Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said AI-powered search features boosted query growth by 17% in revenue, with AI Mode surpassing 1 billion users. The World Cup drove record search usage.
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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's AI-powered search features are driving growth in queries, not cannibalizing the business. On a Wednesday earnings call, Pichai told analysts that AI Overviews and AI Mode have led to an "incremental increase in search queries overall."
He pointed to the FIFA World Cup as a proof point.
The AI Mode feature, which expanded globally last October, now has more than a billion monthly active users. Pichai said the company is "sending billions of clicks to websites every week through AI features in Search."
The numbers back him up. Search revenue grew 17% in the quarter, Pichai said. Alphabet reported total revenue of $119.8 billion, up 24% from a year earlier. The stock slipped 1.24% at the close.
The CEO's comments push back against a narrative that has worried publishers and media companies. Many have seen traffic drop as Google's AI answers, which pull content from websites without linking directly, satisfy user queries on the search results page itself. Pichai's claim that clicks are still flowing suggests the company is managing the transition more carefully than publishers feared.
Search remains one of Alphabet's biggest revenue drivers. In the latest quarter, it was the third-largest product line by revenue, behind advertising and Google Services.
Pichai said the company would keep making search "more helpful and intuitive."
The earnings call gave investors a clear signal: AI is expanding the search pie, not shrinking it. The question for publishers is whether the clicks Pichai cited will sustain their business models as Google's AI tools become more aggressive.
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