Tuesday, 14 May 2024
by BD Banks
The market is up today, but Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) shares traded as much as 2.8% lower in early trading, cutting more than $50 billion off the company’s valuation. The stock recovered slightly but it was still down 2% at 11 a.m. ET.
Artificial intelligence (AI) rival OpenAI is holding an event at 1 p.m. ET today and is expected to release a new product. But it’s not clear what that product will be after CEO Sam Altman tweeted late last week that it wouldn’t be a search engine.
OpenAI and its partner Microsoft have been working to disrupt Google search for years with little success. And with Microsoft now launching services with other AI models, OpenAI needs to find a way to engage both developers and users on its terms. We will see what they introduce, but the market is thinking right now that it won’t be good for Google.
Since ChatGPT was introduced, Google’s market share hasn’t moved and search revenue is growing again. So, there’s no evidence in the numbers that OpenAI will take a bite out of Alphabet’s cash cow, but the market is still concerned and that’s why you see this reaction.
We can’t overlook that Alphabet has also built an AI juggernaut through Google Cloud and Deepmind, which is developing some of the leading AI models and use cases today. Until there is evidence that OpenAI or someone else is eating into search, I see AI as more of an opportunity than a threat to Google and Alphabet, which is why this weakness is a buying opportunity.
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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Travis Hoium has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.