Alphabet stock (NASDAQ: GOOG) rose over 4% on Friday, less on a single headline than on a familiar test: can Google’s AI push translate into paying products now?
Friday’s surge came as investors digested a fresh enterprise rollout for its Gemini model and a new commerce partnership in Asia.
The move also comes as Wall Street grows more confident about Google Cloud’s trajectory.
Alphabet stock: Gemini shifts from demo to paid workflow
Google used the end of the week to push Gemini deeper into day-to-day enterprise use, rolling out Gemini 3.1 Pro in preview for Vertex AI and Gemini Enterprise customers.
The company also made it available to developers through the Gemini API in tools such as Google AI Studio and Android Studio.
The model is positioned as “multimodal,” meaning it can work across more than text (including images, audio and video), and is aimed it at tougher reasoning and tool-use tasks that matter inside corporate workflows.
In the same update cycle, outside developers and platform partners offered early, favorable reads and comments that helped reinforce the idea that Google’s model upgrades are improving in ways enterprises can notice.
Alongside the model release, Google announced a partnership with Sea Ltd to build AI tools spanning Sea’s Shopee and Garena units, including an “agentic shopping” prototype.
Sea’s Shopee is a meaningful distribution point in the region; the companies cited a Momentum Works report putting Shopee’s Southeast Asia e-commerce market share at 52% in 2024, with Alibaba’s Lazada named as a key rival.
For investors, that matters because it connects Google’s AI narrative to a real-world channel where AI can drive measurable outcomes like conversion rates, ad efficiency, or customer retention, metrics that ultimately feed revenue.
Cloud confidence returns as macro stays noisy
Friday’s optimism came against a choppy macro backdrop.
Data showed fourth-quarter GDP growth at a 1.4% annualized pace versus forecasts of 2.2%, while the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, often described as the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, ran hotter than expected in December.
That tension matters for Alphabet stock because ad budgets can soften when growth slows, and tech valuations can wobble when inflation prints hotter than hoped.
Still, Alphabet’s own operating story has been improving, especially in Cloud.
The company has been highlighting how quickly its Cloud business is becoming a central battleground for AI services, and recent commentary has kept investor focus on Cloud’s competitive position rather than treating it as a secondary segment.
Importantly, the market has also been working through Alphabet’s earlier warning that 2026 capital spending could roughly double, a signal that initially raised worries about costs even as it underscored how aggressively Google plans to build AI capacity.
Wall Street sentiment has leaned more constructive in recent sessions.
One widely followed research digest noted that analysts have been revising 2026 earnings expectations higher, lifting the consensus estimate and reinforcing the view of Alphabet as a growth name with improving fundamentals.
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