Alphabet reaches the $4 trillion club: Can it keep up the pace?

Expectations around artificial intelligence have sent tech valuations to record highs over the past year. Eager to ride the wave of digital innovation, investors have been pouring money into firms close to the action, hopeful for high returns. Despite warnings of overvaluations — even coming from Google’s CEO himself — Silicon Valley’s star players continue to see their market caps rise. On Monday, Alphabet joined giants Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple when it surpassed the $4 trillion valuation mark for the first time. This makes it the world’s second-most valuable company, after chipmaker Nvidia.

Multiple factors contributed to Alphabet’s recent rise, with its stock having jumped around 75% over the past year — and nearly 7% since the start of January. A notable boost came from Apple’s decision to use Google’s Gemini AI model as part of an upgrade to its digital assistant Siri. The value of the deal, announced on Monday, hasn’t been disclosed. But the news amounts to a vote of confidence in Google’s ability to compete in the new realm of AI.

After the initial success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sent jitters through Google, the established firm doubled down on its innovation efforts, launching its Gemini 3 model to stellar reviews. “I expect the vibes out there to be rough for a bit,” said OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman following the launch. Although Google missed out on the “big break” for chatbots, Gemini 3 has outperformed rivals on several benchmarks. In a press briefing last winter, Google said the information offered up by Gemini 3 was 72% accurate, according to a standard benchmark test. Compared to the company’s previous models, Gemini 3 can more fluidly mix graphics and text when responding to user queries, and its coding abilities have been upgraded.

Google’s funding model equally gives it an advantage over unprofitable, start-up competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic, which have to constantly raise new funding to survive. Even so, while Google has incorporated “AI mode” into its search engine — resembling a chatbot model, OpenAI and Perplexity have both launched their own web browsers in recent months. Joining the fray, Microsoft has also added its Copilot AI tool to its Edge browser, highlighting how the battle for the internet is heating up.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, told Euronews that Google is expertly handling the competition, despite “concerns that many of the last decade’s disrupters might become this decade’s disrupted”. “Alphabet is consistently making smart innovations which should keep them relevant for years to come, even as it steers out of its own well-trodden lane,” she said.