Amazon vs. Alphabet: Which Magnificent Stock Is the Better Buy?

The article compares Amazon and Alphabet as long-term AI and cloud beneficiaries, arguing Alphabet is the stronger pick because Google Cloud is growing faster than Amazon Web Services and Alphabet generates far higher operating margins. Both firms are benefiting from enterprise AI demand, with Google Cloud revenue up 63% year over year in Q1 versus AWS up 28%. The piece also highlights Alphabet’s stronger profitability, including a 46.3% trailing 12-month operating margin versus Amazon’s 13.6%, despite both companies booking large gains from early Anthropic investments. The broader market takeaway is that Alphabet’s superior cloud growth and margin profile may support more flexibility for future AI spending and buybacks, while Amazon remains a strong but comparatively lower-margin business with slower stock performance over the past year.