Citizens Financial Group analysts have increased their price target on Alphabet to $385 from $340 while affirming a Market Outperform rating, based on several key developments that they believe will drive shareholder value in 2026. The firm noted that Alphabet’s shares more than doubled from their May lows, prompting a comprehensive reassessment of revenue and valuation assumptions now underpinned by a clear reacceleration in search advertising. Citizens expects search revenue growth to accelerate further in Q4 of fiscal 2025—viewed as the critical near-term catalyst for the stock—and highlighted the initial impact of Smart Bidding Exploration, which connects advertisers to user intent rather than simple keywords, thereby increasing the ad load per query.

Beyond search, Citizens identified four medium-term growth drivers set to underpin broader earnings inflection in 2026 and 2027: the continued rollout and monetization of the Gemini AI platform; sustained expansion of Google Cloud in enterprise AI workloads; commercialization of Waymo’s self-driving technology; and growing external sales of custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). The analyst team emphasized that Q3 marked the first full quarter with Smart Bidding Exploration live and anticipates similar benefits in Q4, supported by stable holiday ad spending trends. On this basis, Citizens raised its price target and reiterated its Market Outperform stance, projecting that these combined catalysts will drive mid-teens revenue growth and compressed valuation multiples closer to peer norms over the next 12–18 months.