Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and Alphabet, said in his remarks for Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings call, published on Google’s blog on 28 October 2026: “Our AI investments are driving increased usage and overall query growth, including commercial queries.” He added that “our year-over-year query growth rate is the highest it’s been in the last five years.”
We compared that line with what Pichai’s published remarks said about Search queries in each of the previous seven quarters, back to October to December 2024, and with Google Search & other revenuegrowth in each quarter. By our arithmetic from Alphabet’s results releases, that growth peaked at 19.1% in January to March 2026 and was 12.0% in July to September 2026. None of the eight sets of remarks gives a total count of Search queries.
Business Pill · Distribution Advantage
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on distribution advantage. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss Google Search or these remarks.
The key insight: Across eight quarters of remarks, Pichai’s description of AI and Search queries moved from usage growth to queries at an all-time high to query growth at a five-year high, while Search & other revenuegrowth, by our arithmetic, peaked at 19.1% and was 12.0% in the quarter of the five-year-high remark. Google gave no total count of Search queries in any of them.
October to December 2024 (remarks published 4 February 2025): “People use Search more with AI Overviews and usage growth increases over time as people learn that they can ask new types of questions.” Search & other revenue grew 12.5% year over year, by our arithmetic.
January to March 2025 (24 April 2025): “AI Overviews is going very well with over 1.5 billion users per month.” On AI Mode, then a Labs experiment: “On average, AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries.” Search & other grew 9.8%.
April to June 2025 (23 July 2025): “Overall queries and commercial queries on Search continued to grow year over year.” Pichai said AI Overviews were “now driving over 10% more queries globally for the types of queries that show them” and that “AI Overviews now has over 2 billion monthly users.” Search & other grew 11.7%.
July to September 2025 (29 October 2025): “This growth rate increased in Q3, largely driven by our AI investments in Search, most notably AI Overviews and AI Mode.” He said: “AI Mode is already driving incremental total query growth for Search.” Search & other grew 14.5%.
October to December 2025 (4 February 2026): “Queries in AI Mode are three-times longer than traditional searches.” He said that in the US, “daily AI Mode queries per user double since launch.” Search & other grew 16.7%.
January to March 2026 (29 April 2026): under the Search heading, Pichai said “AI continues to drive search usage and queries are at an all-time high.” Search & other grew 19.1%, the fastest of the eight quarters.
April to June 2026 (22 July 2026): Pichai said AI Mode had “surpassed 1 billion monthly active users” since its global expansion, and that “AI Mode is driving an incremental increase in Search queries overall.” Search & other grew 16.8%.
July to September 2026 (28 October 2026): the five-year-high line above. Pichai also said: “Queries in AI Mode are on average three times longer than traditional searches, and one in five AI Mode searches globally use voice, images, or documents.” He said: “We’ve now crossed over 50 billion visual searches per month.” Search & other grew 12.0%.
Google Search & other revenuegrowth, % year over year, fourth quarter 2024 to third quarter 2026, labelled with what Sundar Pichai’s earnings-call remarks said about Search queries in four of those quarters. Growth rates are our arithmetic; Google gives no query count. Sources: Alphabet results releases (SEC 8-K Ex. 99.1); Pichai call remarks, blog.google.
What Was Said on the Call
On the call itself, according to a live-caption transcript, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said “the majority of AI Mode queries are incremental”. Explaining why Search growth slowed from the second quarter, he said “the strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode.”
How the Measures Changed
The remarks moved from describing usage to describing query growth. AI Mode queries were described as twice as long as traditional searches in April 2025 and three times as long in February and October 2026.
In February 2026 Pichai said “Nearly one in six AI Mode queries are now non-text, using voice or images.” The October figure of one in five also counts documents, so the two are not measured the same way.
As we read the eight sets of remarks, the language about queries strengthened over time while the revenuegrowth rate rose and then fell; the remarks themselves do not connect the two.
On the call, Schindler named lower monetization in AI Mode as one factor in the slower Search growth, alongside others; the published remarks give no figure for how large that effect was.
Because Google publishes no total count of Search queries, the five-year comparison rests on Google’s own description and cannot be checked against a number.
“our year-over-year query growth rate is the highest itโs been in the last five years”
Three Implications
FOR SEARCH REVENUE By our arithmetic, Search & other growth was 9.8%, 19.1% and 12.0% in the first quarter of 2025, the first quarter of 2026 and the third quarter of 2026.
FOR AI MODE Pichai described AI Mode queries as twice as long as traditional searches in April 2025 and three times as long in February and October 2026.
FOR THE MEASUREGoogle gave no total count of Search queries in any of the eight sets of remarks, so the query growth it describes cannot be sized.
The Business Engineer Lens
This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Supercycle.
The framework names a signal for incumbents: “The canonical transition signal is the “BlackBerry moment.” Google’s search revenue is hitting record highs at the exact moment AI assistants pose an existential threat to its core business — the same pattern as BlackBerry peaking as the iPhone arrived.”
Pichai’s remarks describe AI as adding to Search queries, and Search & other revenue was $63.35 billion in the quarter. The framework was published in June 2026 and does not discuss these remarks or figures; whether the pattern it names applies here is not established by them.
What Is Not Established
Google gives no total count of Search queries in any of the eight sets of remarks or in its results releases, so the size of the query growth cannot be measured, only Google’s description of it. The figures it does give cover parts of Search, such as visual searches. The remarks do not define the “query growth rate” or give the figure behind the five-year comparison.
The remarks and releases give no Search revenue attributable to AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no paid-click or cost-per-click figures. Whether AI features add to or take from Search revenue is not answered by these documents.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
Across eight quarters of remarks, Google’s description of AI’s effect on Search moved from usage growth to queries at an all-time high to query growth at a five-year high. Search & other revenuegrowth, by our arithmetic, rose from 9.8% to 19.1% and then fell to 12.0% in the quarter of the five-year-high remark.
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A note on sourcing. Quotations from Sundar Pichai come from his prepared earnings-call remarks published on Google’s blog for the fourth quarter of 2024 through the third quarter of 2026. Philipp Schindler’s lines come from a live-caption transcript of the 28 October 2026 call. Revenue figures come from Alphabet’s quarterly results releases (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1). Growth rates are our arithmetic; linked earlier pieces carry their own sources.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
