INVESTORS' QUERY: CAN GOOGLE ANSWER MICROSOFT'S AI THREAT?

Google, a company built on finding quick answers to people's questions, suddenly finds itself grappling for a response to a potential threat to its internet empire a form of artificial intelligence that long-time rival Microsoft is now deploying to attack its dominant search engine.

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Microsoft's assault combined with concerns about Google's ability to ward it off hammered its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., whose stock price plunged nearly 8% Wednesday in a selloff that wiped out about $100 billion in shareholder wealth.

It marked the steepest one-day decline since October when an Alphabet earnings report disclosed a slowdown in digital ad revenue that rattled investors. Those concerns have escalated since another report released last week revealed Google's ad sales during the holiday-season quarter fell from the same time in the previous year.