Google enhances ads portfolio with new AI-powered products

Google is reimagining the future of ads and shopping by rolling out a series of AI-powered updates and products to search and YouTube, including the introduction of agentic AI.

 

Unveiling the news at Google Marketing Live in the US today, Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM of Google Ads and Commerce, said: “Advertising has experienced many big shifts, and this moment is no different. One thing is clear: the future of advertising fuelled by AI isn’t coming—it’s already here.

 

“[...] To help marketers and businesses make the most of this moment, we’re reimagining the future of ads and shopping: ads that don’t interrupt, but help customers discover a product or service. 

 

“Content that features the perfect creative, appearing at just the right moment—even those moments that were hard to predict. Ads that remove the guesswork and drive measurable impact. And of course, ads that genuinely inspire.”

 

The new updates fall under four key pillars: search, performance, creative, and agentic AI.

 

Expanding AI capabilities in search

 

Under search, the tech giant is expanding ads in AI Overviews in the English language on desktop and mobile to the following markets: India, Canada, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, and Indonesia. 

 

Google is also expanding its experience of AI mode—which is a feature within Google Labs—across its search function and bringing new capabilities to it. 

 

Alongside this, the company is beginning to test relevant ads below and integrated into the AI mode response, based on its learnings in AI Overviews. This is currently only in the US across desktop and mobile.

 

Speaking ahead of Google Live, Dan Taylor, Vice President of Global Advertising Business, said: “As people discover and make decisions on Google in new ways, we think this significant expansion is going to give business more opportunities to reach a broader audience, and we're going to continue rolling out and expanding as we meet consumer needs and deliver on the right consumer experience.”

 

Performance bidding gets smarter

 

Under the performance pillar, Google is rolling out what it calls its “biggest update to bidding in a decade”, with the launch of Smart Bidding Exploration. 

 

 

The tool has new opt-in features in search campaigns, which builds on existing smart bidding and uses AI and flexible return on adspend (ROAS) targets to explore different options that marketers may not necessarily think would be commercially relevant to them. It does this by fuelling an algorithm that captures new searches and secures additional conversions.

 

Smart Bidding Exploration will be available in open beta, globally.

 

According to Taylor, advertisers that have currently tested this tool are seeing an 18% increase in unique search query categories with conversions on average.

 

Bringing agentic AI for advertisers

 

Google is the latest among big tech to launch agentic AI capabilities, which will initially be rolled out across Google Ads and Google Analytics, and aim to help advertisers build and optimise campaigns more effectively. The agentic tools will be available in open beta globally.

 

 

It builds on the success of the conservational experience, launched in Google Ads two years ago and since used by more than half a million advertisers to create higher quality search campaigns.

 

Within Google Ads, the agentic tool will offer personalised recommendations for new and existing campaigns, such as keyword and creative suggestions as well as implementing this on the advertisers’ behalf. It can also suggest multiple tailored ad groups, complete with assets.

 

In Google Analytics, the agentic expert could proactively show insights and trends, coupled with easy data exploration with simple visuals for improved decision-making and performance.

 

Srinivasan also announced at Google Live, the launch of a marketing advisor agentic AI.

 

She said: “We’re also building Marketing Advisor, an AI agent that lives right inside the Chrome browser, designed to help advertisers manage marketing tasks across different places. Once installed, a marketer can sign in with their Google account, and Google ads campaigns, so marketing advisor can understand a marketer’s individual goals and how to

best reach them. 

 

“As a side panel in the browser, marketing advisor offers precise, step-by-step guidance on relevant web pages.”

 

The marketing advisor agent is due to be rolled out later this year.

 

Building creative assets with AI

 

Under the creative pillar, the tech giant is set to launch new enhanced tools—powered by Vevo and Imagen—within Google Ads and Merchant Center that can enable marketers to easily build campaigns.

 

The first is Asset Studio—a new centralised, creative suite in Google Ads that can build creatives. It will be the “new home for generative AI creative capabilities” and could help marketers increase the volume and variation of their creative assets. It will be available in English globally.

 

The second is Generated for You—available in the US to merchants only via the product studio, this tool automatically identifies the best content opportunities across merchants’ entire shopping catalogs and pre-generates on-brand visuals (images and videos) that can be saved or published across Google in a single click.

 

“The adoption of Google AI for generating creatives has increased by over 250%, so this is something our customers are really asking for,” Taylor added.

 

“[AI] is already transforming the way that marketing is taking place today. [...] In fact, marketers who are deeply investing in AI tools are already reporting 60% greater revenue growth than their peers.

 

“It all comes back to consumers, and the behaviour that we see online, people's time online is increasingly unpredictable and it's multimodal,” he said, adding that this is why marketers need to “rethink how they reach audiences to make meaningful connections”.

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The story first appeared on Campaign's sister title Performance Marketing World.