After Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) reported second-quarter results that beat analysts’ expectations driven by Google Cloud and search strength, executives updated investors on the company’s investments in artificial intelligence (AI), outlook, and more.
As big tech companies boost capital expenditures to invest in AI, raising concerns about higher costs, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said “the risk of underinvesting is dramatically bigger than the risk of overinvesting for us here.”
Pichai said that in a situation where the company is overinvesting in AI, current investments directed at infrastructure solutions like data centers could also be used for other tasks.
The CEO added that “not investing to be at the front” of the AI race “definitely has much more significant downsides” for Alphabet.
Pichai also said the company is seeing “positive trends” from rolling out its AI Overview tool, which summarizes the content from search at the top of the page.
The company reported higher search …