- Jewish school in Canada hit by gunfire for second time
- With medical report Harris seeks to play health card against Trump
- China-EU EV tariff talks in Brussels end with 'major differences': Beijing
- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Small Quebec company dominates one part of NHL hockey: jerseys
- Boeing to cut 10% of workforce as it sees big Q3 loss
- Want to film in Paris? No sexism allowed
- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
- Stock markets diverge before China weekend briefing
- EU questions shopping app Temu over illegal products risk
- Han Kang's books sell out in South Korea after Nobel win
- Shanghai markets sink ahead of briefing on mixed day for Asia
- Investors, analysts eye bigger China stimulus at Saturday briefing
- Musk unveils robotaxi, pledges it 'before 2027'
- At least 11 dead in Florida but Hurricane Milton not as bad as feared
- Asian markets mixed after Wall St drop, Shanghai dips before briefing
- Automaker Stellantis says CEO will retire in 2026
- Musk's promised robotaxi unveil delayed
- On US coast, wind power foes embrace 'Save the Whales' argument
- At least 10 dead in Florida after Hurricane Milton spawns tornadoes
- Internet Archive reels from 'catastrophic' cyberattack, data breach
- Wall Street stocks retreat from records on US inflation data
- Israel strikes central Beirut, killing 22
- Solar storm could impact US hurricane recovery efforts: agency
- Delta eyes Election Day travel pullback as profits climb
- Florida battered by hurricane, floods but spared 'worst-case scenario'
- UK's William and Kate in first joint public engagement since cancer treatment
- Over 200 women in legal talks with Harrods over Fayed abuse claims
- A very stiff breeze: BBC says sorry for 20,000 kph wind forecast
- Musk finally unveiling his long-promised robotaxi
- London's Frieze art fair goes potty for ceramics
- US, Europe stocks fall on US inflation data
- US consumer inflation eases to 2.4% in September
- Hurricane Milton tornadoes kill four in Florida amid rescue efforts
- South Korea's Han Kang wins literature Nobel
- Ikea posts fall in annual sales after lowering prices
- Stock markets diverge, oil gains after China rebounds
- World can't 'waste time' trading climate change blame: COP29 hosts
- South Korean same-sex couples make push for marriage equality
- Mumbai declares day of mourning for Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
Google, Microsoft top expectations as AI rivalry heats up
Google parent company Alphabet beat market expectations in the first quarter of 2023 with a net profit of $15 billion, the company said on Tuesday, in a sign that the search engine behemoth is regaining its footing.
The tech titan has found itself under pressure due to a general slowdown in advertising spending, over-hiring during a Covid-era boom and a major challenge by Microsoft on artificial intelligence.
Its quarterly revenue came in at nearly $70 billion, a billion better than expected by analysts, and in the same three-month period that the company said it would lay off 12,000 staff, or six percent of its workforce.
In its results, Google announced a $2 billion charge for expected costs for the sackings.
Microsoft's results for the first three months of the year also pleased investors on Tuesday with sales going strong, fueled by its industry-leading business cloud products.
The company founded by Bill Gates reported profit of $18.3 billion on revenue of $52.9 billion as Cloud and AI more than offset drops in revenue from licensing Windows software to computer makers, as sales suffer in that market.
Most market attention was on Google, which became a focus of worry when Microsoft-backed ChatGPT was released and quickly went viral late last year. The Windows maker has added the technology to its Bing search engine and office software.
The search giant has since rushed out Bard, its own version of the language-based AI, but the release was seen as clumsy and has so far disappointed observers and company insiders, according to media reports.
An arms race over AI is expected to play out for several years and could prove to be expensive for the tech giants, with companies worried that they could lose out quickly to rivals.
To get itself battle ready for the AI wars ahead, Google has reorganized its AI division, putting the independently run Deep Mind subsidiary inside the company in a division called Google Brain.
- 'Serious challenges' -
The host of challenges sent Google CEO Sundar Pichai on a rare US media tour in recent weeks to reassure that the company remained an industry leader on everything from search to maps to AI pioneering.
Despite the headwinds, Pichai received a total compensation package worth more than $225 million in 2022, according to a regulatory filing posted last week.
Indicating that troubles are still not gone, Google-owned YouTube's advertising revenue dropped for the third quarter in a row, declining 2.6 percent year over year to $6.7 billion.
The struggles at YouTube came in the same quarter that its longtime CEO Susan Wojcicki stepped down after nine years, replaced by longtime executive Neal Mohan.
"Google exceeded both revenue and earnings expectations this quarter, but reasons for investor optimism are modest," said Insider Intelligence senior analyst Max Willens.
"More importantly, Google's ad business is under threat. YouTube revenues declining again, and Search and Other revenues rising less than 2 percent reflect the reality that Google's core business is facing the most serious challenges it has encountered in quite some time."
Despite the deeper-rooted problems, Alphabet’s share price has recovered well from the lows seen before January's layoff announcements and on Tuesday shot up by more than 4 percent in after-hours trading to $108.4.
This was still well shy of the near $150 seen in 2021, when ad revenue was pouring in.
Microsoft has been steadily pressing on with its AI revolution, recently announcing that it would apply the powers behind ChatGPT to its iconic Excel, Word and Outlook programs.
The Redmond, Washington giant has been swiftly adopting language-based AI, showing less caution than its rivals despite early problems such as chatbots giving disturbing responses or blatantly inaccurate information.
St.Ch.Baker--CPN