Microsoft and Alphabet delivered what looked to be decent results after the bell in the US on Tuesday. Whether the numbers were good enough to satisfy a market that always wants more from the mega-caps is another story entirely.

At Microsoft, total revenue of $62.02 billion was a beat. Consensus wanted $61.14 billion. EPS of $2.93 likewise topped estimates.

Top-line growth of 18% (16% excluding the currency impact) was the strongest since the March 2022 quarter.

This marked the second straight quarter of double-digit revenue growth for the company. A year ago, sales growth slowed to just 2%.

Satya Nadella knew just what investors wanted to hear. Or hear about, anyway. “We’ve moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale,” he said Tuesday.

Microsoft, which hit the $3 trillion market cap milestone this month, is “infusing AI across every layer of [the] tech stack,” Nadella went on, in the course of suggesting the company’s AI products and services are driving productivity gains “across every sector.”

The AI hype cycle helped investors forget about slower growth in cloud. But Azure’s never too far from the market’s mind when it comes to Microsoft. Growth there was stable at 28% on a constant currency basis.

As ever, it’s all about the guide, which the company always delivers during the call. Overall cloud revenue was $33.7 billion, up 22% in constant currency terms, and comfortably ahead of the $32.21 billion consensus expected. Intelligent cloud revenue of $25.88 billion was also better than estimates.

In addition to AI and cloud, markets were interested in any sign that PC demand might be on the mend. I’ll leave it to tech analysts to adjudicate that, but productivity revenue of $19.25 billion was a beat, and “more personal computing,” which includes Activision Blizzard, was essentially in-line.

How the shares react (where that means on Wednesday, once the call’s in the price), hinges on the Azure outlook and, naturally, on perceptions regarding the pace of Microsoft’s AI integration efforts. The company’s in pole position, and it’s obvious they’re making big strides, but this is still a bit of a pipe dream in some respects. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Nadella’s an effective communicator, investors love a story and this is one helluva story.

Over at Alphabet, Google ad revenue of $65.52 billion was short of the $65.8 billion the Street expected. (Search was $48.02 billion versus $48.15 billion expected.) I imagine the market won’t be enamored with that miss. In fact, that might be all you need to know for Alphabet, but I’ll go over the rest just in case.

Overall revenue of $86.31 billion was a beat (consensus was $85.35 billion) and YouTube ad revenue of $9.2 billion was a little better than expected, good news, just not big news. The ex-TAC print was $72.32 billion against an expected $70.97 billion.

The top-line represented 13% growth, the best showing in a while and the fourth consecutive quarter of acceleration. Recall that sales growth essentially flatlined in the December 2022 quarter.

Sundar Pichai, like Nadella, was quick to talk about AI. “We are pleased with the ongoing strength in Search and the growing contribution from YouTube and Cloud,” he said, adding that “each of these is already benefiting from our AI investments and innovation.” The best, he went on, is “yet to come.”

Cloud revenue of $9.19 billion was a beat, and rose 26% YoY. That’s fine, but to reiterate, I doubt the company will be able to say enough about AI and cloud to offset the Google ad miss. $65.52 billion represented 11% YoY growth (a little less, unrounded) and analysts wanted 13%. That’s the money machine. And it was running a little slower than expected last quarter, apparently.

Ruth Porat offered something perfunctory about the company’s ongoing commitment to “re-engineering” the cost base to free up resources and otherwise ensure Alphabet can “invest to support growth opportunities.”

Ultimately, it’s the same story every quarter with the mega-caps, with the exception of a few rough reports in 2022: The numbers are always generally fine. These monopolies have managed to make themselves synonymous with life for a majority of humanity across the developed and developing world. There aren’t too many objectively bad quarters. Only relatively, or subjectively, bad ones.