On Wednesday, Google unveiled AI features on its new Pixel 10 that — if they work as advertised — put those on Apple’s last iPhone to shame. However, as far as US market share goes, for now Apple’s iPhone is far and away a more popular phone than Google’s Pixel. Apple made up nearly half — 49% — of all US smartphone shipments last quarter, according to data from Canalys, compared with about 3% for Google.
Alphabet’s 2015 investment in SpaceX is about to pay off handsomely with the company’s hotly anticipated IPO later this year, which is expected to be the largest in history.
Bloomberg reports that according to new financial filings, Alphabet’s investment could be worth up to $100 billion.
Google invested in SpaceX in 2015 when it, along with Fidelity, invested $1 billion in a round that valued SpaceX at $10 billion. At the end of 2025, Google owned just over 6% of SpaceX, according to Bloomberg's reporting on the more recent filings. That stake has likely been diluted due to SpaceX's merger with xAI.
Barclays says autonomous couriers — think sidewalk robots and drones — could push delivery costs down to as little as $1 per order, from between $5 and $7 today and closer to $9 for traditional deliveries in high-labor-cost markets. If robots save $4 on every delivery, and enough companies start using them, the food delivery industry, including companies like DoorDash and Uber, could end up with $16 billion in extra profit every year, according to Barclays.
The catch: we’re nowhere near that world yet. Robots and drones handle less than 1% of deliveries today. Even by 2035, Barclays only sees penetration hitting around 10%.
Google’s Wing and Amazon have also been trying to crack last-mile product delivery — a reminder that this is part of a broader race to automate the most expensive leg of e-commerce.
Uber has long had an asset-light business model: it provided the ride-hailing platform, and its contract workers brought their own vehicles. That’s changing as Uber positions itself at the center of the robotaxi era.
The Financial Times estimates that Uber has committed more than $10 billion to buying robotaxi fleets ($7.5 billion) and investing in the companies that make them ($2.5 billion). That includes yesterday’s announcement that it’s expanding its investment in Lucid, a deal worth about $2 billion, with plans to buy 35,000 vehicles.
This shift pits Uber against industry leaders like Google’s Waymo and Tesla, whose models involve company-owned vehicles running on proprietary platforms. While these autonomous fleets eliminate the need for drivers, they introduce new capital-intensive requirements for charging, cleaning, storage, and repair.
