Google brings ads in AI Mode to Australia

Google is rolling ads in AI Mode out to Australia and nine other countries, and has started showing ads in follow-up questions inside AI Mode in the United States. Shashi Thakur, Google's VP and general manager for Search ads, announced the expansion on 28 October 2026.

Google began testing ads in AI Mode in May 2025. Earlier this month Google started testing them with people who connect apps such as Gmail and Google Photos. Australia is one of the new countries Google named on 28 October.

For an Australian business running Search, Shopping or Performance Max, those campaigns are now eligible for AI Mode placements, and there is no separate switch to turn them off.

Australian advertisers wait for AI Mode ads

The ten countries are Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. Google says it plans more locales in the fourth quarter of 2026 and names Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom as examples.

Google's word for the ten is "scaling". It has not published a start date for Australia or said whether the placements reach every Australian AI Mode user at once. Google has given no schedule, so the absence of a Sponsored label in your own AI Mode results today says nothing about your account.

Multiturn ads are a US launch for now. Google says these ads can appear when people ask follow-up questions in an AI Mode conversation. Google has not said when follow-up ads will reach Australia.

Can I opt out of AI Mode?

Google's help page on ads in AI-powered Search experiences says existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible, and that advertisers cannot target AI Overviews or AI Mode on their own or opt out of them separately from Search. Negative keywords and brand exclusions still apply.

It is the same default-on pattern as Performance Max sourced videos, which Google turned on by default and which may already be active in existing campaigns. It also follows the test of ads in AI Mode for users with connected apps, where Google announced no new advertiser controls.

Ads carry a "Sponsored" label. Google says it will keep testing new formats.

Weigh broad match and AI Max for longer questions

Match types decide how far a campaign reaches into AI Mode. According to Google's help page, exact and phrase match keywords are limited to queries with clear commercial intent and miss the looser, exploratory questions that Google matches by context. Broad match, AI Max for Search, Shopping and Performance Max can serve on both kinds of query.

That distinction matters more in AI Mode than in classic Search because the queries are different. Google says AI Mode queries are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches. A question like "which heat pump suits a two-storey weatherboard in Ballarat" is a long way from the exact-match keyword "heat pump installation".

So an account built on exact and phrase match can still appear in AI Mode, though only on the queries that already look like regular searches. Reaching the longer questions means broad match or AI Max, and both are decisions with a cost. Our ten-day comparison of broad match against phrase match found that twelve broad keywords recorded no meaningful spend while running alongside phrase and exact, so the extra reach is no sure thing either.

Some placements carry an AI explainer, a short piece of text that Gemini writes from the user's query, the AI response and public sources including the advertiser's own website. The advertiser cannot create, edit, approve or opt out of that text. Google announced AI explainers at Google Marketing Live in May.

Advertisers get no separate AI Mode report

There is no AI Mode segment in Google Ads. The help page says results are included in standard reporting, as part of aggregate campaign figures and the search terms report. The clearest trace you will get is the search terms themselves: longer, more conversational queries appearing against broad match, AI Max, Shopping or Performance Max campaigns.

Google's help page names English as the supported language for these ads, and in Pakistan the placements will be limited to text ads.

Google's only performance figure for the placement is a click-through comparison. Thakur wrote that "click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode." The footnote behind that claim points to internal Google data for the United States between 20 August and 3 September 2026. That is a 15-day US sample of product list items, the Shopping-style results, and it says nothing about text ads or about Australia.

Search revenue growth slowed to 12 per cent

The expansion landed on the same day as Alphabet's third-quarter results, and the two belong together. Google Search & Other revenue rose 12 per cent year on year to US$63.35 billion, essentially flat on the US$63.27 billion of the previous quarter. Growth was 19 per cent in the first quarter and 17 per cent in the second.

Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler named currency movements, retail and the media sector as the main factors behind the slower quarter, with media spending settling after a second quarter that included the FIFA World Cup. He also said strong growth in AI Mode queries had weighed on Search revenue because AI Mode monetises at a lower rate. He did not say lower than what, or by how much.

CEO Sundar Pichai said year-on-year query growth was the highest in five years. Schindler said many of the new questions people ask are upper-funnel, that the majority of AI Mode queries are incremental, and that he expects this to create more monetisation opportunities over time. Pichai put it this way: "Just like our shift to mobile over a decade ago, we are focused on building the best Search user experience, followed by monetization."

AI Mode queries are growing fast but, by Google's own account, monetise at a lower rate, and Google has told investors monetisation comes next. More countries, follow-up ads and new formats are how that gap closes, and Australian advertisers are now inside it.

One figure is missing. In the second quarter Pichai said AI features in Search were sending "billions of clicks to websites every week". The third-quarter remarks and the call gave no clicks figure, so the quarter gave advertisers revenue detail and no new traffic number.

AI Mode placements run inside campaigns you already have

Nothing needs switching on, so the work is checking what is already running. The placements arrive inside campaigns you already have, under targets you set for classic Search.

• Pull the search terms report for Search, Shopping and Performance Max and look for longer, question-shaped queries. Those are the likeliest AI Mode traffic, and they are the only trace you will get.
• Decide on broad match and AI Max for Search deliberately. They are the match types that reach the exploratory questions, and they also widen matching everywhere else.
• Check negative keywords and brand exclusions, which Google's help page says still apply in AI Mode.
• For Shopping and Performance Max, check the Merchant Center feed. Google's click-through claim is about product list items, so the product data is what shows.
• Search your own category in AI Mode and read any AI explainer that appears with your ad. The only input you control is your own site, which is one of the public sources it reads.
• Note the date in your reports. A shift in cost per conversion or return on ad spend over the next few weeks may be the new placement rather than anything you changed.

Record this month's cost per conversion and conversion rate for each campaign type before the placement scales in Australia. Until your own data shows how AI Mode traffic converts, treat Google's US click-through figure as a claim to test against your own numbers.