Creating opportunities to help consumers along their information journey
Ads have always been an important part of consumers’ information journeys. At Google I/O, we announced that AI Overviews in Search are rolling out to everyone in the U.S., with more countries coming soon. AI Overviews will appear in search results when they’re particularly helpful beyond what Search offers today. With AI Overviews, people are visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions; we also see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query. In fact, we’ve found that people who use AI Overviews actually use Search more and are more satisfied with their results. And when people click to links from AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality, where users are more likely to spend more time on the site. As we continue to test and evolve the Search experience, we’ll remain focused on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators.
In early testing, we’ve heard that people find the ads appearing above and below the AI-generated overview helpful. Soon, we’ll start testing Search and Shopping ads in AI Overviews for users in the U.S. They will have the opportunity to appear within the AI Overview in a section clearly labeled as “sponsored” when they’re relevant to both the query and the information in the AI Overview. There’s no action needed from advertisers: Ads from existing Search, Performance Max, and Standard Shopping campaigns have the opportunity to appear within the AI Overview. As we move forward, we’ll continue to test and learn new formats, getting feedback from advertisers and the industry.
