A selloff in global technology and consumer stocks wiped out nearly $600 billion in market value on Thursday, equivalent to about 12% of India’s $5.02 trillion market capitalisation at the close. Disappointing September-quarter results and cautious outlooks from major companies, including Alphabet Inc., ServiceNow Inc. and Fortinet Inc., fuelled concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt established business models and weigh on growth.

Alphabet, the parent of Google, led the rout, with shares plunging as much as 14% intraday, their steepest drop on record. Weaker-than-expected third-quarter revenue from search and advertising offset strong growth in its cloud business. The decline erased more than $500 billion in market value at the session’s lows, marking the company’s biggest-ever single-day loss in market capitalisation.

Mizuho Securities described Alphabet’s results as “not terrible, but not really good”, adding that they represented the worst-case outcome for the stock heading into year-end, when investors may sell and wait for signs of a reacceleration in search.

The weakness in search “elevates the fear around AI and agentic [AI] systems taking share from Search and YouTube, and hurting Google’s AI monetisation narrative, even with Gemini and its own models and agentic capabilities on the way”, analyst Jordan Klein wrote in an investor note.

ServiceNow shares also came under heavy pressure, plunging more than 25% to a record intraday low. Its quarterly subscription revenue outlook met analysts’ expectations but failed to ease Wall Street’s concerns that AI could disrupt the software maker’s business.

Citi, which maintains a Buy rating on the stock with a 12-month price target of $157, described ServiceNow’s third-quarter results as mixed against elevated expectations.

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