Alphabet reports first $100B quarter as it turns its massive AI infrastructure bets into revenue

Financial Performance - Alphabet's first $100 billion quarter with acceleration across every major business line [1] - Search up 14%, YouTube ads rose 15%, and Google Cloud jumped 34% year-over-year [2] - Stock up 38% over Q3, its biggest gain in 20 years [8] - Stock up 52% year-to-date, now approaching a $3.5 trillion market value [9] AI Strategy and Growth - CEO Sundar Pachai credited the beat to Alphabet's full stack AI strategy [2] - AI mode now has 75 million daily active users in the US with usage doubling over the quarter [3] - Gemini has 650 million monthly active users [3] - Google is testing ads inside AI mode [3] Cloud Business - Google Cloud's backlog surged to $155 billion, up nearly 80% from a year ago [3][4] - The number of billion-dollar cloud deals this year already exceeds the past two years combined [4] - Newly announced contract with Anthropic worth tens of billions of dollars [4] - Big wins with Meta, OpenAI, and others continue to validate Google's custom silicon approach [5] Capital Expenditure - Google is raising its full-year capex guidance to as much as $93 billion [5] - CFO flagging an even bigger step up coming in 2026 [5] - Alphabet Capex now $91 to $93 billion in 2025 and a significant increase next year [6]