Google Expands Advertising Into AI Search Engine

Google shared how AI will reimagine the traditional search experience at its annual event for marketers, Google Marketing Live, with many highly anticipated details on how ads will fit into this new interface.

Ads will be available in Google’s AI Overview, formerly known as Search Generative Experience—its AI-powered conversational interface that answers search queries—and will soon appear at the top of Google search results.  

For instance, a query asking how to de-wrinkle clothes featured Google’s AI-generated answer followed by Shopping product listing ads. Traditional search ad formats can also appear in the AI Overview. All ads will be labeled as such within the format.

Right now, marketers don’t need to change the ads they upload to regular Search, standard Shopping and Performance Max campaigns—existing ads bought via these formats can appear in the new AI Overview format.

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Google announced it was testing this ad format at GML last year. As Google’s AI Overview expands in the U.S., the format will be tested more widely. The company was light on any further details on how search advertising will change.

Similarly, as Microsoft has introduced ads in its OpenAI-powered Bing search engine, it’s also opting not to create a new buying interface to make less work for advertisers.

The search giant also announced new AI-driven formats to create ads driving people toward a purchase, more ways for brands to have a visual identity on Google and new tools using AI to generate creative assets.

“We believe the investments will put Google at the forefront of this AI paradigm shift,” said Kristen O’Hara, vp of agency, platforms and client solutions at Google, at a press event ahead of GML in New York.

Enhancing the consumer journey

Google is making it easier for brands to guide customers toward a purchase with the help of AI.

For example, with a new AI search experience, someone searching for storage facilities might click on the ad of a particular brand. Then the user could upload photos of the items they needed stored, and that storage site could recommend the most suitable containers.

Google executives said this new format was in early tests and wouldn’t share further examples of how this might work outside of this storage example.

Google is also expanding its virtual try-on technology to advertising, specifically for men’s and women’s tops in the apparel category. The tech lets shoppers see clothing on various body types.

Visual upgrade

Google has also rolled out tools to make brands look more compelling in Search and Shopping results.

When users search for a brand, Google will create a visual profile for that company: a collage of images, videos and other information that comes from what the brand has already uploaded into Google and Google’s Shopping Graph, a data set of what Google knows about the world’s products and sellers.

Additionally, Google is letting brands link short-form videos to their Shopping ads. Searching for a shirt in Shopping results could pull up a clip of how it looks on a creator, or different ways to style it.

Like other platforms, Google also announced generative AI tools for creative. They include the ability to generate videos from a single photo within Google’s Product Studio suite, and the ability for brands to give guidelines to the AI-buying tool Performance Max on attributes like font and color, which the tool will then use in image generation.