Alphabet NASDAQ:GOOG could be facing renewed pressure in the AI race as Google's coding tools appear to be losing ground to OpenAI and Anthropic. Even after Gemini 3 helped Google catch up on key AI benchmarks last year, the company is now facing questions around AI coding, one of the most important and possibly most lucrative areas in the sector.
The concern is not just about products, but also talent and execution. Noam Shazeer, John Jumper, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel have left Google's AI division, with most of them moving to Anthropic. At the same time, developer attention appears to be centered more on Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, while Google's Antigravity has received far less attention despite coming from its $2.4 billion Windsurf acquisition last year.
For investors, this may not be an existential issue for Alphabet. The company still has its own AI chips, data centers, a healthy cloud business and a powerful advertising engine, with first-quarter 2026 revenue reaching $77 billion, up 15% from last year. But if Google's fragmented product culture, internal incentives and research delays continue to slow execution, OpenAI and Anthropic could possibly gain more room in AI coding, creating a strategic challenge for Alphabet as the AI cycle moves forward.