Google has integrated artificial intelligence across much of its product catalogue, from Gmail and Sheets to its core search engine. The company’s AI Overviews and AI Mode were designed to address a long-standing weakness of search: finding useful answers could be difficult for some queries. By generating responses directly, Google can often resolve a user’s question without requiring further browsing.
That improvement creates a commercial challenge. Traditional search results provide several places for advertising, while an AI-generated response can satisfy a query in a single interaction. According to Google, AI Mode is currently monetised less effectively than conventional search, even as usage of the feature continues to grow.
Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, said the strong growth in AI Mode queries had affected revenue because of the lower monetisation observed in the experience. He also said the company was satisfied with its progress and that advertising experiments had produced promising results.
Google is now expanding ads in both AI Overviews and AI Mode. The rollout covers more users and queries, including international markets, while the company is also testing advertisements within multi-turn conversations in the United States.
The change reflects a difficult balance for Google. Advertising cannot simply be inserted into an AI response in the same way it appears among traditional search results. Product recommendations presented within an answer must remain credible, and excessive commercial influence could undermine users’ trust in the system.
Google’s search business continues to grow at a double-digit rate, so the company is not described as being in immediate difficulty. However, every query that moves from traditional search to AI Mode may generate less revenue. Expanding advertising is the most direct tool available to Google, but relying on it too heavily could make the AI-powered search experience more focused on advertisers than on users.
Sources: Xataka.