Pichai pushed back on AI lag concerns on Google's earnings call, citing Flash model gains as Gemini 4 remains delayed. Cloud revenue rose 82%, capex jumped $15B. Shares fell 3%.
Sundar Pichai took questions on Google's AI standing during the Q1 earnings call, pointing to gains across its cheaper Flash models as the company's next flagship, Gemini 4, remains in development.
JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth pressed Pichai on whether Gemini could still compete at the cutting edge. Pichai acknowledged gaps. "Coding and agentic coding is an example of that," he said.
Pichai shifted the focus to Gemini Flash. He said Gemini 3.6 Flash, released this week, improved 10 points on a coding benchmark versus the prior version while using fewer tokens. The company also released a Flash Cyber model and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite.
Pichai described Gemini 4 as a "very ambitious effort" and said the company is training a significantly larger model. The rollout would come "almost at a monthly cadence," he said.
The pushback came alongside another quarter of strong cloud growth. Cloud revenue rose 82%, well above the average analyst estimate of 64%.
Alphabet raised its full-year capex plan by $15 billion to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion. Shares fell more than 3% in after-hours trading. The stock is down about 9% since the end of April, weighed by the model delays and several high-profile executive departures.
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler raised similar concerns about the release pace on the call.
JPMorgan, whose analyst pressed Pichai on the call, carries a 65 Alpha Score on AlphaScala. Barclays, whose analyst raised the same concern, scores 59. Both are rated Moderate.
The company has not given a date for a public Gemini 4 release.
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