Google Overtakes Apple and Becomes the Most Valuable Brand in the World

For the first time since 2018, Google has taken first place in Kantar’s ranking of the world’s most valuable and strongest brands.

Google’s brand value jumped by 57% in a single year and reached $1.5 trillion. Analysts say the main reason behind this growth is the company’s aggressive AI expansion and the integration of Gemini across nearly the entire Google ecosystem.

Apple dropped to second place in 2026. Despite a 6% increase in brand value, its final valuation reached $1.4 trillion — not enough to maintain leadership.

Why Google Grew So Fast

According to Kantar, AI became the biggest growth driver for major technology companies this year.

Google is actively integrating Gemini into:

— Search

— Google Workspace

— Android

— cloud services

— developer tools

At the same time, the company continues investing heavily in data centers and AI infrastructure.

AI is no longer just a separate feature inside products. It is becoming the core of entire ecosystems.

The Rise of New AI Companies

Interestingly, next-generation AI companies also showed massive growth in the ranking.

Anthropic entered the global top-100 for the first time and reached 27th place with an estimated valuation close to $97 billion.

OpenAI showed the fastest growth among all companies in the ranking — +285% in a single year.

This clearly shows how aggressively the market is now revaluing AI companies.

Asian Tech Giants Continue Growing

Asian technology companies also continue to grow rapidly:

— Alibaba +51%

— Xiaomi +48%

— Tencent +45%

Tencent returned to the global top-10 brands for the first time since 2023.

The total value of all brands in the ranking reached a record-breaking $13.1 trillion.

Why This Matters

It is becoming increasingly clear that AI is no longer viewed as just another technology.

It is turning into the primary growth driver for the world’s largest companies.

And honestly, over the next few years competition between big tech companies will likely focus not only on users, but on:

— AI infrastructure

— computing power

— proprietary AI models

— data centers

— AI ecosystems

That is exactly why the world’s biggest companies are now investing tens and hundreds of billions of dollars into AI.

At SoftSale, we also see how AI is gradually becoming part of almost every modern digital product — from CRM systems and analytics to automation and internal AI assistants.