Alphabet earnings: Google beats expectations, bets big on AI

Wall Street came into Wednesday looking for earnings proof that Google can grow in the AI era without breaking its own margins. After the bell, its parent company Alphabet obliged — Search rose, Cloud surged, profits followed. And then — almost as if the company didn’t trust the market to stay focused — Google handed investors a number so large it hijacked the conversation within minutes: a 2026 capital spending plan that reads like a geopolitical project. The market wasn’t sure what to do with that: Sha ...