Google’s AI Mode is driving its fastest search query growth in five years. Its advertising revenue growth slowed to 12%, the lowest in five quarters. Reddit saw over 1 million fewer weekly referrals from Google in October. Google plans to scale ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews globally. It will also introduce multi-turn ads in AI Mode in the US. Forrester data shows 70% of US and UK consumers trust answer engines. Adding more ads risks eroding that trust. Conversational ads are expected to become a multibillion-dollar channel. Google and OpenAI are expanding ads in AI-mediated search. Marketers must decide where conversational ads fit in their media plans. The impact on paid search and social budgets remains uncertain.
What changed
AI Mode had far fewer ads than classic search.
What it unlocks
Adding more ads to AI-integrated search results pages.
- 12% advertising revenue growth
- 5-year low in growth rate
- 1 million referrals per week decline
- 70% of US and UK consumers trust answer engines
Sources