Google's Revenue Soars Past $400 Billion, Gemini App Gains Traction, While Alphabet Remains Silent on Apple AI Deal
Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced its annual revenue topped $400 billion for the first time, a 15% year-over-year increase fueled by growth in its cloud business and YouTube, according to the company's Q4 2025 earnings report released Wednesday. YouTube's annual revenue ballooned past $60 billion in ads and subscriptions, according to The Verge. Meanwhile, Google's AI chatbot Gemini has surpassed 750 million monthly active users (MAUs), illustrating rapid consumer adoption of the AI platform, according to the company's fourth-quarter earnings. Despite these successes, Alphabet declined to answer questions about its AI partnership with Apple during the earnings call, leaving investors in the dark.
The Gemini app's user base has grown significantly, with Google reporting 650 million monthly active users last quarter. While Gemini is gaining traction, it still trails behind ChatGPT, which is estimated to have around 810 million MAUs in late 2025, according to TechCrunch. The recently revealed number comes on the heels of the launch of Gemini 3, which showcases the company's most advanced model yet, providing responses that the company claims exhibit an unmatched level of understanding.
However, Alphabet's silence regarding its AI deal with Apple has raised eyebrows. An analyst's question about how the tech giant is thinking about AI partnerships, such as the one with Apple to power AI for Siri, was completely ignored during Wednesday's earnings call, according to TechCrunch. This decision suggests that Alphabet is not yet ready to discuss the potential impact of this partnership on its core business, which is increasingly focused on AI. The Google-Apple relationship has been mutually beneficial over the years, with Google paying Apple $20 billion to be the default search engine on Apple devices, according to filings from the Department of Justice's lawsuit against the search giant.
In other tech news, Valve announced a delay in the shipping schedule and pricing plans for its Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller, citing a RAM crisis as the reason, according to The Verge.
Meanwhile, Anthropic, another AI lab, released four Super Bowl commercials, including one that featured a chatbot giving questionable advice, according to TechCrunch. One commercial depicted a chatbot advising a man on how to talk to his mom, while another featured a bot suggesting height-boosting insoles to a young man seeking advice on building a six-pack. Anthropic stated that while ads are coming to AI, they won't be coming to its own chatbot, Claude.
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