Q1 Earning Preview: Is Alphabet Overspending? A Painful Lesson From Meta And Intel

The article previews Alphabet’s Q1 results and questions whether the company’s heavy AI capital spending is justified. Citing a BNP Paribas note that downplays investor worries, the author warns that misjudged “build it and they will come” AI bets have destroyed hundreds of billions for peers like Meta and Intel. To avoid similar downside, Google must show accelerating AI demand and share gains. The piece flags five near-term metrics investors should watch—Cloud backlog growth, Cloud revenue acceleration, Gemini App MAU, Gemini Enterprise paid-seat growth, and enterprise adoption—to determine whether current CapEx is productive or a threat to shareholder capital.