Google bringing ads to AI Overviews in India

Google for businesses help started AI-powered advertising tools on Search in India. It will also include on YouTube, and connected TV.

As per the latest information, starting July 10, the company has started rolling out ads in AI Overviews for Indian users later this year. This means users in India will start seeing ads for products and services directly within the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Search results containing traditional web links.

“Over 15 per cent of the searches that we see on Google are new. But over the past year or so, those new searches are getting longer, more complex, and more conversational. There’s no single right answer or a set of web pages where you want to send somebody to. And so, those are also the places where you could introduce businesses and commercial information earlier in a purchase’s journey,” Dan Taylor, Vice President, Global Ads, Google, said at a virtual media roundtable held earlier this week.

Ads shown within AI Overviews will feature a transparent ‘Sponsored’ label in bold black text to make it distinguishable from organic chatbot responses. In response to a query from indianexpress.com on whether it is currently experimenting with other ad formats, Google said it is working on launching ad formats that address evolving consumer behavior, empower advertisers and marketers to connect with consumers across their non-linear journeys and drive profitable growth.

“India is a thriving digital ecosystem, we have the largest number of users who are actually trying and testing our products. That’s really the reason behind Google getting these innovations to India faster,” said Roma Datta Chobey, Managing Director, Google India.

How will ads in AI Overviews work?

Google has introduced a new setting called AI Max for advertisers to increase the performance of their existing marketing campaigns on Google Search.

“This is custom-built for how search is evolving. AI Max learns from brands’ landing pages, their existing ads, and even their existing keyword list to infer the types of products and services they are selling, and when it is relevant to show their ad,” Taylor said. Cashify, the online marketplace for electronic gadgets, saw a 15 per cent increase in conversions with customer acquisition costs declining by 12 per cent upon enabling AI Max, as per Google.

Google AI Ads India