Wall Street was bracing for a pivotal moment in the artificial intelligence race today, as tech titans Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Meta are all set to report their quarterly earnings. The results are the sharpest referendum yet on their multi-billion dollar AI investments and whether the astronomical costs are translating into real-world profit.
The moment of truth arrived for tech giants as investors worldwide held their breath after Wall Street's close when Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Meta (Facebook) – collectively worth nearly 10 trillion dollars – began releasing their quarterly earnings reports in another attempt to beat forecasts.
Google beat forecasts by 26% ($2.87 per share compared to the $2.27 expected) with revenues of 100 billion dollars. Microsoft also beat forecasts by 14% ($3.72 per share compared to the $3.6 expected). Meta on the other hand had to pay 15 billions in a one-time payment, which resulted in a miss of 84% in the earnings.
Alphabet reported more than $100 Billion of revenue in a quarter for the first time ever. Google parent company Alphabet also reported strong third-quarter results, with revenue climbing 16% year-over-year. Google Search & Other grew 15%, while YouTube Ads increased 15% during the period. Google Cloud posted the strongest growth at 34%, though Google Network saw a 3% decline. The company's EBIT rose 9.5% with a margin of 31%, and earnings per share jumped 35%.
Microsoft reported revenue growth of 18% in its first quarter of fiscal year 2026. The company's Intelligent Cloud segment led the gains with a 28% increase, driven by Azure's 40% surge. Products and business processes grew 17%, with LinkedIn up 10%. Personal computing rose 4%, while Xbox content and services increased 1%. Operating income climbed 24% with margins expanding to 49% from 47%, though earnings per share grew 13%.
Meta reported third-quarter earnings per share of $7.25, excluding charges, beating analyst estimates of $6.71. The company posted revenue of $50.08 billion, surpassing expectations of $49.41 billion. Meta guided fourth-quarter revenue between $56 billion and $59 billion, compared to analyst estimates of $57.38 billion. The company recorded a non-cash tax charge of $15.93 billion and expects a tax rate between 12% and 15%.
"We expect a significant reduction in our U.S. federal cash tax payments for the remainder of 2025 and future years due to the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. However, the implementation also led to the recognition of a valuation allowance against our US federal deferred tax assets, reflecting the impact of the US Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax. As a result, the third quarter 2025 provision for income taxes includes a one-time, non-cash income tax charge of $15.93 billion."
Looming over all of them is the company that makes this arms race possible: AI chip kingmaker NVIDIA, which is slated to report its own blockbuster earnings on November 19.
Today's reports center on one theme: turning AI hype into revenue. For Microsoft, analysts are bullish, expecting a strong Earnings Per Share (EPS) of around $3.65. The focus is purely on monetization, with investors looking for proof that its AI-powered Copilot and Azure cloud services are becoming a significant profit engine.
For Alphabet (Google), the story is about fending off competition while managing costs. While analysts expect a solid EPS of $2.27, the real focus will be on its core search business. For quarters, investors feared that AI chatbots like ChatGPT would "kill" Google Search. However, Google's last report in July emphatically debunked this; search revenue grew substantially. Management even stated that its own AI features are causing users to ask more complex questions, increasing overall queries. Analysts now expect that strength to continue.
Meta (Facebook) faces a similar narrative. Analysts expect massive revenue growth, forecasting around $49.4 billion for the quarter and an EPS between $6.60 and $6.70, largely thanks to its AI-powered advertising engine. But this success comes at a price, and investors will be scrutinizing the company's colossal spending on the AI infrastructure needed to compete.
The AI Kingmaker and the Growth Paradox
While the tech giants report today, the market is also looking ahead to NVIDIA's report on November 19. NVIDIA doesn't run the data centers; it sells the essential "picks and shovels" – the powerful GPU chips – to companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who then operate those data centers.
Expectations for NVIDIA are astronomical, with forecasts for a massive $54 billion in quarterly revenue and an EPS between $1.17 and $1.23.
However, NVIDIA's last report highlighted a fascinating paradox that analysts will be watching. The company's quarter-over-quarter revenue growth from Data Centers appeared to moderate slightly. This was not due to a drop in demand, which remains at an all-time high. Instead, the "slowdown" was a story of supply, not demand. NVIDIA is supply-constrained, meaning it physically cannot produce its complex chips fast enough to meet the world's insatiable appetite.
Furthermore, many of its largest customers are likely pausing some orders as they await the full-scale production ramp-up of NVIDIA's next-generation "Blackwell" chip, signaling that another massive wave of spending is just on the horizon.
