Google has become the fourth company in history to command a market capitalization of $3 trillion.
After its stock surged 4% in early trade today, Google saw its market cap push past the $3 trillion mark. Only three other companies — NVIDIA, Apple and Microsoft — have ever touched the $3 trillion mark in market cap. As of today, the most valuable companies in the world are NVIDIA ($4.3 trillion), Microsoft ($3.8 trillion), Apple ($3.5 trillion) and Google ($3 trillion).
Google’s stock had flagged for most of this year, driven primarily by concerns over whether it would be able to adapt in the AI era. Companies like OpenAI and Perplexity were thought to be eating away at search traffic, and Google’s search cash cow appeared to be under threat. In April, Google’s shares had touched a low of $149 per share.
But as Google slowly came into its own with AI, first releasing the very capable Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash series of models, it appeared that Google could end up being a significant player in AI. It followed it up with the release of Veo3, which was by far the best video editing model available in the market. Then a flurry of releases followed, including the Genie 3 world model, which could create entire worlds, and many Gemma models. Google’s stock had inched up to $200 per share by late August.
Around this time, Google received a court ruling saying that it wouldn’t have to break up with Android and Chrome becoming separate companies. Ironically, one of the reasons that the ruling went in Google’s favour was the emergence of competitors like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which showed that alternatives to Google existed, particularly in the AI era. Right after the ruling, investors seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and Google’s stock jumped to $230 levels.
Since then, Google has cemented its dominance in the AI space. It has released the Nano Banana image editing model, which again seemed far better than anything available from other companies. Google has been aggressively promoting Nano Banana as well, and several image generation trends have gone viral. This has meant that Google Gemini has not only overtaken ChatGPT in overall searches, but also displaced ChatGPT as the top app on iOS. This momentum seems to have pushed Google’s stock even higher, and it has touched a high of $252 per share, taking its market cap past the $3 trillion mark. It remains to be seen if Google can sustain this momentum, but with its top AI talent, full-stack AI approach including its own chips, models, and distribution channels like YouTube, and a renewed hunger to win, Google could end up being a big winner in the AI era.