So far, Google's advertising business has easily challenged AI rivals. In the last quarter, Google's advertising revenue increased by a good 13 percent year-on-year to 61.66 billion dollars (57.49 billion euros). The video subsidiary YouTube contributed about eight billion dollars, about 21 percent more than in the same quarter of the previous year.

The development of Google's advertising business is closely followed, especially in web search as its main source of income. A central question is whether competitors' attempts to use artificial intelligence to display direct answers instead of links will leave a mark on the search engine it has dominated for years. Some investors are betting on it: Rival Perplexity AI was valued at more than $1 billion in a recent funding round.

Meanwhile, Google itself is also trying to improve web searches with artificial intelligence features. For example, on Samsung's new Galaxy S24 flagship smartphone and newer models of Google's Pixel-branded phones, you can trigger searches by circling an object or word on the screen.

Google's parent company Alphabet beats expectations and pays dividends for the first time

Recently, these types of deals have been increasingly used, CEO Sundar Pichai said Thursday. He was convinced that Google would be able to adapt its business model to the new possibilities of AI.

At Alphabet, Google's parent company In total, sales rose 15 percent year-on-year to $80.5 billion. On average, analysts only expected about $79 billion. Group profits grew to $23.66 billion, up from $15 billion the previous year.

The growth of the business with software and cloud computing power also contributed to this. The division increased operating profit to $900 million from $191 million in the same quarter last year. Alphabet shares were up a good eleven percent in after-hours trading. Alphabet announced for the first time a dividend of 20 cents per share and also promised distributions for the future.

At Alphabet, sales of so-called “other bets” (future projects such as autonomous cars or delivery drones) increased in total from 288 to 495 million dollars. The division's operating losses have narrowed from $1.22 billion a year ago to just over $1 billion now.

Microsoft also convinces, shares rise

Also the rival Microsoft gave a clear signal that its investments in cloud and artificial intelligence are paying off. The software giant signed a pact with ChatGPT developer OpenAI and, on this basis, is integrating AI functions into more and more products. The need for computing power for artificial intelligence, in turn, drives Microsoft's cloud business.

Microsoft increased its sales in the third quarter, which ended at the end of March, by 17 percent year-on-year to almost $62 billion. Profits grew by a fifth to almost $22 billion. Both exceeded the experts' expectations. Sales on Microsoft's cloud platform Azure increased 31 percent.

Microsoft shares rose a good four percent. With a market value of around $3 trillion, Microsoft is currently the most valuable public company in the world.