Background: Alphabet is Google's parent company and one of the world's biggest tech businesses. It generates more than $350 billion in annual revenue across Google Search, YouTube, Cloud, and digital advertising. But for the past two years, investors have worried that Google Search could lose relevance as more users turn to TikTok and ChatGPT for answers.  

What happened: Alphabet's first-quarter results is pushing back on that narrative - hard. The company delivered $107 billion USD in quarterly revenue, up 19% year-on-year. To put that into perspective, that's more revenue in one quarter than the annual revenue of CommBank, ANZ, Westpac, NAB, and Macquarie combined.

What else: Google Cloud was the standout performer, with revenue jumping 48% to more than $17.6 billion USD - growing faster than both AWS and Microsoft Azure. And Google Search is still far from dead... Search revenue climbed to more than $60 billion USD. So, rather than being replaced by AI, Google may actually be benefiting from the shift.  

What's the key learning?

💡Every new technology is supposed to prompt the demise of the last one... But sometimes, it just makes the last one stronger. Instead of AI killing Google Search, it's actually boosting it.

💡For the last two years, many assumed ChatGPT would cannibalise Search. But Q1 results suggest the opposite, with search queries hitting all-time highs and Search revenue rising 19%.  That's because Google's own AI products are now inside Search.

💡With AI Overviews and Gemini now built into Google Search, every AI query can become a new Search query - and another monetisation opportunity. So, Google isn't fighting AI anymore... it's evolving with it. And based on these quarterly results, it seems like it’s working.