When generative AI exploded into public view in late 2022, plenty of pundits predicted it would be bad news for the likes of Google and Meta as nimble AI-powered rivals found new ways to capture netizens’ attention and monetize it.

Those pundits appear to have been wrong, as the two tech giants on Wednesday used quarterly earnings announcements to reveal their revenue has surged thanks to AI.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, told investors that the web giant’s recently-released search update that presents results as prose written by AI instead of just a list of links “is already driving incremental total query growth” and “driving an expansionary moment for Search.”

It’s also driving more revenue. Alphabet’s advertising haul rose 12 percent year-over-year to hit $

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