Google is introducing ads to AI reviews, expanding AI’s role in search

Google will start showing ads in AI reviews, that are the AI-generated summaries it provides for certain Google Search queries, and will even add links to relevant web sites for a few of those summaries. AI-organized search results pages will even be available in the US this week.

The growing importance of artificial intelligence in Google’s core search engine is aimed toward keeping users from switching to alternatives comparable to ChatGPT or OpenAI’s Perplexity, which use artificial intelligence to answer lots of the questions traditionally asked to Google. Embarrassment he said in May that its worldwide user base had grown to over 85 million web visits, a drop in the bucket compared to Google, but impressive considering Perplexity launched just two years ago.

Since its launch this spring, AI Reviews has been the topic of much controversy, with its dubious claims and dubious advice (like adding glue to pizza) gaining huge popularity online. Recent report from the search engine marketing platform SE Ranking found that AI Reviews cites sites which might be “not completely trustworthy or evidence-based,” including outdated research and paid product listings.

The major problem is that AI Reviews sometimes has difficulty distinguishing whether a source of knowledge is fact or fiction, satire or serious matter. Over the past few months, Google has made changes to how AI Reviews work, including limiting responses related to current events and health topics. But the corporate doesn’t claim it’s perfect.

“We will invest in AI reviews to make them even more useful,” Rhiannon Bell, vice chairman of user experience at Google Search, said at a press conference. “We do everything we can to provide our users with relevant content.”

Separately, Google says AI Reviews has led to a rise in Google Search engagement, especially amongst 18- to 24-year-olds – a key demographic for the corporate.

Now Google is taking steps to monetize this feature by adding ads.

US mobile device users will soon see ads in AI Reviews with “relevant queries” comparable to how to remove grass stains from jeans. Ads labeled “Sponsored” will appear alongside other unsponsored content in AI summaries and can be pulled from advertisers’ existing campaigns on Shopping and the Google Search network.

AI Reviews ads have been available to select users for a while, and according to internal Google data, they’ve been well received.

“People have found AI advertising useful because it allows them to quickly connect with the right companies, products and services to take the next step exactly when they need it,” Shashi Thakur, vice chairman of Google Ads, wrote in a blog post shared with TechCrunch .

But ads also litter AI summaries. One of the formats, the carousel of sponsored product results, is embedded directly in AI summaries and placed in such a way that unsponsored content is pushed to the screen.

The recent look of AI Reviews that appears alongside ads adds highlighted links to web sites that could be relevant. For example, when you search “Do air filters protect your lungs?” AI Reviews may link to a study on air filters conducted by the American Lung Association.

The redesign was tested for several months and is currently being rolled out in regions where AI Overviews were already available, including India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the US and the UK

Finally, this week in the US, a separate product will debut on mobile devices – search results pages organized by artificial intelligence. Searches for recipes and meal inspiration – like “What are some good vegetarian snacks or dinner ideas that make an impression?” – can display an AI-aggregated page of content from across the web, including forums, articles and YouTube videos.

However, they are going to not include AI Reviews ad formats.

“The customized Gemini (model) generates an entire page of relevant and structured results,” Bell explained, referring to Google’s Gemini family of artificial intelligence models. “With AI-organized results pages, we are serving more diverse content formats from a more diverse set of content.”

Google says it plans to expand these pages to other search categories in the approaching months.

Publishers may suffer collateral damage.

One study found that AI reviews can negatively impacting roughly 25% of publisher traffic due to the reduced emphasis on website links. On the revenue side, an authority quoted by The New York Post estimated that AI-generated reviews could result in publisher losses of greater than $2 billion due to the resulting decline in ad impressions.

AI-generated search results from Google and competitors don’t yet appear to block traffic from large publishers. In their latest earnings, Ziff Davis and Dotdash Meredith – IAC parents characterised effects as negligible.

But which will change because Google which commands over 81% of the worldwide search market, expands AI overviews and AI organized pages for more users and queries. According to one estimateAI overviews only showed up for about 7% of searches in July, as Google re-targeted the feature to make changes.

Google says it continues to take publishers’ concerns under consideration during its AI-powered search workshops.