The year has just begun, and the momentum appears to be firmly on Google’s side. On January 7, Alphabet, the search giant’s parent, overtook Apple to become the world’s second most valuable publicly traded company, behind NVIDIA.
Alphabet’s market capitalisation closed at approximately $3.89 trillion, edging past Apple’s valuation of about $3.85 trillion following a recent surge in its share price. It is the first time since 2019 that Alphabet has surpassed Apple in market value.
The reshuffle is striking, given Apple’s near-final integration of Google’s Gemini models into Apple Intelligence. In late 2025, multiple reports said Apple would pay Google roughly $1 billion annually to run a custom version of Gemini as part of its next-generation Siri stack. In effect, Apple is buying intelligence from the very company that just overtook it.
That shift reflects a broader realignment underway in AI.
During a recent podcast with entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, Elon Mus