Google Shields $237.8B Ads While Copying Apple Chip Plan as GOOG Holds $384.90

Alphabet is prioritizing protection of its $237.8 billion advertising revenue while advancing custom AI silicon and Gemini features after Google I/O 2026. The week opened with cultural pushback—an 18-year engineer’s exit over rapid AI mandates and Eric Schmidt booed at commencement—before the May 19 keynote revealed Gemini reaching 900 million monthly users and 3.2 quadrillion tokens processed monthly. Post-event shares settled at $384.90 as investors weighed $180–190 billion 2026 capex against monetization gains in ads, shopping, and cloud. Latest coverage shows Google embedding AI Overviews without eroding clicks and shifting toward vertical integration modeled on Apple.