Google says ads in AI Mode earn less than search ads, then expands them

Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler said on the Q3 2026 earnings call, held on 28 October, that ads in AI Mode monetize at a lower rate than ads in traditional search. He referred to the "lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode" and added that Google's ad experiments "have shown promising results."

Google also said it is "scaling ads within both AI Overviews and AI Mode to more users and more queries." Per Google's announcement, ads in AI Mode are now live in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom follow in Q4. In the US, Google is launching multiturn ads, which appear in answers to follow-up questions and carry a "Sponsored" label.

Google also said click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode.

Why it matters

Google earlier said ads on AI Overviews earn the same as search results without them. That statement did not cover AI Mode, and this call is the first time Schindler has pointed to a gap there.

For advertisers, a lower earning rate for Google does not tell you how your own campaigns will perform. It does suggest the format is still being tuned, so placements, query mix and reporting may keep changing.

For SEOs, ads are now moving into the follow-up turns of a conversation. The same page space that organic citations compete for is becoming paid space as well.

What to do this week

1. Check whether your account has AI Mode traffic or conversions in your Google Ads reports, and note the baseline.
2. If you sell in the newly added countries, review your product feed and landing pages for those markets before the UK, Brazil and Mexico launches.
3. Run a set of follow-up style questions in AI Mode for your category. Record who is cited and who is sponsored.
4. Keep AI Mode budgets small and test-led until you have your own numbers.
5. Make sure your organic pages answer follow-up questions clearly, since that is where the new ads appear.

Treat AI Mode as a test channel. Google itself is still measuring what it is worth.