Google Ads in AI Mode: Multiturn Ads, What to Check

Ads inside AI Mode, Google's conversational search, were already running in the United States before October 28, 2026. What Google announced that day is a new format and a wider map: multiturn ads, launched in the U.S., which let ads appear on follow-up questions as well, and a scale-out to Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. In Q4 2026 Google plans more locales, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom. For a US advertiser, the part with the most consequences sits in the Google Ads help page: campaigns are eligible automatically, there is no separate opt-out, and results are not reported on their own.

What Is New for a US Account and What Was Already There

Multiturn ads are the change that applies to US accounts. Google says queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches, and multiturn ads extend the ad opportunity to the follow-up questions in that conversation. The announcement places that launch in the U.S.

Two things that look similar are not part of the news. Ads above and below AI Overviews, the AI-written summaries on the results page, already run in all the countries and languages where AI Overviews is available, and that is a different placement from ads within AI Mode. And the international expansion matters to a US account mainly if it also runs campaigns abroad. As of November 3, 2026, the help page, which warns that its list may not be exhaustive, names the United States, the ten countries in the announcement and Indonesia (AI Overviews only), listing English as its language.

You Are In Without a New Campaign, and You Can't Leave Separately

Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible to serve within AI Overviews and AI Mode, with text ads and Shopping ads. It is the same auction, with CPC or conversion-based bidding, and Google states you aren't charged extra to participate.

What doesn't exist is a selective exit: per the page, you can't target ads exclusively to AI Overviews or AI Mode, or opt out of showing ads in them separately from Search. Negative keywords, brand exclusions and asset pinning still apply. Google added priority and caps by channel for search partners and Display in October 2026; for AI Mode, the page describes nothing equivalent. Metrics are included in aggregate in your standard campaign reports and in the search terms report, with no separate AI Mode breakdown described.

Match Type Decides Who Joins the Conversation

In Search, match type determines whether an ad can enter exploratory questions. Google matches ads either directly to the query, when it shows clear commercial intent, or contextually to both the query and the AI response. AI Max for Search, broad match, Shopping and Performance Max are eligible for both routes. Exact and phrase match keywords aren't eligible for contextual matching on broader exploratory questions.

That turns match type into a decision to make on purpose, campaign by campaign. As a rule of thumb, a campaign with room to absorb lower-intent traffic can open up with broad match or AI Max, while one with thin margins or a tight cost per acquisition is better served by exact and phrase. If the account is already moving to AI Max, it is worth reading this together with the automatic migration.

In Performance Max, match type isn't the lever, because the campaign is eligible for contextual matching by design. What's left are the controls the help page names, negative keywords and brand exclusions, so we recommend reviewing both on the accounts that concentrate spend in PMax.

The Text Gemini Writes Next to Your Ad

In some placements, ads appear with AI explainers, short text generated by Google's Gemini models, with context drawn from the query, the AI response and publicly available sources, including the advertiser's website. Per the page, advertisers can't manually write, edit, approve or opt out of them, and no route to request a correction is described.

There is no control over those texts. What Google names is indirect: keeping your site content clear and current helps it show accurate context, which puts published prices, terms and policies on the review list. For Shopping, Google also asks for complete Merchant Center feeds aligned with your landing pages (see AI descriptions on Shopping ads).

The Baseline You Can Only Save Beforehand

What you can't do later is record how the account looked before the change. So we recommend saving a baseline per campaign: CPC, conversion rate and an export of the search terms report. With aggregate reporting, that baseline won't isolate the effect of AI Mode. It can show a before-and-after shift in the mix of search terms, such as more long, conversational queries, and in campaign metrics, which also move with seasonality or competition. Read with that caution, it helps you decide whether to adjust match types or add negatives.

If you also run campaigns into Brazil or Mexico, both appear as a plan, with no date and no declared language, and the phrase says "including", so the list isn't closed. Google names no other Latin American country. For those campaigns, it's worth noting when Brazil or Mexico show up in the help page's country list, so the before and after can be dated. The match type and exclusions review can wait for that moment; the baseline can't.

Google's other recommendations on the page (AI Max with search term matching, broad match, Smart Bidding with good first-party conversion data, text customization, final URL expansion) are Google's, and each account decides which ones fit based on what it settled on match type.

What Alphabet Said and What It Didn't

On Alphabet's Q3 earnings call on October 28, 2026 (transcript), Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer, said the strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact "because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode." The phrase is about how much revenue Google earns from those queries, not about cost or performance for the advertiser, and Alphabet gave no AI Mode revenue or CPC figures.

Also undeclared is the date and language for Brazil and Mexico, whether other markets follow, and what Gemini will write about any given brand. As context on another AI surface, in our note on ChatGPT Ads in Latin America we covered how ChatGPT Ads adds 26 countries (89 in total), 14 of them in LATAM, with access through technology partners or self-serve in Ads Manager.

If you want to review match types, exclusions and the baseline for your Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, get in touch.

This content was developed with AI assistance and reviewed by the Zenda team. Any bad ideas are entirely our own.