Google Search Revenue Up 19% in Q1, Pichai Credits AI

Alphabet posted its Q1 2026 earnings this week, with Google Search & Other revenue climbing 19% year over year to $60.4 billion. CEO Sundar Pichai attributed the strong quarter directly to AI Overviews and AI Mode, noting that users are “coming back to Search more” thanks to these features.

While the quarter’s revenue dipped slightly from Q4 2025’s $63.1 billion, the year-over-year growth rate accelerated from 17% to 19%. Total Alphabet revenue hit $109.9 billion, a 22% increase. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler pointed out that Google Services “benefited from a strong FX tailwind” this quarter, which padded the reported figures beyond constant-currency growth.

Pichai on Search and AI

During his prepared remarks, Pichai directly linked the Search performance to AI-powered experiences. “People love our AI experiences like AI Mode and AI Overviews, and they’re coming back to Search more,” he said. He also revealed that “queries are at an all-time high” and described “strong growth in both users and usage of AI Mode globally,” though he did not disclose exact figures. Past disclosures pegged AI Mode at roughly 100 million monthly active users and 75 million daily.

Pichai emphasized that AI Overviews are driving overall Search growth. This echoes what Liz Reid argued on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots earlier this month, where she described AI Overviews as reducing low-value clicks rather than cutting useful traffic.

Schindler added more granular detail, saying the Search & Other growth was “primarily driven by retail and finance,” with health also contributing. In the Q&A session, he clarified that “the strength we saw in Search was not due to a single driver, but was really the result of many parts of our business showing strength and working very well together.”

Efficiency Gains: Latency and Cost

Pichai shared two key efficiency metrics. First, on latency: “Even as we’ve brought new AI features into our results page, we’ve reduced Search latency by more than 35% over the past five years.” Second, on costs: “Since upgrading AI Overviews and AI Mode to Gemini 3, we’ve reduced the cost of core AI responses by more than 30% thanks to continued hardware and engineering breakthroughs.”

Search Updates Rolled Out

Pichai highlighted three major Search updates from the quarter. Personal Intelligence expanded broadly in the U. S., following Google’s March rollout to free users. Agentic experiences shipped to new countries, with restaurant booking cited as an early example of what Pichai calls “search as an agent manager.” Finally, Search Live multimodal capabilities went global.

What This Means for SEO

Over the past year, SEO professionals have worried that AI Overviews would cannibalize clicks by satisfying user intent directly on the results page. The Q1 numbers challenge that narrative. If AI were truly eating into traditional search, query volume and revenue would flatten. Instead, both grew.

But concerns aren’t baseless. “All-time high queries” doesn’t mean all-time high publisher clicks. Google hasn’t disclosed click-through rates or how revenue is split between AI Mode and traditional ads. More queries could mean fewer clicks per query if AI answers resolve intent earlier. Still, the revenue growth suggests the search ecosystem is expanding, even as user behavior shifts.

Looking Ahead

Google’s earnings make clear that AI features are expanding search, but key questions remain about monetization and click-through rates. Pichai said more details about Search will be shared at Google I/O in May and Google Marketing Live.