Among the magnificent seven technology stocks, Alphabet (GOOGL) returns in 2025 are a disappointment. The stock lost 2.36% as of last week. By comparison, Meta Platforms (META) rewarded shareholders with a 20% return.
Meta is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. It is hiring staff and paying nine figures, acquiring firms, and taking Apple’s (AAPL) AI expert staff.
Besides legal cases against Alphabet, Gemini AI faces competition. More worrisome is Perplexity’s browser, Comet AI. The app, for desktop and mobile, might take Google’s Chrome market share.
Comet AI takes a step away from searching for answers. Instead of Googling to get Gemini and search results, Comet outputs AI results. Fortunately, taking market share in the browser market is difficult. Microsoft (MSFT) tried for many years to grow Edge. Despite CoPilot, powered by ChatGPT, Edge is still less popular than Chrome.
Opera (OPRA) offered a unique browser experience, too. However, its market share was 1.85% as of June 2025 (according to StatCounter).
Value investors have already accumulated GOOG stock since April. The stock added around $40 to its stock price in that time. Still, GOOG stock has a P/E of around 21 times, compared to nearly 40 times for MSFT stock. META stock trades at a 27.5 times P/E, where it risks pulling back from here. Meta’s chart indicated a double top at $750.
