Alphabet stock has become the centerpiece of the artificial intelligence (AI) story in late 2025. On December 11, 2025, multiple fresh headlines and analyst notes converged on the same idea: Google’s parent company isn’t just surviving the AI revolution — it’s aggressively trying to own it.
From being named the AI stock on investors’ holiday lists, to new leadership for a $90+ billion infrastructure build‑out, to rival OpenAI declaring its own internal “code red,” Alphabet has moved to the heart of the AI arms race. [1]
Below is a deep, SEO-friendly breakdown of what’s happening with Alphabet right now, how Nvidia fits into the picture, and what it may all mean for growth investors heading into 2026.
Alphabet: The AI Stock on Every Investor’s Holiday List
A new cross‑posted article on December 10 titled “1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock That Should Be on Every Investor’s Holiday List” singles out Alphabet as the go‑to AI pick for 2026 and beyond. [2]
The core thesis:
- Alphabet’s AI investments are now driving the whole business. Revenue growth re‑accelerated in 2025, helped by AI‑enhanced Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud. In the third quarter, Alphabet’s overall revenue grew in the mid‑teens year over year, with AI‑heavy segments leading the charge. [3]
- The stock has surged ~70% in 2025 but is still seen as “reasonably valued.” Despite a huge run, the article argues that Alphabet’s forward price‑to‑earnings multiple (around the high‑20s) remains acceptable given its growth, margins, and balance sheet strength. [4]
- AI monetization is spreading across consumer and enterprise markets. Google is layering Gemini into Search via AI Overviews, enhancing ad products, and pushing AI deeper into Google Cloud and Workspace, giving it multiple ways to turn AI breakthroughs into revenue. [5]
The key message: Alphabet isn’t just dabbling in AI; it’s integrating AI into nearly everything it sells — and doing so from a position of massive scale.
This Growth Stock Keeps Crushing the Market
Another widely syndicated piece, “This Growth Stock Continues to Crush the Market,” zooms out to look at Alphabet’s long‑term performance — and the numbers are stunning. [6]
Highlights from that analysis:
- Nearly 19% annualized returns over two decades. Alphabet has compounded shareholder value at close to 19% per year over the last 20 years — a pace that utterly dwarfs the broader market. [7]
- 2025 has been even better. The stock is up about 67%–70% year to date, versus roughly 16.5% for the S&P 500, as investors reward Alphabet’s aggressive AI strategy. [8]
- Regulatory overhang has eased. A major court decision earlier this year ruled that Alphabet would not have to spin off Chrome to address antitrust concerns. Instead, regulators imposed limits on certain contracts and forced more data sharing, removing a “break‑up Google” tail risk while still tightening oversight. [9]
On the operations side, that same article underscores just how much AI is already embedded in Alphabet’s core:
- AI Overviews in Search. Google has integrated its Gemini large language model (LLM) directly into Search through AI Overviews. So far, management says monetization trends remain healthy — and Search & Other revenue rose 15% year over year to $56.6 billion in Q3, even as AI experiences rolled out to more users. [10]
- AI MAX for advertisers. New tools like AI MAX let advertisers hand more campaign control to Google’s AI, unlocking potentially billions of incremental search queries and more relevant ad placements. [11]
- A full‑stack AI strategy. Alphabet isn’t just using AI software; it’s vertically integrated across data centers, proprietary Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and its own LLMs, then layers those into Google Cloud, Workspace, and beyond. [12]
In short, the “growth stock that keeps crushing the market” label is being driven by real numbers, not just narrative.
Inside Alphabet’s Record‑Breaking AI Earnings
A separate deep‑dive titled “Alphabet: ‘Code Red’ Is Why I Am Going All‑In at the Top” focuses on the company’s record Q3 2025 results. [13]
Key data points from that analysis:
- Quarterly revenue above $100 billion. Alphabet crossed the symbolic $100B quarterly revenue mark for the first time, with earnings growing about 35% year over year — a remarkable acceleration for a company already at mega‑cap scale. [14]
- Cloud momentum is explosive. Google Cloud revenue jumped 34% year over year to $15.2 billion in Q3. Cloud’s backlog climbed to about $155 billion, up roughly 82% from the prior year, as large AI‑driven deals accelerate. [15]
- Capex is going through the roof. Management raised 2025 capital expenditure guidance to $91–93 billion, with the lion’s share earmarked for AI data centers and infrastructure to power Gemini and future models. [16]
- Valuation still seen as reasonable. That article pegs Alphabet at about 28x forward earnings, arguing this is a “competitive” multiple for a business with double‑digit growth, massive operating margins, and a fortress balance sheet. [17]
The author’s conclusion is blunt: Alphabet’s AI‑driven growth, combined with what they see as a still‑sensible multiple, justifies going “all‑in” — though, of course, any such aggressive positioning carries significant risk.
