If I Could Only Buy and Hold a Single Stock, This Would Be It

By Manali Pradhan, CFA – Feb 13, 2026 at 1:30AM ESTKey PointsAlphabet’s full-stack AI strategy is improving cost efficiencies while creating a stickier client base.Search continues to benefit from AI features such as AI Mode and AI Overviews, which are driving higher user engagement.Google Cloud has also become a prominent growth engine with increasing profitability. We’re bullish on these 10 stocks ›NASDAQ: GOOGAlphabetMarket Cap$3.7TToday's Changeangle-down(-0.63%) $1.96Current Price$309.37Price as of February 12, 2026 at 4:00 PM ETAlphabet seems capable of withstanding market volatility over the long run.If you are going to buy and hold one stock for the next decade, you need a fundamentally strong business with multiple durable growth engines, robust cash flows, and a solid balance sheet capable of backing future growth initiatives. Alphabet (GOOG 0.63%) (GOOGL 0.62%) is one such exceptional stock that fits the bill. Image source: Getty Images.

While Wall Street is worried about a potential artificial intelligence (AI) bubble, the company has successfully leveraged its Gemini family of large language models and other AI capabilities to strengthen its core businesses of Search, Google Cloud, and YouTube, while also generating significant free cash flows. As the same AI investments drive multiple revenue streams, the company can benefit from reduced costs and a stickier client base. A full-stack AI platform Alphabet differentiates itself from many other AI players with its fully integrated, end-to-end AI platform. The company is controlling the most important parts of the AI value chain with its custom chips, purpose-built data centers, frontier models, and products used by billions of people. ExpandNASDAQ: GOOGAlphabetToday's Change(-0.63%) $-1.96Current Price$309.37Key Data PointsMarket Cap$3.7TDay's Range$308.15 - $316.4852wk Range$142.66 - $350.15Volume10KAvg Vol24MGross Margin59.68%Dividend Yield0.27% Alphabet offers clients a wide variety of computing hardware, including its custom tensor processing units (TPUs) alongside Nvidia's latest graphics processing units (GPUs), supported by a global data center footprint that the company largely builds and operates. The integrated approach is helping the company control costs as AI usage scales. Alphabet has already reduced serving costs for its Gemini family of models by 78% in 2025. The company's first-party AI models (including Gemini) are already witnessing robust enterprise and developer usage. These models processed over 10 billion tokens (units of data used by AI models as inputs or outputs) per minute in the fourth quarter, up from 7 billion tokens in the previous quarter. Alphabet is successfully monetizing its AI capabilities. The company sold over 8 million Gemini Enterprise paid licenses within four months of launch, and has over 750 million monthly active users for the Gemini app. AI is also driving increasing adoption of consumer services such as Google One and YouTube Premium, which have reached over 325 million paid subscriptions at the end of fiscal 2025. Google Search and Google Cloud Google Search is benefiting from the new AI-powered capabilities, such as AI Mode (a conversational search assistant) and AI Overviews (search summaries). AI Mode queries are now three times longer than traditional search queries, while daily AI Mode usage has also doubled in the U.S. since launch. Roughly one in six AI Mode queries is non-text, using voice or images. These richer interactions can help improve user engagement and advertisement targeting, rather than cannibalizing traffic. Google Cloud is a powerful growth catalyst. In the fourth quarter, revenues were up 48% year over year to $17.7 billion, while operating margins expanded 12.6 percentage points year over year to 30.1%. Google Cloud exited fiscal 2025 with a $240 billion backlog, up 55% sequentially. Around 75% of Google Cloud customers have already used the company's AI capabilities. These AI customers use 1.8 times as many products as those who do not use AI services. As enterprises continue to adopt agentic AI, their use of Google Cloud's AI services will increase. Considering these powerful tailwinds coupled with the operating cash flow of $164.7 billion in fiscal 2025, the company appears to be an attractive buy now.Read NextFeb 12, 2026 •By John Ballard1 Reason to Buy Alphabet Stock Hand Over FistFeb 11, 2026 •By Daniel SparksAlphabet Stock: Is It Time to Buy the Dip?Feb 11, 2026 •By David Jagielski, CPAGot $5,000? 2 Unstoppable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy and Hold for YearsFeb 8, 2026 •By James Brumley1 Reason Alphabet Stock Could Deliver Massive Returns by 2027Feb 8, 2026 •By Geoffrey SeilerPrediction: Alphabet's Stock Will Be a Winner in 2026Feb 7, 2026 •By James HiresThis AI Stock Could Be One of the Most Valuable in the World by 2027About the AuthorManali Pradhan, CFA, is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst covering technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and industrial sectors. Manali brings prior experience as a healthcare analyst and team lead at Market Realist, a data equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, and a data analyst at Deloitte Financial Advisory Services. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and a master’s in finance from Mumbai University.TMFManaBStocks MentionedAlphabetNASDAQ: GOOG$309.37 (0.63%) $1.96AlphabetNASDAQ: GOOGL$309.03 (0.62%) $1.93*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.