Google and Alphabet
Google is an American search engine company founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, now a subsidiary of [[Alphabet Inc.]] — a holding company formed in 2015 as a strategic restructuring of the business[^i1][^i2]. Google handles more than 70% of worldwide online search requests and its properties include Google Search and YouTube, the two most-visited websites worldwide[^i11][^i4]. As of May 2026, the company had a market cap of $4.81 trillion and annual revenue of $422.50 billion[^i7]. Revenue grew from $220,000 in 1999 to over $422 billion by 2026[^i6].
Alphabet was created to allow founders Page and Brin to pursue innovation across health care, entertainment, transportation, venture capital, and artificial intelligence. Under Alphabet's structure, [[Google]] operates as the largest subsidiary alongside ventures such as [[Waymo]], Calico, Nest, CapitalG, and DeepMind. Alphabet's three reporting segments are Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets[^i10]. Advertising remains the primary revenue source: by 2023, Alphabet generated $175 billion from advertising tied to user search requests[^i8].
In Q1 2026, Alphabet reported record revenue of $109.9 billion (up 22%) with net income surging 81% to $62.6 billion, driven by AI-powered growth across Search and Cloud[^i12]. GenAI model revenue within Google Cloud grew approximately 800% year-over-year[^i19]. [[Google Cloud]] revenue crossed $20 billion for the first time, and nearly 75% of Google Cloud customers were using AI products[^i15]. The company completed its largest acquisition ever — the $32 billion purchase of cloud security firm Wiz[^i13] — and invested $35.7 billion in capital expenditure for the quarter, primarily in AI infrastructure.
Both companies have faced significant antitrust actions. In August 2024, a U.S. district court found Google had an illegal monopoly over internet search[^i5]. The court ultimately imposed behavioral remedies rather than a structural breakup, including a "Choice Screen" requirement for competing search engines[^i14]. On May 8, 2026, Judge Amit Mehta rejected Google's motion to pause the data-sharing remedy while its appeal proceeds[^i24]. In late May, Google filed a formal appeal arguing its market position came from "better technology, larger investments, and hard work"[^i28]. Alphabet also pursued an aggressive AI pricing strategy at Google I/O 2026, with Gemini nearly quadrupling its market share to approximately 27% while ChatGPT's share fell[^i27]. Google I/O 2026 took place on May 19, with Pichai announcing that the Gemini app had reached 900 million monthly active users and that Google processes 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month[^i23]. The conference centered on agentic AI, with the launch of Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini Spark — a 24/7 personal AI agent — and Gemini Omni, a world model for video generation. At the same event, Google unveiled the biggest redesign of Google Search in over 25 years[^i26], introducing an intelligent expandable search box with multimodal input, persistent information agents that monitor the web around the clock, and generative UI capabilities. Google also signed a major contract with the Pentagon to deploy [[Gemini]] AI on classified military networks for any lawful purpose, drawing opposition from nearly 600 employees[^i22]. Blackstone committed $5 billion in equity to a new AI cloud venture alongside Google Cloud built around TPU chips[^i25]. Google pursued orbital data centers through Project Suncatcher, entering discussions with SpaceX for launch services[^i20], and launched REPLIQA, a $10 million quantum biology research initiative described as foundational work that "will not see results overnight"[^i30]. Google DeepMind's Aletheia research agent solved four open problems from the Erdős Conjecture database[^i16]. Google Cloud launched AI-powered security tools[^i17], YouTube introduced conversational search and deepfake protection, and Waymo — after expanding to ten cities — suspended freeway operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami and paused its Atlanta service, citing the need for software updates after flooding incidents[^i29].