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By Louis Juricic and Sarina Isaacs
Investing.com -- Here is your weekly Pro Recap on the biggest headlines out of tech this week: AI moves from Alphabet and Elon Musk; a Coinbase surge on a court win; and Salesforce's price hike.
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Alphabet riding high on AI rollout
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock bumped higher Thursday after it said it was rolling out its artificial-intelligence chatbot, Bard, in Europe and Brazil, as the tech giant looks to take the AI fight to rival ChatGPT.
Morgan Stanley said in a note that Google Search, which still makes up the bulk of Alphabet’s revenue, will likely become "more personalized” and develop “critical competitive moats” as the tech giant invests further in AI.
The analyst also said Alphabet remains "in the best position to disrupt/improve its own business" via AI, noting:
It is still early in AI adoption, and it will likely require new innovation and tools to further accelerate adoption. This, in our view, should help GOOGL manage the user and behavior transition and minimize near-term impacts on revenue and monetization.
GOOGL shares climbed more than 6% for the week to $125.42.
Elon Musk launches xAI
Elon Musk got in the AI battle as well with the launch of his xAI artificial intelligence outfit Wednesday.
Musk has repeatedly issued warnings regarding AI in the past, and signed a letter in March that called the scramble for AI dominance "an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one - not even their creators - can understand, predict, or reliably control."
Musk said his plan for building safer AI includes rendering it "maximally curious" instead of attempting to program in morality, noting, "I think it is going to be pro-humanity from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not-humanity."
In addition to this new role, Musk also famously leads Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), SpaceX, and Twitter.
Coinbase propels higher on court victory for Ripple Labs
Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) shares soared Thursday after a federal court ruled that blockchain firm Ripple Labs did not violate federal securities law in selling its blockchain currency, XRP, on public exchanges.
After the news, Needham & Company kept Coinbase's Buy rating and raised its price target to $120 from the prior $70.
Needham said the summary judgment constituted "a positive read-through to COIN as it sets precedent that crypto token sales through exchanges, at least in the XRP case, did not violate securities laws. We believe this outcome should moderately de-risk the regulatory pressure on the stock."