December 11, 2025: Alphabet Names Its AI Infrastructure General
While analysts were busy praising Alphabet’s fundamentals, fresh news dropped today that directly affects its AI roadmap.
Two separate reports — one from Seeking Alpha and a more detailed piece from Benzinga — confirm that Google has promoted Amin Vahdat, a veteran engineering leader, to oversee its AI infrastructure strategy. [18]
From today’s coverage:
- Vahdat becomes chief technologist for AI infrastructure and joins a tight inner circle of about 15–20 executives who report directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. [19]
- Google expects to spend over $90 billion in capital expenditures by the end of 2025, with most of that going toward the AI infrastructure Vahdat will now lead — data centers, TPU clusters, networking, and cooling required to run models like Gemini 3 at scale. [20]
- Vahdat has already played a major role in redesigning Google’s Jupiter data‑center network, lowering the cost of serving core products like Search, YouTube, and Cloud — experience that’s likely critical as AI workloads explode. [21]
This appointment sends a clear signal: Alphabet isn’t slowing down AI investments just because the stock is near a 52‑week high. If anything, it’s doubling down.
OpenAI’s ‘Code Red’ Highlights How Much the Landscape Has Shifted
The phrase “code red” in that Seeking Alpha headline isn’t random. It’s a direct echo of OpenAI’s own internal reaction to Google’s progress.
On December 2, 2025, The Guardian reported that CEO Sam Altman had declared a “code red” inside OpenAI in an internal memo, warning staff that ChatGPT was at a “critical time” as it faced intense competition from Google’s Gemini 3 model. [22]
Key points from that reporting:
- OpenAI is devoting more resources to improving ChatGPT as Gemini 3 gains traction and outperforms rivals on several benchmarks. [23]
- Altman warned the launch of Gemini 3 could create temporary “economic headwinds” for OpenAI, signaling concern about usage, monetization, or both. [24]
- Despite ChatGPT having an enormous user base, Google’s combination of search cash flows, data, and AI infrastructure gives Alphabet a powerful defensive and offensive position. [25]
Benzinga’s coverage today makes the connection explicit: commentators like Jim Cramer have warned that Gemini 3 could trigger “millions” of users to switch from ChatGPT to Google, and analysts at Bank of America see Gemini’s user growth driving a sharp rise in traffic across Google’s ecosystem. [26]
In other words, OpenAI’s “code red” is, indirectly, Alphabet’s validation: the company that shook Google in 2022 is now reacting to Google’s comeback.
Where Nvidia Fits Into Alphabet’s AI Story
Alphabet might be winning headlines this week, but Nvidia remains the dominant infrastructure player in AI — and the two companies’ strategies are increasingly intertwined.
A separate Motley Fool piece with a very similar holiday‑list title highlights Nvidia as an AI stock with a 67% year‑over‑year jump in earnings per share in its fiscal 2026 third quarter, while still trading for roughly 24.5x next year’s earnings, only modestly above the S&P 500’s forward multiple. [27]
Another widely shared analysis on Nvidia points out that:
- Nvidia recently posted about $57 billion in quarterly revenue, with its data‑center business growing roughly 66% year over year.
- CEO Jensen Huang has visibility on around $500 billion in AI chip demand through 2026.
- Nvidia’s market share in AI accelerators is estimated at around 90%, making it the default hardware backbone for much of the generative AI boom. [28]
Alphabet, however, is increasingly challenging Nvidia on the edges:
- Google designs its own TPUs, and hyperscalers like Anthropic plan to access up to 1 million TPUs through Google Cloud. [29]
- In November, Alphabet announced it would sell its AI chips to Meta Platforms, placing it in more direct competition with Nvidia for some hyperscale workloads. [30]
The dynamic is nuanced:
- Nvidia remains the pure‑play AI chip powerhouse.
