Google is putting the alpha in Alphabet

Investors are going gaga for Google. Shares of Alphabet, the search giant’s parent company, are up nearly 77% over the past six months. And, on Friday, Alphabet passed Microsoft to become the third-most valuable US company by market cap (take that, Mico), days after launching its newest AI model, Gemini 3, last Tuesday.

Beyond doodling

Gemini 3 vaulted over its competitors in the AI chatbot race, surpassing ChatGPT and other models in industry benchmark tests. Then, on Thursday, Google launched an updated version of its image-generation tool, Nano Banana Pro, which VP of Google Labs and Gemini Josh Woodward told CNBC is “incredible at infographics” (it also makes slide decks).

It’s a long way from 2022, when investors were concerned that Google was falling behind in the AI race.

This Alphabet is bigger than A and I

Last quarter, Alphabet’s cloud revenue jumped 32%, and its search revenue grew 15% year over year. As if that wasn’t enough, its video-sharing platform, YouTube,…