Goldman Sachs said second-quarter results across the U.S. internet sector reinforced three themes running through the market: accelerating AI spending, resilient digital consumption and a harder trade-off between reinvestment and profit delivery. In a report dated Aug. 25, the bank said internet stocks rose 9% in the quarter, trailing the S&P 500, which gained 11%, as investor patience for AI payback started to narrow.
The report serves as a preview for Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia technology conference in San Francisco, which is scheduled for Sept. 8 through Sept. 11. Forty public and private companies are expected to appear. The OpenAI CFO is set to open the event, followed by appearances from the Google Cloud CEO, the SpaceX CFO, the Uber CEO and other executives.
Three themes shaped the quarter
Goldman framed the earnings season around three core questions: how fast AI spending is rising and what the return curve looks like, how durable digital consumer demand remains, and how management teams are balancing investment with margins.
On the cloud and AI infrastructure side, capital spending continues to move higher. Goldman tied that trend to three supports: upward revisions to cloud and AI revenue expectations, stable incremental margins and continued strength in pricing per gigawatt. In digital consumer businesses, demand stayed firm across e-commerce, online travel and mobility. At the same time, consumer behavior is becoming more polarized, with higher-income users still spending while lower-income users are more selective on timing and ticket size.
On the profit side, the quarter showed a push and pull between structural efficiency gains and renewed AI investment. Goldman said the market has already begun to penalize companies that cannot clearly explain the payback period for those outlays.
Digital advertising: AI tools are concentrating share
In digital advertising, AI-driven automation is reshaping the market. Goldman said Google and Meta delivered broad upside in the quarter as their AI ad tools became more deeply integrated into products. Pinterest, Reddit and Unity also kept growing, while advertiser budgets continued to shift toward platforms with clearer user intent and more measurable performance.
Demand in major verticals including retail, finance and technology remained healthy. Short-form video, AI-assisted discovery, creator content and personalized recommendation engines were cited as fresh sources of engagement growth.
Goldman said AI is moving beyond a productivity tool in advertising and becoming a central driver of product innovation and revenue growth. Meta highlighted ongoing adoption of Advantage+ and its AI advertising solutions. Google pointed to the commercial potential of AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and AI search experiences. Both companies are lifting spending on infrastructure, talent and model development, while investors continue to question the timing of returns and the earnings impact of depreciation.
At the conference, the biggest issues for digital advertising are expected to be the durability of ad budgets, the way AI search changes how consumers discover information and whether AI spending ultimately converts into profit.
E-commerce: scale and AI are supporting growth
Goldman described second-quarter e-commerce results as steady, with consumer demand holding up despite macro uncertainty. Amazon continued to benefit from ecosystem synergies. Wayfair emphasized faster share gains and growth in premium brands. Etsy focused on personalization and product innovation. StubHub gained share in secondary ticketing while expanding margins, and Pattern grew through deeper brand relationships and market expansion.
AI adoption in e-commerce is also speeding up. Management teams are increasingly treating AI as a dual engine for customer experience and operating efficiency. Smart recommendations, search optimization, ad placement and process automation are moving into products faster, while agentic commerce and AI-driven traffic acquisition are starting to reshape the path to transaction.
Investor attention is centered on three questions: whether consumer demand can hold, how strong user acquisition and retention quality really is, and what AI and agentic commerce ecosystems will do to long-term traffic costs and conversion rates.
Cloud computing: backlog tops $1 trillion
Cloud was one of the clearest focal points in the report. Google Cloud posted 81% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter, and its revenue backlog rose to about $514 billion. Amazon Web Services, or AWS, reported 37% year-over-year revenue growth, an acceleration from earlier levels, while backlog climbed 154% from a year earlier. Combined, the two cloud providers now have more than $1 trillion in backlog. Despite depreciation pressure, AWS still posted a record operating margin of about 39%.
Supply constraints remain a major issue. Both AWS and Google Cloud said capacity is still limited, with power availability and data center constraints restricting their ability to meet AI demand. Customers have already begun planning workloads and capacity commitments for 2028. Goldman said AWS is likely to remain supply-constrained through 2026 and even 2027. SpaceX also said demand for AI infrastructure continues to exceed supply.
