Citizens downgraded Alphabet to Market Perform from Market Outperform, citing renewed headwinds in its search business, and Google shares were down around 12% at the open following third-quarter results. Search revenue of $63.3 billion rose 12% year over year but came in 2.5% below the $65 billion consensus, and search growth slowed about 5 points from the second quarter even as query growth hit a five-year high. Alphabet attributed the slowdown mainly to currency effects and weaker retail and media spending, but analyst Andrew Boone said the bigger concern is that AI Mode monetizes at a lower rate than traditional search as some valuable queries shift to AI chatbots. Boone remains positive on Cloud, which grew 103%, but views search as the better business driving Google's premium multiple, so he sees risk/reward as balanced at current levels, and noted that potential cost cuts could boost EPS.
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GOOGLartificial intelligencecloud computingearnings
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Related tickers and likely impact
GOOGL
▼ Likely negativeAlphabet Inc. (Class A)
Relevance: medium
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $4.0T |
| Close on 10/28/2026 | 325.61 |
| Change that session | +1.57% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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