Google's Bold Moves: AI Democratization, Strategic Alliances, and XR Expansion Amidst Market Fluctuations
1min read As of last week, Google's stock, GOOG, reported an increase of 1.18%. Despite this, it experienced a decline of 5.15% over the past week, and a 9.57% drop year-to-date, positioning the company’s market capitalization at $2,099.362 billion. On February 26th, the trading volume reached $4.147 billion, ranking 14th in the U.S. stock market that day, marking an 11.69% increase from the previous day, with a total of 23.6047 million shares changing hands.
Google recently announced the release of a free public preview version of its AI programming assistant, Gemini Code Assist, targeting a wide range of users including students, hobbyists, freelancers, and startups. This tool promises to simplify the use of AI technology across various development platforms. Google's own findings indicate that over 75% of developers utilize AI in their daily tasks, with more than 25% of new code within google being AI-generated, pending engineers' review and approval.
The objective of this initiative is to bridge the gap between well-resourced organizations and those with limited access to advanced AI tools. As the global number of developers is anticipated to reach 57.8 million by 2028, Google aims to democratize AI access, independent of developers’ financial capacities. Gemini Code Assist is set to enhance code quality and reduce time spent on code reviews through AI-powered assessments, particularly with its GitHub integration that supports review processes for both public and private repositories.
In ongoing efforts to expand its technological capabilities, Google is also involved in strategic collaborations. Recently, a significant long-term partnership with Salesforce was announced, focusing on deep integration in CRM software and other AI-driven solutions. This seven-year contract reportedly valued at $2.5 billion, is expected to strengthen existing tools through Google's cloud platform, enhancing data analytics and AI functionalities for shared clients.
Meanwhile, Google continues to face regulatory scrutiny from the European Union, as it anticipates formal charges concerning alleged violations relating to the preferential treatment of its own services in search results, impacting competitive fairness. This move follows unsatisfactory amendments proposed by Google regarding its search engine operations, potentially leading to hefty fines and further regulatory obligations aimed at ensuring a level playing field for all market participants.
Additionally, in a move to enhance its position in the XR (extended reality) development landscape, Google has agreed to a $250 million deal to acquire certain XR assets from HTC, which includes integrating part of HTC's XR development team. This strategic acquisition grants Google access to key HTC XR intellectual properties, leveraging years of XR innovation to bolster its Android XR platform, thus reinforcing its commitment and capability in the rapidly evolving XR domain.
