Alphabet: From Search to AI to "AGI"

Google is perhaps one of the most recognized brand in the world. I wouldn’t, however, confuse familiarity with understanding of Alphabet’s business. By the end of this piece, it will likely be clear how complex this business has become over time. It is perhaps not a stretch to say Alphabet is currently the most complex business under my coverage.

I first wrote a long form piece on Alphabet back in early 2023 (which a later reader survey showed to be the most popular piece on MBI Deep Dives in 2023). I, however, sold the stock later in 2023 as my mind became consumed with search related concerns in the post-ChatGPT world. Thankfully, I changed my mind and became a shareholder again in early 2025. As a result, I am updating and publishing my somewhat complex Alphabet model after nearly three years.

My objective in this piece is to lay out Alphabet’s business in a more granular level; it would be quite surprising if you and I agree with all the assumptions made in this model. Frankly speaking, even I will perhaps need to update a lot of these assumptions a few months from now given how the landscape in AI keeps shifting these days. So, I will focus on explaining the model (and how I thought about it) so that it is easier for you to incorporate your own assumptions.

Over the last twelve months, I have written numerous pieces on Alphabet. For the sake of avoiding redundancy, I will not repeat much of the qualitative narratives around Alphabet which has been adequately covered on MBI Deep Dives. This piece is largely about the numbers behind the narratives.

The rest of this piece is behind the paywall.

In addition to “Daily Dose” (yes, DAILY) like this, MBI Deep Dives publishes one Deep Dive on a publicly listed company every month. You can find all the 66 Deep Dives here.