Google's persisting ad slump weighs on Alphabet's first quarter results

Google's advertising malaise persisted during the first quarter while the internet company also grapples with advancements in artificial intelligence technology that threatens to undercut its dominant search engine.

An unprecedented downturn in Google's digital ad revenue the company's main moneymaker for more than 20 years came into sharper focus Tuesday with the release of the January-Marcy results for its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

Although Alphabet's total revenue for the period rose from the same last year, Google's first-quarter ad sales of $54.5 billion marked a slight decrease from a year ago.

That dip followed a nearly 4% decline during the final three months of last year, making this the first time in Google has sustained back-to-back drops in year-over-year ad revenue since becoming a publicly traded company in 2004.

Google's YouTube video site, a marketing magnet in recent years, saw its ad sales decrease 2.5% from last year, marking its second consecutive quarte