company "full-funnel ad solutions" and a larger share of ad budgets.

Roth Capital

Buy

maintain

$60

2025-12-23

Reason

Roth Capital

Price Target

$60

2025-12-23

maintain

Buy

Reason

Roth Capital keeps a Buy rating and $60 price target on Hut 8 (HUT). The company has signed one of the more favorable high-performance-compute lease agreements announced, with 245MW capacity to Fluidstack valued at $7B and 97% operating margins, including a full backstop from Google (GOOGL), and its improved economics and backstop have positioned Hut 8 to secure more favorable project financing term, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Combined with construction partners and Fluidstack's optionality on behalf of Anthropic, this enables Hut 8 to scale its power portfolio to more than 2GW, the firm added.

Citi

Buy

maintain

$343 -> $350

2025-12-22

Reason

Citi

Price Target

$343 -> $350

2025-12-22

maintain

Buy

Reason

Citi raised the firm's price target on Alphabet (GOOGL) to $350 from $343 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares as part of its 2026 outlook for the North America internet group. The firm says Alphabet's "industry leading" artificial intelligence tools should drive search revenue growth and accelerating cloud sales. Alphabet is a top pick for Citi entering 2026.

About GOOGL

Alphabet Inc. is a holding company. The Company's segments include Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets. The Google Services segment includes products and services such as ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Google Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. The Google Cloud segment includes infrastructure and platform services, collaboration tools, and other services for enterprise customers. Its Other Bets segment is engaged in the sale of healthcare-related services and Internet services. Its Google Cloud provides enterprise-ready cloud services, including Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace. Google Cloud Platform provides access to solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI) offerings, including its AI infrastructure, Vertex AI platform, and Gemini for Google Cloud; cybersecurity, and data and analytics. Google Workspace includes cloud-based communication and collaboration tools for enterprises, such as Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Meet.

About the author

Emily J. Thompson

Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.