Alphabet Q2 Earnings Gemini 4 Push, Shares Down 3%

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai forcefully defended Google's position in the artificial intelligence race during the company's quarterly earnings call on July 22, 2026, even as investors signaled skepticism by pushing the stock lower. The CEO directly countered mounting analyst concerns that the company is falling behind rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, particularly in areas such as AI coding capabilities.

Pichai acknowledged specific shortcomings, stating there are areas where Google needs to improve, citing coding and agentic coding as key examples. However, he argued that Google remains at the frontier on many other attributes. To regain perceived momentum, he detailed the company's aggressive development pipeline, emphasizing that the most ambitious pre-training run yet for the next-generation Gemini 4 model is underway. He predicted that people will be satisfied when it lands and signaled that future model updates would arrive at a near-monthly cadence.

The CEO's defense comes amid reported delays to the Gemini 3.5 Pro model, which was originally expected in June and remains in testing. Analysts from firms like JPMorgan and Barclays pressed Pichai on the schedule and whether...