June 15, 2026
Fresh off the back of Google's I/O event, which put AI and Gemini at the centre of its future, Google followed up with a series of announcements at Google Marketing Live last night that showcased how important AI is going to be to its ecosystem going forward.
Google announced its biggest change to search box in over 25 years: users can now conduct searches using images, and will be pushed towards AI mode by default. Furthermore, YouTube is becoming conversational-led, to the point where users can now ask YouTube a question and it will suggest videos that answer their query. To support this change in user behaviour, Google has introduced new ad formats to support businesses looking to reach potential customers using AI mode. These AI Max ad upgrades will enable advertisers to appear for highly relevant searches whilst in AI mode.
AI has also infiltrated shopping ads. Now they provide a synopsis, generated from your product data, about how your product will meet the searcher’s query. This will help a searcher better understand your product before visiting your website. Which should result in less, but better-qualified, traffic coming to your website from your shopping activity.
For lead gen and B2B businesses, you can now introduce an AI agent to your ads, as a way for searchers to ask questions about your products and services, whilst generating relevant leads for your business.
Universal Commerce Protocol is also rolling out to new markets and introducing new technologies, enabling searchers to book directly on Google via your campaigns, without having to go to your website. For the travel and food industries, Universal Commerce Protocol now integrates with DoorDash, Uber Eats, Hilton, IHG, Expedia, Booking.com and other providers to deliver a seamless experience to searchers. We anticipate that further integrations will soon follow as adoption increases. For advertisers and businesses, you should expect fewer visits to your website due to this change.
To help advertisers understand how their products are performing within AI mode, Google has announced AI performance insights within Merchant Center. These will help you understand your share of voice, advise on how you’re performing at different stages of the purchase process, and provide suggestions for improvements to your shopping feed. It is now more important than ever to ensure that your shopping feed provides as much relevant and descriptive information about your products as possible.
Demand Gen campaigns have also had an upgrade. Now you can use your Performance Max campaigns as the basis for your Demand Gen campaigns, isolate all conversions from Demand Gen to provide more accurate comparisons to channels like paid social, and undertake uplift experiments to understand the impact Demand Gen campaigns have had on your bottom-of-funnel campaigns. Furthermore, Google has expanded the placements for Demand Gen, covering larger Google Maps inventory, expanded placements for product feeds, video that can be uploaded to Merchant Center for dynamic video content, and “buy now” links in additional markets. So now you can find more people who could be interested in your brand, quicker and more easily than ever before.
You can also now attribute your demand generation activity to sales more easily, thanks to new metrics like qualified future conversions, which track initial interactions through to future conversions up to six months down the line. Google is also introducing Attributed Brand Searches, which help you track the impact this higher-funnel activity has had on your brand demand.
For those who want to get insights more quickly, without having to cross-reference different programmes, Ask Advisor will proactively offer personalised recommendations based on a unified view of your Google products. Furthermore, you can prompt Ask Advisor to create campaigns based on your needs, accelerating campaign launch to just a few clicks.
AI is here to stay, and this year’s Google Marketing Live has showcased how important AI adoption is going to be for advertisers going forward. It will continue to remove barriers to entry for many smaller businesses, as well as providing the ability to scale quicker than ever before. This announcement is not only the biggest change to Google Search in 25 years, but is also one of the biggest changes to digital advertising in 25 years, with a fundamental shift towards having AI at the centre of everything.
If you’d like help putting AI at the centre of your advertising, explore our paid media services or get in touch with the team today.