Google and Alphabet: the search and AI group behind Android and YouTube

Google LLC is the internet company behind Google Search, Android, Chrome, Gmail, YouTube and the Gemini AI models. Since 2015 it has been the main business of Alphabet Inc., a holding company listed on Nasdaq under the tickers GOOGL and GOOG.

Alphabet reported revenue of $402.8 billion for 2025, the first year it passed $400 billion. Much of its recent growth has come from artificial intelligence and from Google Cloud, which sells computing power and AI services to businesses.

Overview and Founding

Google grew out of a research project at Stanford University. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met there in 1995 and by 1996 had built a search engine called Backrub, which ranked web pages by the links pointing to them.

The project was renamed Google, and in August 1998 the company was incorporated after Andy Bechtolsheim, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, wrote a $100,000 check. The first office was a garage in Menlo Park, California. The company later moved to its present headquarters, the Googleplex, in Mountain View.

Its stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” In 2015 the founders created Alphabet as a parent company, keeping Google as its largest unit and placing newer ventures, known as Other Bets, alongside it.

Key Milestones

• 1996: Page and Brin build the Backrub search engine at Stanford.
• 1998: Google Inc. is incorporated in August and moves into a Menlo Park garage.
• 2004: Google prepares its share listing with a founders’ letter stating that it is “not a conventional company.”
• 2006: Google agrees in October to buy YouTube in an all-stock deal valued at $1.65 billion.
• 2014: Google agrees in January to buy DeepMind, an AI research company based in London.
• 2015: Alphabet is created as the parent company, and Sundar Pichai becomes chief executive of Google.
• 2019: Page and Brin step back from daily management, and Pichai becomes chief executive of Alphabet as well.
• 2023: Google merges its Brain team with DeepMind to form Google DeepMind and launches the first Gemini models.
• 2025: Alphabet’s yearly revenue passes $400 billion.

What It Does

Alphabet reports its results in two main segments plus Other Bets. Google Services covers Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Play and devices. Its revenue comes mainly from advertising, with the rest from subscriptions such as YouTube Premium and Google One, app sales and hardware.

Google Cloud sells infrastructure and platform services, Google Workspace tools and other services to business customers. In the fourth quarter of 2025 its revenue rose 48 percent to $17.7 billion, the fastest growth of any part of the group.

The company is also pushing AI agents into its business products. In October 2026 Google Cloud introduced a single work agent, as reported in Google Cloud launches Gemini agent, a single AI agent for work that also runs Claude.

Other Bets is a group of smaller units whose revenue comes mainly from autonomous transport and internet services. Its best-known member, Waymo, announced a $16.0 billion funding round in February 2026, mostly paid for by Alphabet.

Alphabet expects to spend $175 billion to $185 billion on capital investment in 2026, to meet customer demand, according to its February 2026 results release.

In Numbers

• Revenue: $402.8 billion in 2025, up 15 percent from $350.0 billion in 2024.
• Net income: $132.2 billion in 2025.
• Employees: 190,820 at the end of 2025.
• YouTube ads and subscriptions: more than $60 billion in revenue in 2025.
• Paid subscriptions across consumer services: more than 325 million at the end of 2025.
• Gemini app: more than 750 million monthly active users, fourth quarter of 2025.

Leadership

Sundar Pichai is Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet and Google. He became head of Google in October 2015 and of Alphabet in December 2019; our profile Sundar Pichai: Biography, Companies, and Career Journey traces his path.

John L. Hennessy is Chair of the Board of Directors, a post he has held since January 2018. Anat Ashkenazi is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google, and Ruth M. Porat is President and Chief Investment Officer.

Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin remain directors of Alphabet, and Page chairs the board’s Executive Committee.