The company announced the move during Alphabet’s latest earnings call, as it seeks to generate more revenue from AI-generated answers and conversational searches.
The expansion comes as Search advertising growth slows, even though Google says its AI features are encouraging people to search more frequently and ask longer questions. “In fact, our year-over-year query growth rate is the highest it’s been in the last five years,” G oogle CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company’s earnings release. Sponsored product listings in AI Mode already have click-through rates comparable to organic listings, which are unpaid results, according to Schindler.
Google is expanding advertising in its AI-powered Search internationally. He did not disclose the exact growth rate. The company attributed the increase to its AI investments, including growth in commercial queries, or searches connected to products and services.