Alphabet is the parent company that owns Google and was created in 2015 to oversee businesses beyond internet search.
Google announced the Alphabet restructuring in August 2015, and the new holding company became effective in October that year. Google remained the central operating company, while activities such as research and development projects could be managed more independently.
Larry Page became Alphabet's chief executive and Sergey Brin became its president at the reorganization. Sundar Pichai later became Google's CEO and then Alphabet's CEO in 2019.
Alphabet is not simply a replacement name for Google's search engine. Google Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud are associated with Google, while Alphabet is the broader corporate parent. Meta Platforms, by contrast, is the parent company formerly known as Facebook.