Google is scaling ads in AI Mode to 10 additional countries and launching multiturn ads in the United States, which allow ads to appear in follow-up queries in AI Mode, the company announced on October 28, 2026.
The expansion covers Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore. In the fourth quarter of 2026, Google plans to expand ads in AI Mode to additional locales, including Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
The announcement was authored by Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences. Google said ads in AI Mode will be clearly labeled as “Sponsored” and that it will continue testing new formats to keep the ads helpful and relevant.
Where Ads Appear in AI Mode
According to Google’s Ads Help documentation, when a search or conversation has commercial relevance, ads can appear directly within or alongside AI-generated responses, including across follow-up questions in AI Mode, in sections labeled “Sponsored.” Standard ads on the Google Search results page can also continue to appear above or below an AI Overview, just as they appear alongside other Search results.
All ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode are visually distinguished from organic content, and the documentation states that paid advertising does not influence the organic responses generated by Google AI. Because Google continuously tests and refines ad layouts across both experiences, the exact visual presentation of ads may evolve over time.
Ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode are available in English in the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Singapore, with Indonesia carrying ads within AI Overviews only and Pakistan carrying text ads only. Google notes that it continuously tests and expands ad serving across countries, territories, and languages, so the list may not be exhaustive.
How Ads in AI Mode Work for Advertisers
Advertisers do not need to create new campaigns or set up separate budgets: existing Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible to serve ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode through the Google Ads auction. Text ads and Shopping ads can appear within the two experiences, and Google says it is experimenting with other ad types such as local inventory ads and vehicle ads.
Google matches ads either directly to a user’s query, when the search already expresses clear commercial intent, or contextually to both the query and the AI response, when a longer, exploratory, or conversational question lets commercial intent emerge from the response. In the documentation’s example, a person asking why their pool is green and how to clean it receives an AI response outlining water testing, brushing, and vacuuming debris, and Google can surface sponsored text or Shopping ads for pool vacuum cleaners or algae treatment kits even though the query names no specific product.
AI-powered targeting, including AI Max for Search campaigns, broad match on Search, Shopping campaigns, and Performance Max, is eligible for both contextual and direct query matching. Exact and phrase match keywords on Search are eligible only when a query expresses direct commercial intent and cannot participate in contextual matching on broader exploratory questions.
In some placements, ads may appear with AI explainers, concise independent text generated by Google’s Gemini models that helps people understand how an ad or group of ads relates to what they are looking for. The explainers are not part of ad headlines or descriptions, and advertisers cannot manually write, edit, approve, or opt out of them.
Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode use the same auction mechanism and cost-per-click or conversion-based bidding models as standard Google Search ads, and advertisers are not charged extra to participate. An ad can appear both above an AI Overview and within it on the same search, depending on the query and auction, though ads do not appear both within an AI Overview and immediately below it. Queries that trigger ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in aggregate in standard campaign reports and the search terms report, and existing guardrails such as negative keywords and asset pinning continue to apply. Advertisers cannot target ads exclusively to AI Overviews or AI Mode, or opt out of them separately from Search.
Google’s AI Mode Usage Data
Google said queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches, citing its Google AI Mode Report for the U.S. from May 2026. The company also said its research shows people are comfortable with ads in AI Mode and find them highly relevant, and that click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode, citing Google internal U.S. data from August 20 to September 3, 2026.
The AI Mode report states that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly active users globally and that AI Mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since launch. Follow-up queries in AI Mode have increased by more than 40% on average per month in the U.S., according to the report, and more than one in six AI Mode searches are multimodal, meaning non-text. Searches with image input are among AI Mode’s fastest-growing query types, growing by more than 40% month-over-month since launch, the report states.
The report notes that its keyword and query-specific data is sourced from Google Trends covering the period from AI Mode’s U.S. launch in May 2025 through April 2026, drawn from a random, unbiased sample of Google searches, and that all data applies to AI Mode in the U.S. unless otherwise noted.
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