AI upstarts were supposed to lay siege to Google’s search-engine dominance. So far, the defense is winning, writes Asa Fitch, following second-quarter results from parent company Alphabet. A: Google’s

Wednesday’s report follows Alphabet’s better-than-expected Q1 release earlier this year, in which the company reported year-over-year growth of 12% and 49% for its top and bottom lines, respectively, after Google’s search unit generated more in sales than analysts projected.

The search giant predicted a further capital spending boost next year and cited massive demand for its cloud computing services.