Search advertising business is strong, Google's Q1 revenue and net profit both exceeded expectations.

Golden Ten Data on April 25, thanks to the continued strong performance of the search advertising business, Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.O) reported that its first-quarter revenue and profit both exceeded analysts’ expectations. The company’s earnings report showed first-quarter sales of $76.5 billion, net of partner shares, compared with analysts’ average expectations of $75.4 billion. Earnings per share came in at $2.81, beating Wall Street’s expectations of $2.01, and its shares rose more than 6% in after-hours trading. Alphabet needs to ensure the momentum of its search ads and cloud business to justify its increased investment in the AI race. Competition in the industry is prompting the company and its competitors to invest heavily in infrastructure, research, and talent. While Google has benefited from AI startups’ use of its cloud services and business tools, it is also scrambling to launch products that can compete with popular conversational AI chatbots that consumers have come to see as an alternative to Google search.