YouTube's advertising business continued its strong growth in the second quarter of 2026, with parent company Alphabet reporting a 13% year-on-year rise in ad sales to $11.06 billion, beating Wall Street expectations of $10.8 billion. The results underline YouTube's position as one of the world's largest entertainment platforms and form part of a broader blockbuster quarter for Alphabet, which also owns Google, as the firm continues to benefit from heavy investment in artificial intelligence.

Alphabet posted overall Q2 revenue of $119.8 billion, up 24%, and net income of $112.1 billion, boosted by a $99 billion gain on equity holdings including stakes in Anthropic and SpaceX. Google Cloud was a standout performer, with revenue up 82% to $24.77 billion and operating income tripling to $8.81 billion, driven by demand for AI infrastructure. Chief executive Sundar Pichai highlighted YouTube's reach during major events, citing 1.7 billion unique viewers for World Cup content, and said the AI-powered "Ask YouTube" feature had been used by more than 140 million people in June alone. Alphabet's capital expenditure doubled to $44.9 billion as it continues to expand AI capacity.