The self-driving taxi concept is alive and well, even if it may be taking a lot longer to get there than many people would prefer. And Waymo, from tech giant Alphabet (GOOGL), is poised to step up its rollout of self-driving taxi services with an expanded test run in Miami, Florida.
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Waymo does not currently have service in Miami, but it plans to get there all the same. In fact, it looks to have a fleet in place in 2025, and should be available for passenger service by 2026. Waymo’s recent influx of funding has given it a new confidence and allowed it to expand its operations to more locations. But in 2025, Waymo will start rolling its fleets through with “human safety drivers,” likely as a way to get the cars used to the area and improve mapping data.
Miami might be a particular challenge for Waymo due to the fact that the city is a major metropolitan area, and often involves “harsher weather conditions.” Waymo’s expansion has been steady, though with the company removing its waitlist in Los Angeles.
AI Video Capability Expands
Separately, it was once said that we were just a couple years away from being able to ask artificial intelligence (AI) to create for us the latest film in the Fast and the Furious franchise, but add Burt Reynolds as a character instead. We may not be quite there yet, but Google’s new generative AI model for video called “Veo” is bringing us one step closer to making our own movies at home.
Currently, Veo is in “private preview” mode on the Vertex AI platform. It can create 1080p resolution video using “…a range of different visual and cinematic styles from text or image-based prompts.” While right now the clips are running somewhere around one minute, it still represents a big leap forward for Google.
Is Alphabet Stock a Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on GOOGL stock based on 27 Buys and seven Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 33.87% rally in its share price over the past year, the average GOOGL price target of $207.90 per share implies 19.87% upside potential.
