Google brings AI Mode ads to ten more countries and adds follow-up ads in the US

Google is taking advertising in AI Mode, the conversational version of its search, to ten more countries: Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. Brazil, Mexico and the UK are due to follow later in the fourth quarter of 2026. The announcement landed on 28 and 29 October, around the time of Alphabet's third-quarter earnings.

“click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode”
Google, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable · seroundtable.com ↗

In the US, Google is adding what it calls multiturn ads, which can show up in answers to follow-up questions as a person goes back and forth with the assistant. Android Authority's example is a shopper who starts with a laptop search and narrows it to models under $1,000. Sponsored results are labelled as such and appear when a search has commercial relevance.

Stock image of the Google brand used to illustrate the ads expansion

FotoField/Shutterstock · Image: Engadget

Google's argument is that AI Mode queries run about three times longer than ordinary searches, which hands advertisers more context to target. Search Engine Roundtable doubts Google's click-rate comparison holds for text links, since product results are so graphical, and Android Authority is sceptical that more ads help users.

About AI Mode

AI Mode is Google Search's conversational mode, which uses Gemini reasoning to break a question into subtopics and run many searches at once, with follow-up questions and links to the web. Google tested it in Search Labs in early 2025 before opening it to US users without a Labs sign-up on 20 May 2025.

Ads came soon after. At Google Marketing Live on 21 May 2025, Google said it was testing ads placed within and below AI Mode responses, alongside expanding ads in AI Overviews. In August 2025 it began rolling out ads in AI Mode in the US and India, drawn from existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.

Ads first appeared in AI Mode in May 2025, when Google began testing them there, so this is a widening of an existing trial. Engadget adds that executives said AI Mode earned less than it cost during the quarter, though ads are showing promising results and more markets could lift it towards profit.