Google Is More Resilient Than Its AI Stumbles Imply


近来谷歌的股价表现落后于其他科技巨头，不过该公司搜索引擎业务被证明对于AI技术的入侵具有较强的抵御能力。


谷歌首席执行官皮采。

谷歌(Google)最近不太受投资者欢迎。不过，他们不应忽视该公司的赚钱能力。 6park.com
Google hasn’t been clicking with investors lately. They should keep in mind how the company still pays its bills.  6park.com
    
谷歌母公司Alphabet Inc.的股价第一季度上涨了8%。FactSet的数据显示，这一涨幅连续第二个季度落后于标普500指数、纳斯达克综合指数以及市值达万亿美元的多数科技巨头的涨幅。过去六个月，Alphabet股价上涨15%；其数字广告竞争对手、Facebook母公司Meta Platforms的股价同期飙升62%，这一定程度上归功于一项雄心勃勃的成本削减计划，迄今为止，这项计划的成效都令谷歌采取的行动相形见绌。 6park.com
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, saw its share price rise 8% during the first quarter. That lagged behind the gains of the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and most of the company’s trillion-dollar Big Tech peers for the second quarter in a row, according to FactSet data. The stock is up 15% over the past six months; digital advertising rival and Facebook-parent Meta Platforms has surged 62% in that time, thanks in part to an ambitious cost-cutting program that has so far dwarfed what Google has undertaken.  6park.com
    
谷歌近期的疲软表现时值该公司似乎面临着一连串的坏消息。美国司法部针对谷歌的反垄断诉讼在2023年秋季进行了为期数周的庭审，华尔街由此越发担心会出现糟糕的结果，比如巨额经济处罚、甚至是业务拆分。Bernstein分析师团队在去年11月初的一份报告中写道：“司法部起诉Google Search一案比我们想象的更具说服力。”报告中还说，投资者可能低估了作出不利于谷歌的裁决的可能性。该案的结案陈词将于下月进行，可能在今年晚些时候作出裁决。 6park.com
Google’s recent weakness has come as the company has faced a seeming barrage of bad news. A trial stemming from the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against the company took up several weeks during the fall of 2023, and left Wall Street with a growing worry of a bad outcome that could include steep financial penalties and even a breakup of the business. “The DOJ case vs. Google Search has been more compelling than we thought,” a team of Bernstein analysts wrote in an early November report, adding that the odds of an adverse ruling “may be under-appreciated by investors.” Closing arguments in that case will take place next month, with a ruling likely sometime later this year. 



谷歌在生成式人工智能(AI)竞争中的发展势头也令人担忧。 今年2月，谷歌高调推出了最新款AI工具Gemini，却因聊天机器人在回答用户询问时生成错误历史图像等事例而搞砸了。谷歌母公司Alphabet最近的财报也令投资者失望，逊色于其AI宿敌微软(Microsoft)的业绩表现，后者通常在Alphabet发布业绩的同一天下午公布财报。Alphabet股价在其最近两季财报发布后次日分别下跌了8%和10%。 6park.com
Google’s momentum in the race over generative artificial intelligence has also been a cause of worry. The high-profile launch in February of its latest AI tool known as Gemini was bungled by instances of the chatbot producing false historical images in response to user queries. And the recent financial results of Google’s parent have disappointed investors, comparing poorly to those of its arch-AI rival Microsoft that are now typically released on the same afternoon. Alphabet’s stock fell 8% and 10% respectively on the day following its last two quarterly reports.   6park.com
   
投资者对生成式AI感到焦虑是可以理解的。打造这样的能力需要对计算基础设施进行巨额前期投资；据FactSet估计，分析师预计谷歌今年的资本支出将大增33%，达到略低于430亿美元的创纪录水平。与此同时，Adobe等公司最近的业绩表明，消费者和企业用户尚未急于为AI工具支付高价。 6park.com
Investors are understandably angsty about generative AI. Building such capabilities requires a huge upfront investment in computing infrastructure; analysts project Google’s capital expenditures will jump 33% this year to a record just under $43 billion, according to FactSet estimates. And recent results from companies such as Adobe have suggested consumers and business users aren’t yet rushing in to pay premium prices for AI tools.  6park.com
    
此外，OpenAI的ChatGPT、得到风投支持的Perplexity等在线聊天机器人日益流行，给人留下了一个疑问：这类工具最终会如何影响谷歌的核心互联网搜索业务？据PitchBook的数据，Perplexity的估值在今年3月的最新一轮融资中达到10亿美元，较四个月前增加近一倍。 6park.com
Also, the growing popularity of online chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and venture-backed Perplexity has left the question open of how such tools will ultimately affect internet search—Google’s core business. Perplexity was valued at $1 billion in its most recent funding round in March—nearly double its valuation from just four months prior, according to PitchBook data. 



但AI聊天机器人现在并不是什么新鲜事物。ChatGPT于2022年底推出，这一技术得到了微软的热情拥抱；一年前，微软把ChatGPT集成到了自己的搜索引擎必应(Bing)中。但这尚未对谷歌造成致命打击；据来自Statcounter的数据，今年3月，谷歌在全球搜索市场中的份额略高于91%。该数字仅略低于过去五年中谷歌92%的年均份额。分析师预计，在连续两年实现个位数百分比增长后，谷歌的广告总收入今年将增长10%，达到约2,610亿美元。 6park.com
But AI chatbots now aren’t such a new, new thing. ChatGPT launched in late 2022 and the technology was aggressively embraced by Microsoft, which added it to its Bing search engine a year ago. That hasn’t exactly been fatal for Google, which powered a little over 91% of the global search market in March, according to data from Statcounter. That is only slightly below the 92% share it has averaged annually over the last five years. Analysts expect Google’s total advertising revenue to rise 10% to about $261 billion this year following two years of single-digit growth.  6park.com
   
YouTube的发展势头更为向好，得益于自身广告业务的恢复性增长以及Premium和音乐订阅等其他来源。MoffettNathanson的Michael Nathanson估计YouTube 2023年总收入为450亿美元，其中来自非广告业务的贡献料超过130亿美元。他上周在一份报告中写道：“如果YouTube是一家独立运作的公司，参照与之有可比性的上市公司的情况，其价值将达到3,750亿至4,000亿美元。” 6park.com
YouTube is picking up even more, thanks both to its own recovering ad growth and other sources, such as premium and music subscriptions. Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson estimates YouTube generated total revenue of $45 billion in 2023, which would reflect a contribution of more than $13 billion from nonadvertising buckets. “If YouTube was a stand-alone business, public comps suggest the business would be worth $375 to $400 billion,” he wrote in a report last week.  6park.com
    
在接下来几个月，谷歌将力推AI相关讯息。谷歌下周将为自己不断发展壮大的云业务举行名为Next的年会，而其标志性的I/O开发者大会定于5月14日举行。此外，谷歌母公司Alphabet的预期市盈率目前不到23倍，估值比包括苹果公司(Apple)在内的其他大型科技公司都低；苹果公司股价今年以来累计下跌12%。Jefferies的Brent Thill上周在一份报告中写道：“我们相信谷歌具备回弹的所有要素。”一点AI的光芒可能大有帮助。 6park.com
Google will be hitting the AI message hard over the next couple of months. The annual conference for its growing cloud business, called Next, takes place next week while its flagship I/O developers conference is scheduled for May 14. Meanwhile, parent Alphabet is trading at less than 23 times forward earnings—the cheapest of any of the big techs including Apple, which has seen its stock price slide 12% this year. “We believe Google has all the ingredients to rebound,” Brent Thill of Jefferies wrote in a report last week. A little AI shine could go a long way.