More than a quarter of new code at Google is generated by AI

Google is building a bunch of AI products, and it’s using AI quite a bit as part of building those products, too. “More than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers,” CEO Sundar Pichai said on the company’s third quarter 2024 earnings call. It’s a big milestone that marks just how important AI is to the company.

AI is helping Google make money as well. Alphabet reported $88.3 billion in revenue for the quarter, with Google Services (which includes Search) revenue of $76.5 billion, up 13 percent year-over-year, and Google Cloud (which includes its AI infrastructure products for other companies) revenue of $11.4 billion, up 35 percent year-over-year.

Operating incomes were also strong. Google Services hit $30.9 billion, up from $23.9 billion last year, and Google Cloud hit $1.95 billion, significantly up from last year’s $270 million.

“In Search, our new AI features are expanding what people can search for and how they search for it,” CEO Sundar Pichai says in a statement. “In Cloud, our AI solutions are helping drive deeper product adoption with existing customers, attract new customers and win larger deals. And YouTube’s total ads and subscription revenues surpassed $50 billion over the past four quarters for the first time.”

Google is facing a potentially tough road ahead, however, following the August ruling that the company is a monopolist in the search and advertising markets. That case, brought by the US Department of Justice, is now in its remedies phase, and while there’s still a ways to go for the dust to settle, a Google breakup is on the table.