Alphabet on October 28, 2026 reported third-quarter 2026 results for the period ended September 30, 2026: consolidated revenue $127.6 billion (+25% year over year), with Google Cloud at $30.709 billion (+103%) and Google Services at $96.3 billion (+11%). CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now at about a half-trillion-dollar annual revenue run rate. On the earnings call, Google also said it is expanding ads inside AI Mode to international markets as Search advertising growth slowed.
Key Facts
| Metric | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|
| Total revenue | $127.577 billion (+25% YoY) |
| Google Services | $96.302 billion (+11% YoY) |
| Google Search & other | $63.350 billion |
| Google Cloud | $30.709 billion (+103% YoY) |
| Google Cloud operating income | $11.121 billion (vs $3.594 billion a year earlier) |
| Net income available to common stockholders | $26.2 billion |
| Diluted EPS | $2.12 |
| Employees (end of quarter) | 204,757 |
Pichai also said year-over-year Search query growth was the highest in five years; first-party model APIs were processing nearly 32 billion tokens per minute (more than four times a year earlier); and the Gemini app had reached one billion users.
Background
Alphabet's earnings release attributes Cloud growth to Google Cloud Platform across enterprise AI infrastructure and solutions, core GCP services, and meaningful contribution from TPU systems sales. Google Services was led by 12% growth in Google Search & other. Operating income rose 30% with an operating margin of 31.8%.
TechCrunch reported that Search advertising growth decelerated to 12% year over year in Q3 from 17% in Q2 (and 19% in Q1), and that Alphabet shares fell about 8% after the results. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said on the call that Google is scaling ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode, taking the monetization footprint global for the first time, expanding AI Mode ads into international markets, and adding multi-turn ads in AI Mode in the U.S. Schindler said click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode were already comparable to organic listings.
Reactions and Impact
The stock move after the print, as reported by TechCrunch, underscored investor focus on ad-growth deceleration even as Cloud doubled and AI usage metrics rose. Pichai framed AI features as lengthening and diversifying queries (AI Mode queries about three times longer on average than traditional searches; one in five AI Mode searches globally use voice, images, or documents; visual searches past 50 billion per month), which Google presents as the user-experience step before broader monetization of AI Search surfaces.
What We Don't Know Yet
- Exact year-over-year Search query growth rate (Pichai described it as a five-year high without a percentage)
- Revenue contribution specifically from AI Mode / AI Overviews ads versus classic Search ads
- How quickly international AI Mode ad expansion will show up in reported Search growth
- Geographic mix and capacity timeline for Cloud/TPU demand beyond qualitative comments