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Despite the threat posed to Google’s search dominance by new generative AI competitors, revenue from the channel soared in the first quarter of 2024. Google brought in more than $46 billion in search revenue, a 14% year-over-year increase and the most the company’s search revenue has grown in two years.
Google once again branded itself as an AI-first company, with AI developments complementing, and not undermining, its ad offerings.
“We have a clear path to AI monetization that includes ads and cloud as well as subscriptions,” CEO Sundar Pichai said on the April 25 earnings call, with chief business officer Philipp Schindler saying the company has been experimenting with new ad formats within Google’s search generative experience with search and shopping.
“I’m comfortable we’ll be able to manage the monetization transition,” Pichai added.
YouTube revenue also grew more this quarter than it has in any previous quarter over the past two years, ballooning 21% compared to the first quarter of 2023.
Google expects Shorts to play a growing role in YouTube’s revenue. In response to a question about why Shorts don’t monetize at the rate of other YouTube videos, Schindler said he had no doubt it would match in the future.
A continued weak spot is Google’s network revenue, which includes ad-tech platforms. Revenue decreased 1% year-over-year, marking the seventh straight quarter of decline.
This is the line of business most likely to be affected by cookie deprecation, which Google delayed for the third time earlier this week.
