Newsflash

Google is putting ads in its AI answers

On 28 October 2026, Google told its investors how its AI search is doing, and what it plans to do next. Here is what it said, in plain English, and what it may mean if your new customers find you through Google.

Two-minute read. Every quote below is Google's own.

1.Google's AI search earns it less

More and more searches are now answered by Google's AI, at the top of the page. Google said those AI searches bring in less advertising money than ordinary searches.

"The strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode."Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer

People are searching more than ever. Google says search use is growing at its fastest rate in five years. But its search revenue grew 12% on last year, down from 17% only three months earlier.

2.Its answer: put ads inside the AI answers

Google is not going back to the old page of links. It is selling ads inside the AI answers instead.

"We are now scaling high-quality ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode to more users and queries."Philipp Schindler
  • Ten more countries got these ads straight away. The UK is on Google's list for this quarter. It could be any day now.
  • They are sold through the same auction as all of Google's other ads.

3.What advertisers can't control

Google's own help pages say that advertisers:

  • can't choose to appear in the AI answers or not, separately from ordinary search
  • can't see how their ads did there separately - the results are mixed in with everything else
  • can't write, change or approve the text Google's AI writes beside their ad

And paying doesn't get you into the answer itself. Google says ads don't affect what the AI says.

4.This isn't going back

Google's chief executive was clear about the order of things:

"We are focused on building the best Search user experience, followed by monetization."Sundar Pichai, Google's Chief Executive
  • Google plans to spend around $200 billion this year building AI, and significantly more next year.
  • It is bringing AI that can book, buy and fill in forms "to Search" next.

So it seems sensible to plan on more searches being answered by AI, and more of the space around those answers being sold.

The route to new customers you can control

Contacting the people you want to win directly, by email, phone or post, doesn't depend on being found, being named by an AI, or winning an auction. You choose who hears from you, when, and what you say. And you can see exactly what came back.

That's what Corpdata supplies: continually verified contact data for named decision-makers at UK businesses. Tell us the outcome you want - more enquiries, a new market, a particular kind of customer - and we'll help you find the data most likely to deliver it.

Tell us what you need

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Sources