Google Confirms Plans to Integrate Ads Into AI Search Features

Google confirms AI search will have ads, but they may look different

Google Ads are not going anywhere. Eventually, AI Search results on Google and likely other properties will have ads. Google recently reported $56.57 billion in revenue from ads on Search and YouTube. You obviously can't expect ads to disappear from its search business. Right now, Google has two AI features. The first is AI Overviews, which appears at the top of the search results with answers scraped from publishers that Google does not want to pay. The second and more powerful feature is AI Mode, which offers a ChatGPT-like personalized experience. Google has already confirmed it plans to integrate services like Gmail and Drive into Google AI Mode to create a new personalized experience where AI knows everything about you. That might sound scary, but it's clearly the direction Google is taking. In a podcast, Google's Robby Stein argued that the Google Ads business is not going anywhere, but it will evolve to support the new landscape. Robby Stein says Google does not see them [ads] going away, but the experience could change. "...you could take a picture of your shoes and say, 'Hey, these are my shoes. What are other cool shoes like this?' And we could answer that now or help provide you context with that. Or you could ask about this really cool restaurant question. It can be five sentences about all your allergies, issues with this. I have this big group. I want to make sure it's got light. What can I book in advance? And you can put that into Google now too," Robby argues while explaining where ads could fit into the AI experience. "I think that's an opportunity for the future to be even more helpful for you, particularly in an advertising context. And so we started some experiments on ads within AI Mode and within Google AI experiences," he added. At this point, it looks like Google wants you to use AI Mode for personal questions, and based on those questions, it could show personalized ads. Google is already testing ads in AI Search in a limited form, and we'll likely learn more about its plans next year.

Have No Fear, Google Has Plans to Enshittify AI Search With Ads, Too

Google's AI Overview has somehow successfully managed to get people to be less engaged with search results, clicking through less often, and less likely to fact-check the information presented to them. So you know what that means: it's time to monetize! According to a report from Search Engine Land, Google is planning to introduce advertisements inside its AI experiences. Per the report, Google Vice President of Search, Robbie Stein, said that he doesn't see advertisements going away any time soon, and in fact expects that they will evolve to integrate into AI tools. Stein said the company has already "started some experiments on ads within AI Mode and within Google AI experiences," and expects that "new and novel ad formats" will be introduced in the future so advertisers can continue to target users and give Google money for the right to do so. What are those "new and novel" formats, exactly? Stein floated one example of a person searching for information during a home remodel, in which a person could provide information to the AI-powered search, and it "could give even more fine-tuned recommendations or potential other services that you could consider, or deals that could be more useful to you." So like...personalized and sponsored advertisements, but spit out by AI, apparently? It's not entirely clear what is novel about that, other than the fact that the person searching will likely be less discerning about what sort of paid placements they are being exposed to. Of course, there's always the possibility that your favored chatbot will collect even more detailed data about you, but that's not really an innovation on the ad side of things. For now, the company insists that it's focused on building "consumer products first and foremost," but is obviously thinking about how to turn a profit on this thing that it has invested billions of dollars into developing. Stein also claimed that, for the time being, AI recommendations include "organic" results first and aren't driven by ad inputs. Keep tabs on that to see how long that lasts. Gizmodo reached out to Google for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Google is far from the only company looking to figure out how to work advertisements into AI. Earlier this year, Netflix floated the idea that it might use generative AI to create advertisements that would play between shows for users on an ad-supported tier. Thus far, though, most of these efforts seem decidedly run-of-the-mill in terms of innovation. Maybe there just aren't that many new ways to put products in front of people's faces. The reality is that what Google is selling here isn't necessarily a better experience for consumersâ€"it's just trying to reassure advertisers that, for all of its talk that everything is about to change, some things will decidedly stay the same.