Aaron Young says Google's AI Mode for ads is still rolling out slowly. Keep your profitable campaigns running as-is for now, but make sure you're using broad-match keywords or Performance Max so you're ready when AI placements expand. Watch for sudden drops in impressions or clicks, which might mean your ads aren't showing in AI mode yet.
Yes, it's 100% true that ads are finally coming to AI mode and AI overviews inside of your Google Ads searches. But let's be honest, they're not really showing very much at all in real life tests inside of Google Ads. So let's go through the 3 big things that this means for your Google Ads campaigns right now as we're sitting in June 2026. And the number 1 biggest thing is, yes, things are going to be changing pretty, pretty drastically when it comes to your ad placements. But given that Google is not showing all of these ad placements right now. The number one thing that I want you to take right now, that if your current campaigns are still being profitable, don't change them. So if your search or your search and shopping or your Performance Max campaigns are performing really well inside of Google Ads, you're still able to scale them, you're able to add in your extra optimizations, don't feel like you've got to roll out all these new AI features like AI Max. Now I'm not saying that you won't need to use them in the future, but right now If it's currently working, don't feel like you've got to change absolutely everything inside of your Google Ads account. Number 2, although the full rollout of Ads and AO modes may not be active right now, you do need to be ready right now for this coming change. So I'm highly recommending that right now you need to make sure that you have one of these 3 things active inside of your account. You need to be running broad match keywords, or you need to be running Performance Max, or you need to be running AO mode. Now, currently for us at Define Digital Academy, we're focusing on those first two options, either broad match or Performance Max. And the reason for that is because if Google does slowly start to test in any of the niches that we're marketing in, our ads will be able to appear inside of AI Overviews and AI Mode. And finally, number 3, you do need to be looking out for any changes or significant changes inside of your data, with the telltale signs being if you start to see significant drop in your impressions or clicks inside of your campaigns, and then you follow up and do some manual searches inside for the that your account is targeting, you start to see those ads appearing in AI mode, it means that it is time for you to change over to AI Max so that you can get the full suite of the features that AI Max is offering. So the take-home message is yes, Google Ads is changing and the way that people are searching is going to change really, really fast. But right now, as we sit in the middle of 2026, just focus on what's working and don't feel like you've got to roll out absolutely everything that Google announced from Google Marketing Live because a lot of it is for changes that are coming in the future months and in some cases even year. So be prepared for the changes that are coming, but stay focused on what's working now for your business with Google Ads.
