Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock: Morgan Stanley Reiterates Buy After Waymo Update

TLDR

• Waymo has completed 170.7 million rider-only miles without a human driver, with a ~10x improvement in serious accident rates vs. human drivers
• Morgan Stanley reiterates Buy on GOOGL with a $330 price target, citing Waymo’s faster-than-expected scaling
• Evercore ISI keeps Outperform rating with a $400 target after its search survey showed Google’s share recovering from 70% to 75% between Aug 2025 and March 2026
• ChatGPT’s search share dipped from 13% to 11% over the same period; 52% of Gen AI users said they’re searching more on Google
• Alphabet is down ~7% year-to-date and ~17% from its 52-week high of $349, despite nearly 90% of covering analysts rating it a Buy

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Alphabet (GOOGL) stock slipped 2% in early Thursday trading to $285.27, as broader market weakness weighed on the stock. The S&P 500 was off 0.8% and the Dow dropped 0.4%, with oil prices jumping more than 4%.

Alphabet Inc., GOOGL

The drop comes despite a pair of positive analyst notes — one from Morgan Stanley and one from Evercore ISI — that reinforced confidence in both Waymo and Google Search.

Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak reiterated his Buy rating and $330 price target, writing that “Waymo continues to scale faster than expected…leading with safety.” Waymo’s latest data, through December 2025, shows 170.7 million rider-only miles completed without a human driver.

That figure beat Morgan Stanley’s own estimates.

The safety numbers are holding up too. Waymo reported roughly a 10-fold improvement in serious accidents and a five-times improvement in injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers.

Waymo currently operates in 10 U.S. cities. Nowak expects 15 more cities to launch this year, alongside fleet expansion in existing markets. Wall Street broadly expects robo-taxi activity to at least double each year for the next several years.

Alphabet is also spending heavily to fund that growth. The company is projected to spend more than $170 billion on new equipment in 2026 — up from $91 billion in 2025 — according to FactSet. That’s a lot of cash out the door, even for a company this size.

Google Search Holding Its Ground

On the search side, Evercore ISI reiterated its Outperform rating and a $400 price target after completing its eighth quarterly proprietary search survey.

The data showed Google’s search share climbing from 70% to 75% between August 2025 and March 2026. Over the same stretch, ChatGPT’s search share slipped from 13% to 11%.

Evercore said there was no material change in Google’s share of commercial-intent searches — things like buying clothes or booking flights — over the past two years.

The firm raised confidence in its above-consensus Google Search revenue growth outlook of 14%-plus for 2026, against the Street’s 13% estimate. It cited expected high-single-digit growth in both paid clicks and cost-per-click.

One advertiser tracked a conversion rate that doubled — from 7% in Q1 2025 to 14% in Q1 2026. Advertising spend trends were broadly consistent or accelerating year-over-year entering Q1, though Evercore flagged some caution emerging in the last 10 days.

Where the Stock Stands

GOOGL is down about 7% year-to-date and roughly 17% off its 52-week high of $349, which was hit in February. Most of that year-to-date decline has come since the start of the Iran conflict.

Despite the slide, nearly 90% of analysts covering the stock rate it a Buy — well above the typical 55%–60% Buy-rating ratio for S&P 500 names. The average analyst price target sits around $380, up from roughly $335 at the start of 2026.

Alphabet’s revenue grew 15% over the last twelve months, with analysts forecasting 17% growth for fiscal 2026. The stock trades at a P/E of 26.91 with a PEG ratio of 0.77.

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