NEW YORK, April 29, 2026, 11:00 EDT
Alphabet heads into first-quarter earnings Wednesday with investors looking for proof that Google’s Gemini push and cloud demand can support one of the largest AI spending plans in corporate America. The company is set to release results after the closing bell and hold its earnings call at 4:30 p.m. EDT, Alphabet said. (Alphabet Investor Relations)
The question matters now because the stock has already priced in a lot of good news. Alphabet’s Class A shares were up about 1.4% at $354.56 in late-morning trading, near their intraday high, giving the company a market value of about $4.28 trillion.
Yahoo Finance reported that Alphabet shares have climbed roughly 30% over the past six months, ahead of Amazon’s 13% gain and Microsoft’s decline of about 20%, while analysts cited by Bloomberg expect first-quarter earnings per share of $2.62 on revenue of about $107 billion. (Yahoo Finance)
This is also a wider test for mega-cap tech. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Alphabet are all due to report after the bell, with investors weighing whether AI spending is turning into revenue and not just bigger data-center bills. Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro, told Reuters: “The question now is whether mega-cap tech can help push this rally to new heights.” (Reuters)
S&P Global’s Visible Alpha consensus put Alphabet’s expected first-quarter revenue at $106.9 billion, up from $101.5 billion in the fall, helped by resilience in ads and strength in Google Cloud. It said expectations for operating income and EPS have also moved higher as investors model better cloud margins. (S&P Global)
The central issue is capital expenditure, or capex — money spent on long-lived assets such as chips, servers and data centers. Alphabet told investors in February it expected 2026 capex of $175 billion to $185 billion, saying the spend would support Google DeepMind, Google Services, cloud demand and other strategic bets. (Alphabet Investor Relations)
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has tied that bill directly to Gemini and cloud growth. In February, he called Gemini 3 “a major milestone” and said the Gemini app had more than 750 million monthly active users; he also said Cloud revenue grew 48% in the fourth quarter and that backlog — signed business not yet recognized as revenue — rose 55% quarter over quarter to $240 billion. (blog.google)
Wall Street has been adjusting targets into the report. Benzinga listed Needham’s Laura Martin with a Buy rating and $400 target, Rosenblatt’s Barton Crockett with a Neutral rating and $357 target, and BMO’s Brian Pitz with an Outperform rating after raising his target to $410. (Benzinga)
The bullish case has become more direct: AI is no longer just a research story if cloud customers keep spending. Seeking Alpha contributor YR Research wrote that Alphabet was positioned for AI-driven growth across cloud, Search, YouTube and Gemini, reiterating a Strong Buy rating and a $420 price target while disclosing a long position in the shares. (Seeking Alpha)
Google Cloud is the cleanest read-through. Investor’s Business Daily reported that analysts expect cloud growth of about 48% to $18 billion, while Citi’s Ronald Josey has put the investor “bogey” higher, at 57.5%, after cloud clients spent more than originally committed. (Investors)
But the downside is clear. FactSet consensus cited by MarketWatch expects EPS to fall to $2.63 from $2.81 a year earlier even as revenue rises to about $107 billion, and separate MarketWatch coverage said first-quarter capex is expected to have more than doubled to about $36 billion. If cloud growth misses, or if investors decide Gemini is lifting costs faster than revenue, the stock has less room for a soft answer. (MarketWatch)
For Alphabet, a clean revenue beat may not be enough. The market wants a harder signal: that Search remains sturdy, Google Cloud is still accelerating, and Gemini can move from product momentum to durable margins before the AI bill gets bigger.
