Google parent Alphabet’s shares suffered their sharpest one-day fall in history on Thursday as disappointing quarterly sales and rising artificial intelligence spending fuelled concerns about the future of Google’s search advertising business. The decline of 12.64% erased roughly $500 billion from the company’s market value.

Another US e-commerce and tech giant Amazon also recorded steep selloffs as its shares fell over 4% at market closing. Tech manufacturer Intel, too, saw its shares tumble as it logged a 23% drop in after-market trading on Thursday due to the unstable personal computer market, hurdles in manufacturing, ‌and heavy spending production expansion.

For Alphabet, it was the second-largest single-day loss in history, behind Nvidia’s nearly $600 billion decline in early 2025, and exceeded any daily fall Alphabet experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic or the 2008 financial crisis, reported CNN .

The selloff reflects growing investor scrutiny of Big Tech’s AI investments, particularly whether…