Alphabet stock closed at its highest level on record Wednesday after the Google parent announced its Gemini 2.0 model and some of the projects that will come with it.
Alphabet stock closed at a new all-time high.
Alphabet said that developers will be the first to have access to Gemini 2.0, with general availability coming in January. Gemini 2.0 is an update to Gemini 1.5, with enhanced performance at similarly fast response times.
“Today’s releases mark a new chapter for our Gemini model. With the release of Gemini 2.0 Flash, and the series of research prototypes exploring agentic possibilities, we have reached an exciting milestone in the Gemini era,” Alphabet said.
Shares of Alphabet closed at $195.40, up 5.5% and the highest close since July 10 when shares hit $191.18, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Alphabet is competing with fellow mega-cap tech companies to push out gen-AI offerings. It’s a tough race to win, with peers like Microsoft and ChatGPT-owner OpenAI also pushing competing products.
It’s also an expensive race. Alphabet reported in October that capital expenditures, which primarily reflected investments in technical infrastructure, were $13.1 billion for the third quarter.
Several Gemini 2.0 prototypes that can help Google move up in the gen-AI race were announced. This includes Project Mariner, an AI agent that can help users complete tasks on their computer in real time. The agent can take over the computer for the user and search for answers to questions on Google, helping increase productivity and reduce tedious tasks.
Google also announced that it is looking into how AI agents can help developers through Jules, a coding agent. Jules is meant to help coders handle bug fixes and other tasks in real time.
Gemini 2.0 wasn’t the only announcement Alphabet shared this week. The company unveiled its Willow chip for quantum computing on Monday and said the chip performed a benchmark calculation in five minutes that one of today’s fastest supercomputers would have needed 10 septillion years to perform.
“Alphabet has a track record of developing next-gen technologies with successful monetization,” BofA Securities analyst Justin Post wrote on Tuesday. Post rates Alphabet as a Buy with a $210 price target. He believes that Google’s products and capabilities “are underappreciated in valuation.”
Alphabet currently trades at 20.7 times earnings expected over the next 12 months, which is below its five-year average of 22.9 times.
Shares of Alphabet have jumped 39% this year.
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