Alphabet Stock Forecast: Trending StrongBuy Amid Aggressive AI Push

Alphabet’s (GOOG) stock has risen 73.1% over the past year, gaining 6.0% in the last month but slipping 1.6% over the past week. Wall Street’s analysts are firmly bullish, with a StrongBuy consensus and an average 12‑month price target of $384.29 versus a recent close of $333.34, suggesting meaningful upside over the coming year. Against this backdrop, three prominent analysts have reiterated their positive stance on Alphabet Class C shares, each highlighting the company’s rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI), search, and cloud computing.

Jeffrey Wlodarczak of Pivotal Research Group reiterated his Buy rating on Alphabet and raised his price target to a Street‑high $420. His target implies substantial upside from current levels and reflects a much stronger‑than‑expected fourth quarter, with search revenue growth accelerating 17% year over year and cloud revenue surging 48%, alongside improved cloud operating margins. Wlodarczak argues Alphabet is “pressing their advantages,” using its proprietary TPU and Axion chips to handle growing AI workloads at lower cost and leveraging Gemini to become the dominant AI platform on more than 5 billion handsets worldwide. This 3‑star analyst ranks 2968 out of 11,984 on TipRanks, with a 51.36% success rate and a 3.40% average return per rating.

Wlodarczak’s bullish thesis rests on several pillars. He sees Alphabet’s core search business as a resilient, cash‑generating engine that both funds and feeds Gemini AI, while lower revenue‑sharing costs with handset makers could support higher margins as Gemini gains search share. He believes Gemini’s AI capabilities and Google’s financial firepower put the company in position to keep taking share from OpenAI, with potential pressure on competitors such as Microsoft and Oracle. He also views Google’s TPUs as a durable competitive advantage in AI and cloud, with the potential to sell this technology externally, and points to the company’s near‑universal default placement on smartphones (excluding China) as a key driver in making Gemini the primary AI interface on phones and glasses. Beyond search and cloud, he underscores the strategic value of YouTube, Waymo, quantum efforts, and Alphabet’s broad consumer reach, while noting regulatory risk, AI spending, and the potential for an eventual $5 trillion market cap as key risks.

Doug Anmuth of J.P. Morgan also reiterated a Buy (Overweight) rating on Alphabet, with a price target of $395. He highlights “very strong” fourth‑quarter results, with accelerating growth in both Search and Google Cloud, and emphasizes that the story now centers on an aggressive capital‑expenditure plan. Alphabet expects 2026 capex of $175–$185 billion, well above his prior—and previously Street‑high—estimate of $142 billion, driven largely by AI infrastructure to support Gemini and cloud demand. While this doubling of capex is set to pressure free cash flow and accelerate depreciation, Anmuth believes it comes from a position of strength: Gemini has reached 750 million monthly active users, engagement per user is rising, Google Cloud revenue is growing 48% with backlog up 55% quarter‑over‑quarter to $240 billion, and search revenue is accelerating 17% as AI broadens the advertising opportunity. This N‑star analyst ranks 219 out of 11,984, with a 61.59% success rate and a 19.30% average return per rating.

Jason Helfstein of Oppenheimer reiterated his Outperform (Buy) rating on Alphabet, raising his 12–18 month price target from $345 to $360. He sees AI tailwinds “at early stages” across search and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), noting search revenue accelerated to 17% year‑over‑year and GCP to 48%, both ahead of expectations, as Gemini 3 significantly improved ad targeting. While YouTube was a relative soft spot due to political ad comparisons and a shift in engagement toward Shorts and subscriptions, Helfstein still models robust growth, with 2026 search up 17% and GCP up 44%, and sees potential upside if AI benefits continue to build. His valuation assumes 26x 2027 EPS, plus a $200 billion contribution from Waymo, but he also cautions that Alphabet’s guidance for 2026 capex at around $180 billion—about 51% above his prior estimate—will weigh heavily on free cash flow even as it supports long‑term AI and cloud growth. This N‑star analyst ranks 3713 out of 11,984, with a 45.05% success rate and a 2.70% average return per rating.

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