Picky, picky. That’s my take on investors selling Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) stock after the company reported stellar fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.
The good news about the Google parent’s surging revenue and profits was overshadowed by its higher projected spending on artificial intelligence (AI). Alphabet’s share price fell moderately on Thursday amid concerns about higher capital expenditures.
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Is the selling warranted? I don’t think so. Here are five reasons to buy this AI stock on the dip.
Anyone wondering whether Alphabet’s AI investments are paying off need only look at the company’s Q4 numbers. CFO Anat Ashkenazi stated in the earnings call, “The investments we have been making in AI are already translating into strong performance across the business as you’ve seen in our financial results.” Yes, they are.
While Alphabet plans to spend even more on AI this year ($175 billion to $185 billion), I expect the additional investment will also deliver solid returns. It’s essential to keep in mind where the money is going, including supporting cutting-edge research by Google DeepMind, improving the user experience to boost advertisers’ return on investment, and meeting soaring demand for cloud services. It would be a mistake if management weren’t investing more in these areas.
Speaking of soaring demand for cloud services, Alphabet’s Google Cloud business is booming. Revenue for the unit skyrocketed by 48% year over year in the fourth quarter to $17.7 billion. Google Cloud ended 2025 with an annual revenue run rate of $70 billion.
Is Google Cloud’s growth in jeopardy of slowing anytime soon? I don’t think so. Alphabet reported a cloud backlog of $240 billion at the end of the year, more than double the level from the end of 2024 and up 55% from the end of the third quarter of 2025.
The business is also more profitable than ever. Google Cloud’s operating margin jumped from 17.5% in 2024 Q4 to 30.1% in the recent quarter.
Some doomsayers proclaimed that generative AI would be an existential threat to Google Search after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022. Those predictions have fallen flat on their face, to put it mildly.
Google Search’s revenue increased 16.7% year over year in Q4 to $63.1 billion. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in the quarterly update this week that Google Search usage in Q4 was higher than ever. I suspect that Google Search’s growth is even poised to accelerate as, in Pichai’s words, “AI continues to drive an expansionary moment.”


