Having demonstrated how advertisements in its AI Overviews would work back in May at its Google Marketing Live event, the search giant is now adding the feature for U.S. mobile users and plans to include Google Lens shopping ads “above and alongside visual search results by the end of the year.” “The ways people ask questions today have expanded beyond the search box,” notes Google, explaining the move as a response to that evolution, as artificial intelligence technology has helped consumers use their voice and cameras “to explore the world around them.”

“Google will begin to show ads in AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries it supplies for certain Google Search queries, and will add links to relevant web pages for some of those summaries as well,” reports TechCrunch, adding that the Alphabet company “is also rolling out AI-organized search results pages in the U.S. this week.”

The ads will appear “within and alongside the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of some search results — a move meant to show investors that costly artificial intelligence projects can generate revenue,” writes Bloomberg. “Some investors have worried that generative AI, the tech that underpins Google’s AI summaries, could cannibalize the tech giant’s search business, which is still by far its most lucrative unit.”

Google had little choice but to make the move, in order to stay competitive with newcomers like ChatGPT and Copilot. There are even search-specific AI products, including Perplexity, which “said in May that its worldwide user base had grown to more than 85 million web visits — a drop in the bucket compared to Google, but impressive considering that Perplexity launched only two years ago,” explains TechCrunch.

The trajectory is not without risk. “Since its launch this spring, AI Overviews has been the subject of much controversy, going viral for its dubious statements and questionable advice (like adding glue to pizza),” TechCrunch notes, adding that “a recent report from SE Ranking, an SEO platform, found that AI Overviews cites websites that ‘aren’t entirely reliable or evidence-based,’ including outdated studies and paid product listings.”

In an Ads & Commerce blog post Google says it has improved the product, debuting ads only “after several months of careful testing.”

As the holiday sales season approaches, Big Tech and social media companies alike are eager to show off their AI capabilities for advertisers and shoppers. Digiday observes that Microsoft and Pinterest have recently unveiled AI ad features. This summer, OpenAI began testing a prototype for SearchGPT, and an advertising play can’t be far behind.

Related:
New Features and Controls for Your AI-Powered Campaigns, Google, 9/18/24