- Alphabet is both a massive Nvidia customer and an emerging rival, using its own chips where it makes sense while still depending on Nvidia hardware for part of its AI stack.
For investors, that means Alphabet offers AI exposure that’s diversified across software, cloud, consumer products, and increasingly homegrown silicon, rather than being a single‑product hardware story.
Fresh 2025 Targets: Could Alphabet Hit a $5 Trillion Valuation?
A brand‑new analysis published this morning explores whether Alphabet could reach a multi‑trillion‑dollar valuation — around $5 trillion — by 2028. [31]
The logic:
- Alphabet is already in the global trillion‑dollar club.
- It’s growing faster than many other mega‑caps thanks to AI‑driven Search, Cloud, and YouTube. [32]
- Its valuation, while richer after the 2025 rally, is still seen as less stretched than some peers, potentially leaving room for outsized returns if earnings keep compounding. [33]
Other new pieces today, like “3 Growth Stocks to Invest $1,000 in Right Now,” continue to place Alphabet on short lists of top growth ideas alongside Nu Holdings and Interactive Brokers, reinforcing the narrative that GOOG remains a core long‑term compounder rather than just a momentum trade. [34]
Key Risks: It’s Not All Upside
Even with the glowing coverage, there are real risks Alphabet and AI investors need to keep in mind:
1. Regulatory Pressure Isn’t Going Away
The recent court ruling that let Alphabet keep Chrome was a relief — but it came with constraints on contracts and data sharing, and regulators could still target other parts of Google’s ad tech stack or app store practices. [35]
2. AI Infrastructure Spending Could Overshoot
Capex of $90+ billion is a huge bet on sustained AI demand. If AI monetization lags or competition intensifies, that spending could weigh on free cash flow and shareholder returns. [36]
3. OpenAI, Nvidia, and Others Won’t Stand Still
OpenAI’s “code red” shows how seriously incumbents now take Google’s progress — but it also implies that everyone is accelerating. Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and countless start‑ups are pushing hard on AI models, chips, and applications. [37]
Alphabet’s current lead in some areas could narrow quickly if a competitor ships a breakthrough model, a cheaper infrastructure stack, or a killer consumer app.
What This All Means for Growth‑Oriented Investors
Putting together the three core articles you highlighted — plus the flurry of fresh news from December 11, 2025 — a clear narrative emerges:
- Alphabet is being positioned by commentators as the flagship AI stock for mainstream investors. It appears on holiday “must‑own” lists, growth‑stock roundups, and multi‑trillion‑dollar valuation forecasts. [38]
- Financial performance is backing up the hype. Record‑breaking revenue above $100B per quarter, 30%+ earnings growth, 30%+ cloud growth, and a swelling AI‑heavy backlog are driving outperformance vs. the market. [39]
- Strategically, Alphabet is going “full stack” on AI. From TPUs and custom data‑center networks to Gemini 3 and AI‑enhanced ad products, Alphabet is trying to own as many layers of the AI value chain as possible — while still leveraging Nvidia hardware where needed. [40]
- Today’s leadership move signals long‑term commitment. The promotion of Amin Vahdat to run AI infrastructure — tied to a $90+ billion annual capex plan — suggests that 2025’s aggressive build‑out is just the beginning, not the end. [41]
- Competitive pressure is intense, but that’s exactly why the opportunity exists. OpenAI’s “code red,” Nvidia’s staggering numbers, and tech giants’ AI land‑grab all point to a once‑in‑a‑generation platform shift — and Alphabet is trying to be at the center of it. [42]
Final Thoughts (and a Quick Disclaimer)
Alphabet’s December news flow paints a picture of a company in attack mode: spending heavily, reorganizing its leadership, integrating AI into every major product line, and inspiring both bullish forecasts and fierce competition.
For investors, the takeaway isn’t that Alphabet is a guaranteed winner — there are too many moving parts and risks for that — but that it has become one of the defining growth stories of the AI era, right alongside Nvidia and a growing cast of AI‑native players.
References
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