A trillion dollars and a prayer
Google's parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares fall more than 13%, wiping over $500 billion from its market value after disappointing third-quarter results raised concerns about its huge AI spending.
The company reported $111.2 billion in revenue, excluding payments to partners, falling short of expectations.
Its search advertising business, which helps pay for Google's AI projects, also recorded its slowest growth in five quarters.
Google admitted that its AI Mode search feature makes less money from advertising than regular searches, although it plans to add more ads.
Meanwhile, the company expects to spend up to $205 billion on AI infrastructure this year, more than double last year's amount.
You could hear investors screaming in the distance
Its future spending commitments for computing power, energy and data centres now exceed $1 trillion.
Google has also spent more cash than it generated for two quarters in a row, raising further concerns about its rising costs.
Google Cloud performed better than expected, bringing in $30.7 billion in revenue and $11.1 billion in profit.
However, other parts of the business struggled:
Advertising sales missed expectations, with YouTube bringing in $11.2 billion.
The company earned $2.12 per share, well below the $2.99 analysts expected.
Google continues to launch new models, including Gemini 4 and Carbon, as it competes with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Alphabet now faces growing pressure to show that its massive AI investments can bring in enough money to cover their costs.
At this rate, Gemini's next feature will be applying for a loan. -MG