Google has previewed a range of coming ad innovations, powered by artificial intelligence, as it looks to evolve its ad options in line with discovery trends, and help marketers maximize the opportunities of improved systematic understanding of consumer preferences.
In her annual letter, Google’s General Manager of Ads and Commerce Vidhya Srinivasan has shared some insight into Google’s planning, and where you can expect to see more innovation throughout this year.
First off, Srinivasan shares details of Google’s latest ads in AI responses, with a new ad option that will showcase relevant products based on an AI answer.
As this sequence shows, Google will soon provide a new ad placement that will highlight relevant product matches that align with its AI answers.
Google says that the promotions will be clearly marked as “Sponsored,” so there’ll be no confusion about these being paid placements. But it could be a valuable way for brands to drive traffic based on AI answers.
Google says that this is currently in testing, with plans to launch the AI answer ads later this year.
Google’s also developing its Direct Offers option, which will enable businesses to offer promoted deals tailored to an AI response.
That will more directly align promoted deals with AI answers, providing another way for marketers to tap into the rise of AI chatbot usage.
Google’s also looking to expand its AI agent tools, which it believes will become a bigger consideration, as more consumers become accustomed to getting AI tools to undertake tasks for them.
As explained by Google: “UCP standardizes how businesses connect with AI agents across the entire shopping journey, including the critical step of enabling secure digital identity and payments. It’s already improving shopping experiences on Google. In fact, UCP-powered checkout is rolling out now, letting US shoppers buy items from Etsy and Wayfair, right in AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app (with Shopify, Target, and Walmart coming soon).”
That will streamline connection within AI chatbots, enabling people to make purchases without leaving a chat stream.
Finally, Google’s also looking to improve its processes for connection brands with relevant creators for collaborative promotions.
Google’s Open Call process, which is currently in testing in the U.S., enables brands to post requests for user-generated content (UGC) creative videos, in order to find relevant creators to partner with on promotions.
And Google’s looking to expand this, by using (you guessed it) AI to better match brands with the creator communities that will be most open to their products.
Some interesting updates, which could factor into your Google ads planning, and how you approach AI search, in particular, as more people get more info from AI answers.
And if these work on Google, you can expect other AI platforms to integrate similar, as they all look to make more money to supplement the huge costs of running AI infrastructure.
