On 28 October 2026, Google told its investors that its AI search earns less from advertising than ordinary search. Its answer is not to bring back the old page of links. It is to put ads inside the AI answers themselves, sold through the same auction as all its other ads.

Ten more countries got those ads straight away. The UK is on Google's list for this quarter. It could be any day now.

Google's own help pages say advertisers can't choose to appear in the AI answers separately from ordinary search, and can't approve the text Google's AI writes beside their ad. Paying doesn't get you into the answer itself.

If your new customers find you through Google, it is worth having a route to them that nobody else controls.

Read what Google announced, in plain English - a two-minute read, with every quote Google's own.