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AI is hugely important to Google’s products, and it sounds like the company relies on it internally, too.
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Illustration: The Verge
Google is building a bunch of AI products, and it’s using AI quite a bit as part of building those products, too. “More than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers,” CEO Sundar Pichai said on the company’s third quarter 2024 earnings call. It’s a big milestone that marks just how important AI is to the company.
AI is helping Google make money as well. Alphabet reported $88.3 billion in revenue for the quarter, with Google Services (which includes Search) revenue of $76.5 billion, up 13 percent year-over-year, and Google Cloud (which includes its AI infrastructure products for other companies) revenue of $11.4 billion, up 35 percent year-over-year.
Operating incomes were also strong. Google Services hit $30.9 billion, up from $23.9 billion last year, and Google Cloud hit $1.95 billion, significantly up from last year’s $270 million.
The results indicate that, while many people feel Google isn’t as reliable as it once was, the company continues to operate a very strong business. AI is a huge focus across Google, with the release of features like custom AI chatbots powered by Gemini (called “Gems”), automatic AI note-taking in Google Meet, and a bunch of generative AI tools to help YouTube creators. Google’s well-reviewed Pixel 9 lineup of smartphones were also packed with AI tools.
“In Search, our new AI features are expanding what people can search for and how they search for it,” CEO Sundar Pichai says in a statement. “In Cloud, our AI solutions are helping drive deeper product adoption with existing customers, attract new customers and win larger deals. And YouTube’s total ads and subscription revenues surpassed $50 billion over the past four quarters for the first time.”
Google is facing a potentially tough road ahead, however, following the August ruling that the company is a monopolist in the search and advertising markets. That case, brought by the US Department of Justice, is now in its remedies phase, and while there’s still a ways to go for the dust to settle, a Google breakup is on the table.