Google launches AI-powered advertising upgrades for marketers

Google has unveiled a set of new features aimed at using artificial intelligence to support advertisers at every stage of the advertising process across its platforms.

The company is expanding Ads in AI Overviews to desktop in the United States and to select English-speaking countries, including Canada, across both mobile and desktop devices. In addition, Google has begun testing ad formats that appear below and integrated into the AI Mode responses, based on learnings from AI Overviews.

Enhanced creative tools powered by Google's video generation model Veo and image generation model Imagen will soon be added to Google Ads and Merchant Center. According to the company, these tools are intended to help marketers efficiently build campaigns and turn creative ideas into campaign assets more quickly.

Google also announced Asset Studio, a new unified creative suite within Google Ads designed to centralise all tools to build visual campaign elements. For merchants using Product Studio, a new "Generated for You" feature will automatically identify optimal content opportunities within their shopping catalogues and pre-generate on-brand images and videos, which can be saved or published across Google platforms in a single click.

The introduction of agentic capabilities across Google Ads and Google Analytics will provide advertisers with new ways to set up campaigns and measure impact. An addition to this is Marketing Advisor, an AI-powered agent available within the Google Chrome browser, designed to assist marketers in managing marketing tasks while working across multiple platforms.

A significant update comes in the form of Smart Bidding Exploration, described by Google as its biggest update to bidding in a decade. The new feature, available as an opt-in within search campaigns, builds on existing Smart Bidding utilising AI and flexible Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) targets. According to Google, this update aims to allow the algorithm to capture new searches and drive additional conversions for advertisers.

"Advertising has experienced many big shifts, and this moment is no different. One thing is clear: The future of advertising fueled by AI isn't coming — it's already here," Vidhya Srinivasan, Vice President and General Manager of Google Ads & Commerce, said.

Srinivasan expanded on how digital ads connect people and businesses in the current landscape.

"The role of advertising for businesses and the internet is as critical as ever. People come to Google to find answers to their questions, discover new things and find inspiration. Digital ads help connect people to businesses of all sizes along these journeys and enable publishers and creators to offer content for free," Srinivasan added.

"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," Srinivasan stated, describing the company's vision.

She emphasised the role of AI in creating new opportunities both for consumers and advertisers.

"We see over 5 trillion searches a year on Google and AI has opened new ways to explore with tools like Lens, AI Overviews and AI Mode, helping people discover information and act faster. Google Search is bringing generative AI to more people than any other product in the world. It's going beyond information to intelligence. And as people search, ads help them take the next step. Today, we're expanding ads in AI Overviews to desktop, and bringing ads to AI Mode to create new opportunities for our customers," Srinivasan said.

"Beautiful content is essential to spark inspiration, but often hard and time consuming to make. In the last two months, we've made incredible strides improving the quality of our creative tools powered by our leading video and image generation models, Veo and Imagen. Today, we announced these cutting-edge features will soon be available within Google Ads and Merchant Center so that marketers can easily build campaigns and watch their creative vision come instantly to life," Srinivasan noted with respect to creative development.

"The way consumers discover information and make decisions has changed — it's no longer straightforward. To help marketers predict what is often unpredictable, we introduced AI Max for Search campaigns. Building on that, today we're launching our biggest update to bidding in over a decade: Smart Bidding Exploration. It pursues less obvious and potentially high-performing searches, giving advertisers the chance to appear in more of the moments where people are researching and discovering information on Search," Srinivasan said, describing consumer behaviour and bidding improvements.

She also addressed the needs of smaller businesses and the ease of AI adoption.

"These are exciting changes, but we also know that adopting the right AI tools can feel daunting, particularly to smaller businesses. To help with these transitions, we are unveiling new agentic capabilities, which give marketers the power of their very own Google AI so they can adapt and succeed with less effort."

"As always, we'll partner with our customers as we roll out these products so they can take part in every opportunity across Search and YouTube. As we move AI in advertising from potential into practical, actionable solutions, we're here to help marketers and businesses succeed," Srinivasan added.