Shares of Alphabet, the online advertising giant, saw a 4.5% rise during afternoon trading after the launch of its Gemini 3.1 Pro model and a new AI partnership with Sea Ltd.
Google has offered a preview of Gemini 3.1 Pro to enterprise clients and developers, aiming to integrate its AI offerings into paid business processes. Alongside this, the partnership with Sea Ltd focuses on creating an AI shopping “agent” for its e-commerce platform, Shopee. This AI can perform tasks within the app, which is a step up from merely responding to inquiries. These initiatives seem to have bolstered investor confidence in Google’s capacity to monetize AI advancements. This positive sentiment coincides with several analysts issuing buy ratings and setting new price targets for the stock.
After the initial surge, the stock settled at $314.97, marking a 3.8% increase from the prior close.
Is now the right time to invest in Alphabet?
Over the past year, Alphabet’s stock has been relatively stable, fluctuating more than 5% only four times. While today’s movements may not drastically shift the overall view of the company, they indicate that the market finds this news significant.
The most notable movement we discussed last year occurred six months prior when shares jumped 8.3% following a U.S. judge’s ruling in a key antitrust case, easing concerns about a potential breakup.
This decision allowed Google to maintain control over essential businesses that the U.S. Department of Justice wanted to divest, including its Chrome browser and Android operating system. Investors perceived this as a major victory, which could help the tech firm sidestep a worst-case outcome. Although Google escaped a structural breakup, the judge imposed some restrictions, barring the company from entering into certain exclusive search agreements and mandating data sharing with competitors. This ruling significantly lightened the regulatory burden on the business. Subsequently, Needham analysts reiterated their Buy rating and increased their price target from $220 to $260, reflecting renewed optimism.
Since the start of this year, Alphabet’s shares have remained flat, currently trading at $314.97, which is near its 52-week high of $343.69 reached in February 2026. An investor who purchased $1,000 in Alphabet stock five years ago would now be looking at a value of about $3,066.
The 1999 book “Gorilla Games” foresaw the dominance of Microsoft and Apple in technology. Its core message? Identify the winning platforms early. Now, enterprise software companies that are adopting generative AI appear to be the new dominant forces.