Custom chips and capital intensity remain top investor concerns. Goldman expects management teams at the conference to spend time on the durability of AI demand, the pace of infrastructure deployment, the economic benefit of custom silicon and how depreciation affects incremental margins.
Online travel: management called summer demand healthy
Online travel companies broadly beat expectations in the second quarter. After geopolitical volatility and macro uncertainty, booking trends improved in June, and management teams described summer travel demand as “healthy.” Premium travel remained strong, while lower-income consumers were more selective on timing and spending. The World Cup and demand for experiential travel were cited as important catalysts.
For investors, the biggest concern in travel is AI’s long-term effect. Management commentary during the quarter pointed in a fairly consistent direction: scaled travel platforms with broad supply aggregation, strong brands, loyalty programs and deep partner relationships are more likely to be included in AI workflows than displaced by them.
Markets are also watching several operating variables: what normalized growth should look like for online travel, with most investors expecting a mid-to-high single-digit rate; share shifts across regions and categories; customer acquisition costs as the sector relies less on marketing; the payback period for non-marketing investment; and the continuing scale of shareholder returns.
Mobility and delivery: autonomous driving seen as a TAM expander
Demand stayed solid across mobility and delivery in the second quarter. Uber continued to accelerate in the U.S. market, while Lyft turned in a strong overall performance in North America. Both companies described autonomous driving as a chance to expand total addressable market. Uber reiterated plans to launch in 15 cities by year-end. Lyft said its Nashville vehicle hub will open in October.
DoorDash kept expanding its local commerce footprint beyond core delivery. Instacart saw faster growth in enterprise services and advertising. Lime’s first earnings report after listing highlighted a growth case tied to subscriptions and market expansion.
The pace of autonomous commercialization and the role each participant plays in the ecosystem remain among the most contested issues for investors. It is still unclear whether ride-hailing platforms will become the main demand aggregators for autonomous networks, or whether autonomous operators and automakers will capture a larger share of customer relationships and unit economics.
Investors are also weighing reinvestment against profit expansion. Uber and DoorDash continue to spend on autonomous driving, international expansion, local commerce and AI platform opportunities, and the market is assessing whether those investments can support durable revenue and profit growth over time.
Streaming, gaming, dating and betting are also in focus
Goldman’s report also highlighted streaming and gaming. Netflix and Spotify delivered stable second-quarter results, though the split between them remained clear. Netflix said total viewing hours were flat to slightly higher and emphasized “high-quality viewing time.” Spotify saw healthy engagement growth driven by product innovation. Netflix user growth came from international markets, while Spotify posted strong paid subscriber growth, though higher ad load in some regions affected short-term monthly active user growth.
In gaming, Goldman pointed to three major catalysts: Roblox’s continued investment in its UGC platform and AI development tools, the potential effect of Take-Two’s upcoming GTA VI on industry growth and player time allocation, and the ongoing balance between platform investment and monetization returns.
Online dating companies broadly signaled improving user trends in the second quarter. Tinder saw the decline in monthly active users moderate as recommendation algorithms improved and product innovation rolled out. Hinge maintained double-digit user growth. Bumble is still in the middle of a tech stack migration, with more feature launches concentrated in 2027 and later.
In online betting, prediction markets have become a strategic priority. Traditional sports betting operators and data providers see them as a total addressable market expander and a potential source of incremental revenue. The regulatory setting for prediction markets and the size of any incremental return are expected to be central topics at the conference.
Goldman: investor patience on AI returns is narrowing
Goldman’s conclusion was direct. Second-quarter earnings validated the framework of AI spending, consumer resilience and profit management, but the market is becoming less willing to wait indefinitely for AI returns.
The San Francisco conference, the bank said, will act as a concentrated test of management communication. Companies that can clearly answer three questions — when returns arrive, how much they need to spend and how much those investments can generate — are more likely to hold an advantage as valuations continue to diverge.
The article noted that it was a整理 and interpretation by Chaoxiang Research of a third-party brokerage report from Goldman Sachs dated Aug. 25, 2026, combined with public market information. It also said that any ratings, price targets, earnings forecasts and related judgments cited in the piece reflect the views of the brokerage analysts and their institution, not Chaoxiang Research, and do not constitute investment advice.
Chaoxiang Research added that markets involve risk, decisions should be made independently and the article should not be used as a basis for buying or selling securities.
