Alphabet just did something it hasn’t managed since 2019: it passed Apple in market capitalization. The parent company of Google closed at $3.88 trillion on January 7, edging out Apple’s $3.84 trillion and claiming the title of second-largest public company on the planet, behind only Nvidia.
Alphabet shares climbed over 2% that day, closing at $322.03.
The AI gap is doing the heavy lifting
Alphabet’s stock gained 65% throughout 2025, its strongest annual performance since 2009. The gains were driven by a cascade of AI-related developments. Alphabet rolled out custom chips called Ironwood TPU, launched AI models branded as Gemini 3, and inked cloud collaborations that made enterprise clients take the company’s AI ambitions seriously.
Meanwhile, Apple was headed in the opposite direction. Analysts have downgraded the company over delays in its next-generation Siri features, which were expected to arrive sometime in 2026.
