Key Stats for Google Stock
- YTD Price Change for Google stock: 62%
- $GOOGL Share Price as of Dec. 19: $307
- 52-Week High: $329
- $GOOGL Stock Price Target: $329
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What Happened?
Alphabet (GOOGL) stock has been on a tear in 2024, up 62% year-to-date and outperforming all of its megacap peers, including Meta, which is up just 13%.
The rally comes as Google races to catch up in the AI wars, showing signs of real momentum after a rocky start following ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022.
One key strategy driving Google’s comeback? Aggressively rehiring former employees.
About 20% of the AI software engineers Google hired in 2024 were “boomerang” employees returning to the company, up from prior years. Google also saw a jump in AI researchers joining from major competitors.
John Casey, Google’s head of compensation, told employees that AI engineers are drawn to the company’s deep pockets and massive computational infrastructure needed for advanced AI work. Google has a large pool of ex-employees to tap, especially after cutting 12,000 jobs in early 2023.
Alphabet has been racing to make up ground in generative AI after fumbling several early product rollouts.
But Google bounced back this year thanks to heavy investments in AI infrastructure and the success of its Gemini app.
In December, the company introduced Gemini 3, its latest model, generating excitement across the tech sector.
Google’s Gemini app has been the centerpiece of its AI strategy. By September, the app surpassed 5 billion images and dethroned ChatGPT at the top of Apple’s App Store.
Monthly active users swelled to 650 million from 350 million in March. AI Overviews, which summarizes search queries using generative AI, now has 2 billion monthly users.
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What the Market Is Telling Us About GOOGL Stock
The rally in GOOGL stock reflects Wall Street’s confidence that Google is finally executing on AI after a brutal first quarter when shares plunged 18%.
Alphabet is pouring money into AI infrastructure, raising its full-year capital expenditure forecast to $91 billion to $93 billion, up from $85 billion.
Josh Woodward, the 42-year-old Oklahoma native running the Gemini app and Google Labs, has emerged as a key figure in Google’s AI push.
He’s known for moving fast, breaking down bureaucracy, and delivering products even if they aren’t perfect. Under his leadership, Google has shipped features like Nano Banana, an image generator that became so popular it overloaded the company’s infrastructure.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who returned to the company in 2023, has personally reached out to prospective candidates to recruit them.
The company has also removed bureaucracy by eliminating more than one-third of its managers overseeing small teams.
But GOOGL stock faces risks as AI rapidly bleeds into daily life. Google must balance moving fast to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic while ensuring its AI products don’t enable harm.
Nano Banana Pro, released in November, has faced criticism for depicting racially insensitive images. AI-generated content is making it harder for consumers to distinguish fact from fiction.
Competition is also heating up. Microsoft hired around two dozen employees from Google’s DeepMind AI research lab earlier this year. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in June that Meta had been offering $100 million signing bonuses to retain talent.
Still, Google is showing it can compete. The company brought back Noam Shazeer, a key figure in AI who left Google in 2021 to start Character.AI.
Along with other members of the Character.AI research team, Shazeer rejoined DeepMind in August 2024 under a licensing deal.
For investors, GOOGL stock looks positioned to benefit from the shift in consumer behavior from traditional search to AI-powered apps.
Google is fighting to keep users within its ecosystem, whether it’s for chatbot services, images, videos, or online shopping. With CEO Sundar Pichai saying “the momentum has been incredible to see,” Google appears to have regained its footing in the AI race.
The 62% gain in GOOGL stock this year reflects that newfound confidence. As expectations remain high for 2025, the question is whether Google can maintain its pace of innovation while managing the societal concerns that come with AI’s growing influence.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
