Google has reported a record growth in subscriptions during the first quarter of 2026, reaching a total of 350 million paid subscribers, which marks an increase of 25 million from the previous quarter. This surge is largely attributed to the popularity of the Gemini app, leading to the strongest quarterly performance for their consumer AI plans to date. Additionally, there was a significant rise in non-trial subscribers for YouTube Music and Premium, the largest since their launch in June 2018.
During the earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai previewed key announcements expected at the upcoming I/O conference, including innovations in Search and features like Personal Intelligence and agentic booking. With the event scheduled in less than three weeks, Pichai expressed enthusiasm for showcasing the latest advancements.
Furthermore, Google has enhanced its AI capabilities, achieving a reduction in Search latency by over 35% in the last five years. The cost of core AI responses has also dropped by more than 30% since the introduction of Gemini 3, due to advancements in hardware and engineering. Google plans to sell Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to select customers, catering to growing demand from AI labs and high-performance computing sectors.