Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) is now the world’s second-most valuable company and is worth more than Apple (AAPL) for the first time since 2019, as the Google parent cements its place at the forefront in the artificial intelligence race.
Shares of Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) rose more than 2% on Wednesday, lifting its market capitalization to $3.89T. Apple’s (AAPL) market cap now stands at $3.86T, after a 0.8% drop in its share price on Wednesday.
Wall Street analysts have noted that Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Gemini is quickly closing the gap with OpenAI’s (OPENAI) ChatGPT, which is currently the top AI model.
“Heading into ’26, we believe there will be more AI benefits across the consumer business with Gemini app downloads exceeding ChatGPT and AI Mode/Overviews driving longer engagement,” Jefferies wrote in a recent note to clients.
Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) stock rose 64% over the past year. “With resilient core businesses, improving cloud fundamentals, and a strengthening AI product cycle, we see GOOGL well-positioned to carry its gains forward,” Jefferies added.
In addition, Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) is looking to challenge Nvidia’s (NVDA) dominance in the AI computing market with its custom tensor processing units.
But Apple (AAPL) has lagged its rivals in the AI race, and the iPhone maker hasn’t had a major AI launch since it announced Apple Intelligence in 2024.