Analyst Says He's Selling Alphabet (GOOGL) Amid AI Search Threats - 'I'm Hearing Search Could Be Down 25%' This Year

We recently published 10 Stocks Everyone’s Discussing Amid Latest Earnings Season. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the stocks everyone's discussing.

Steve Weiss, founder and managing partner at Short Hills Capital Partners, said in a recent program on CNBC that he’s trimming his stake in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and may sell it completely amid AI-related threats to the company’s search business. Weiss, citing his sources, said that he’s “hearing” that search could be down up to 25% this year.

“I may be on my way out completely. And I am concerned about search. What I’m hearing is search could be down this year over about 20–25%. That’s meaningful. That’s what you’re hearing. Yep, that’s what I’m hearing from sources. Nobody knows, but that’s the direction. I’d say my sources are pretty informed. You can make light of them. But they’re very informed sources.”

Weiss said his “sources” are strong, but Alphabet’s latest results show a different picture. Alphabet’s all-important Google Search & Other segment revenue rose about 15% year over year, while Gemini reached 650 million monthly active users.

Bristlemoon Global Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is another stock that we felt had been undeservedly beaten down by a bearish narrative that largely ignored the fundamentals of the business. We began accumulating GOOGL in June and continued adding to our position in Q3 as we waited for the market narrative to flip on its head. Alphabet needs no introduction, so we will jump straight into why we thought the AI disruption and terminal value fears were overblown.

Google failing to innovate? The notion that Google has lost the ability to innovate is a common refrain that we have heard over the past several years – essentially since the November 2022 ChatGPT moment – and one that we subscribed to ourselves at one stage. The genesis of this complaint is easy to understand: • Despite (or perhaps because of) being a tremendous monetary success, the Google Search experience has been degrading for years as sponsored links, shopping ads, algorithm changes and rampant SEO abuse made it increasingly tedious for users to find answers to their queries. • Google has nine services with over 1 billion users each, yet these are all over one or two decades old, and the company has failed to launch a new service or product with massive adoption in recent years despite its distribution advantages. At least Mark Zuckerberg has the distinction of copying well…” (Click here to read the full text)

While we acknowledge the potential of GOOGL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.