Waymo, Alphabet's (GOOG 1.69%) (GOOGL 1.66%) driverless car company, recently announced that it had raised an impressive $16 billion in its latest funding round. The money came from about 10 investors, including some money from Alphabet itself, and it means that Waymo now has a valuation of $126 billion -- more than double its value from just over two years ago.
Waymo's capital raise is a great example of Alphabet's expanding AI footprint, and it's just one piece of the broader AI opportunity for Alphabet. Here's why it could help make Alphabet a top AI stock in 2026 and beyond.
Image source: Waymo.
How Waymo's $16 billion capital raise helps Alphabet's AI ambitions
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) require significant technical sophistication -- including artificial intelligence computing -- to be reliable and safe, and Alphabet has been investing in its self-driving technology for more than a decade. The company's early moves are now paying off, with Waymo completing a staggering 15 million rides last year alone -- up more the 3x from the previous year.
The company already operates in six U.S. cities, and Waymo said the new investment will help it expand to 20 new U.S. cities this year, as well as internationally. Importantly, Waymo says its advanced technology and its current expansion make its self-driving service a viable commercial product. Waymo's co-CEOs, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, said in a blog post:
We are no longer proving a concept; we are scaling a commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 additional cities in 2026, including Tokyo and London.
For years, Waymo has been steadily building out its AV capabilities, and now it appears ready to make a big push to commercialize its self-driving across many cities, tapping into the vast AV market that will be worth an estimated $2.2 trillion by 2030. That's a massive opportunity, and it's just one piece of the AI cake Alphabet is going after.
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Waymo is just one part of Alphabet's long-term AI opportunities
Waymo could play an important role in Alphabet's AI ambitions in the coming years, adding to the company's already impressive artificial intelligence opportunities.
For example, Alphabet's chatbot, Google Gemini, now has 750 million monthly active users -- up from 400 million just nine months ago -- as it takes on OpenAI's ChatGPT. That rapid expansion not only shows how useful Gemini is to users but also the power of Alphabet's ecosystem and its ability to convince its corporate and individual users to try new AI services.
And it's not stopping its AI expansion there. The company just entered into an AI collaboration with Apple in which Apple will use Gemini as the underlying AI model for a new version of Siri coming later this year. The Financial Times reported that the deal will result in Apple paying Alphabet billions of dollars over several years.
Most of Alphabet's AI sales are housed in the company's Google Cloud segment, which is why it's important to note that the company's cloud revenue surged 48% in the fourth quarter (which ended Dec. 31 ), reaching $17.6 billion. Those sales helped the company top $400 billion in annual revenue in 2025, a record high.
It's clear from the recent Waymo investment, Gemini's user gains, and Alphabet's surging cloud sales that the company's artificial intelligence ambitions are already paying off. While competition will certainly be fierce, these moves prove that Alphabet is certainly a top AI stock for 2026 and beyond.
