Pichai Defends AI Strategy as Google Delays Flagship Model, Capex Jumps to $205B
GOOG sits 76% above its 52-week low of $188.495.
Summary
CEO Sundar Pichai defended Google's AI strategy on the Q2 earnings call, addressing concerns after delaying the Gemini 3.5 Pro model. He highlighted the faster, cheaper Gemini Flash family and teased an ambitious Gemini 4 with monthly releases. Alphabet raised its capex guidance by $15 billion to as much as $205 billion, and also raised its 2026 capex outlook. The announcements came alongside a strong quarter where cloud revenue surged 82%, but shares fell over 3% after hours, extending a 9% slide since April amid executive departures and AI execution worries. The capex hike and model delay signal intensifying competition with OpenAI and Anthropic, raising the stakes for Gemini 4's launch.
At the time of this announcement, GOOG was trading at $331.91 on NASDAQ in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $4.2T. The 52-week trading range was $188.50 to $404.47. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 9 out of 10. Source: Reuters.