25 May 2023, Berlin: Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, attends a press event to announce Google as the new official partner of the Women's National Team at Google Berlin. Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa

(Christoph Soeder/Getty Images)

AI demand grows Alphabet revenue 15% to $88.3 billion

10/29/24 6:40PM

Google parent Alphabet’s third-quarter revenue grew 15% to $88.3 billion, with strong growth in its cloud computing business powered by AI computing demand.

“The momentum across the company is extraordinary. Our commitment to innovation, as well as our long-term focus and investment in AI, are paying off with consumers and partners benefitting from out AI tools,” said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in a press release.

The AI rush helped Google Cloud generate revenues of $11.4 billion, a year-over-year increase of 35%. The company’s profit increased 37% to $2.1 billion.

Google’s Gemini AI model has been squeezed into pretty much all of its products, resulting in more than 2 billion monthly users of Gemini models.

Though not as sexy as the company’s many AI products, Google’s bread-and-butter search business was still a huge moneymaker, generating about 55% of Alphabet’s revenue, pulling in $49.4 billion, which grew 12% year over year.

YouTube’s Q3 ad revenue grew 12% to $8.9 billion. Youtube Shorts are really dominating the product, with 70 billion Shorts being watched every day, according to the company.

Google advertising revenue was $65.9 billion, a 10% increase year over year.

Google's Waymo self-driving taxi business is now logging more than 1 million autonomous miles and 150,000 paid rides per week.

Pichai took a moment to boast about its AI researchers, congratulating two Google DeepMind leaders Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for their recent shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work related to the AlphaFold2 AI tool, as well as former Google employee Geoff Hinton, who won the 2024 Nobel for Physics.

Hyunsoo Rim

appy birthday

4/1/26

Apple is turning 50 today and it doesn’t look a thing like its younger self

From Macs to iPods, iPhones, and now services, here’s how Apple’s business has looked every 10 years.

The entrance of Allbirds seen from Hayes St. in San Francisco, Calif.

Allbirds, the once buzzy multibillion-dollar sneaker startup, is selling up for $39 million

That’s less than 1% of its peak market cap about four years ago.

Tom Jones3/31/26

Max Knoblauch3/30/26

JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines

JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.

Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.

As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.

Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.

Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.

JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.