Google promised advertisers that its AI plans wouldn’t stop them from reaching potential customers, and the tech giant has delivered by adding ads to the AI Summaries feature in Google Search. The question is whether that makes the summaries of your searches written by Gemini AI more attractive. AI Overviews means you may not have to click a link to get an answer to a question and was hyped at Google I/O this year. Companies that rely on Google’s search engine to promote their websites were leery of a tool that appeared to make sponsorship results worthless.
Google expected the response and promised ads to be part of AI Overviews. After months of testing, the advertisements are rolled out. Essentially, you will see products mentioned and linked to in the text written by the AI. For now, it’s only US mobile users who will see the ads, but they’ll likely expand soon, assuming testing has ironed out most of the bugs.
The idea is to connect the way Google traditionally used ads to support itself with the new AI mandate, bringing Gemini to all corners of the company’s ecosystem. While you may or may not find the direct product suggestions helpful, it will certainly make it more likely that people will click on a product and purchase it than if there were just the somewhat subtle hyperlinks to the content that Gemini used to create the AI write an overview. . The company said it will only include sponsored links if they are directly relevant, so you shouldn’t see ad spam in the AI overview.
Google demonstrated how to look for tips on removing grass stains from clothing in the video below. While the AI overview normally suggests methods and provides links, sponsoring a cleaning products company means you’ll also see a list of products you might want to purchase for that purpose. The products are marked as sponsored, just like when you see a bunch of sponsored links at the top of a search results page.
AI overviews just for you
“This new ad format is designed to help people discover new brands and make informed purchasing decisions,” Google explained in a blog post. “People find the ads in AI Overviews useful because they can quickly connect with relevant companies, products and services to take the next step, right when they need it.”
Google was keen to push AI summaries to users, despite some major issues with the security of the answers early on and reports that Google was pulling back on its rollout. Still, the feature is now international, and it’s clear that Google feels comfortable enough with it to entrust its AI models with its crucial advertising dollars.
Merging the major search and advertising services with AI could be a boon for both advertisers and consumers who want a faster route between having a question and getting a product to solve it. It is also necessary for Google to match and beat its rivals in both search and AI. Microsoft is playing with ads in its Copilot AI chatbot, as is Perplexity with its sponsored follow-up questions. And Amazon has pursued a similar goal from the other direction, creating an AI chatbot on its website called Rufus that will also offer sponsored suggestions for purchases.