Austin LeClear explains Google's AI Mode search, a conversational interface with over 100 million users where text and shopping ads now appear. To show up there, you need a Broad-Match keyword in Search, AI Max enabled, a Performance Max campaign, or a Shopping campaign. There's no dedicated reporting yet, so you can't see how often your ads appear.
Okay, Google AI mode, which is Google's LLM or AI search engine. They are claiming that they've had a hundred million users on it and there are now ads from your Google Ads accounts or campaigns that can show within the AI mode result. So in this video I'm going to show you how to get your ads on AI mode or make sure you have coverage there. And then you know, what exactly is AI mode? Just in case you're been living under a rock and not sure what it is. So AI mode looks like this. This is their AI search engine. Basically. This is more conversational, right? So this looks a bit different than the normal Google search page that you, you might be on. This is like, I mean, if you've dealt with I, I still deal mainly with Claude or Chat GPT. You're, you're asking like full conversations. And a lot of times I'm using even this with AI mode. I use my microphone when I'm asking questions now. So these are not quick keywords that people are typing. They're having full conversations. And in fact, Google even claims that early testers of AI mode are asking queries that are two to three times as long as traditional search queries on Google. That makes sense. If you've used any LLM, you're not just doing a quick search, you're having like a full conversation with this like robot thing. Right. Dangerous. And so this is potentially the future of how consumers and users are going to be using more of Google. And Google now is expanding ad placement into AI mode. This is one of their own sort of documents that they came out with. This is from Search Engine Land, by the way, a blog post from them. They shared a lot of of this. So I'm going to link back to them just to give them credit. But this is where I've, I've gathered this. But here there's a few things that you're going to need to do in order for your ads to even show in AI mode. Thankfully it's not a lot, but real quick. Here's a few quick facts. I did a presentation with a company called Channable. They are a feed company out of the Netherlands. I'll actually have the video that I did with them in the description below. It's on their YouTube channel. We did like a live webinar and I talked about smart search in 2025, but this also included, you know, AI mode stuff, AI Max and those things. So Google's AI mode, what they're claiming is that over 100 million users are already Engaging with it. That's a pretty mind blowing number. And then ads are set to expand before Q4 holiday season. So they want to push more ads to AI mode, knowing the holidays are about to come up. Right, so this is happening right now. How do you make sure you have ad coverage then within AI mode? Well, thankfully it's very simple. So Google is claiming ads in AI mode can show as text or shopping ads from Search, Shopping and PMAX campaigns. Availability of this though it's only available in the U.S. so sorry, everyone else, I guess they just have this being tested in the us It's English and then it's mobile and desktop. Right. And so how do you actually then get ad coverage? Well, here you go. To show ads on AI powered search engine experiences, you need AI powered targeting. That sounds very smart. Smart. So smart. But basically you need to be a running Broad match in one of your search campaigns. You need to have AI Max for search turned on. If you don't know what AI max is, lucky for you I have an entire video on AI Max. Go check that video in the description below. If you want to learn more about AI Max that is in beta but it is out fully across all accounts. And then you a are running Performance Max or running Shopping. So if you're running shopping but you're not running Performance Max and you're not using AI Max and you're not using Broad Match, then you won't get text ad coverage, you would just get shopping ad coverage. If you're running pmax, you're probably going to get both you're getting text and shopping in most cases, especially if you're running a full asset group there. And then obviously if you're running Broad Match or testing AI Max, this can help you get coverage as well. The problem right now is there is no reporting that is showing you where your ads are showing in regards to AI mode. So you have no clarity as of yet within Google that your ads are showing in AI mode and how often they're showing an AI mode. I'm hoping that Google will release that in the future so we can have some clarity on that. Like AI Max right now they actually give you reporting on search terms coming from AI Max and also the landing pages they're using in the headlines. Again, my video covers that that I'll have in the description below. With AI mode though that doesn't exist. So there is no reporting as of yet. So if you have, if you're utilizing Broad Match right now or AI Max or pmax or Shopping, you probably could be showing in AI mode right now, you just don't know. So they're not giving us reporting quite yet. So don't freak out if you don't see anything there. Now most importantly for you e commerce companies, feed this is Google stating this by the way, Feed hygiene is critical. Ensure your shopping feed is as up to date as possible. So if you do not have an optimized feed, you absolutely must get a well optimized feed. You can use companies like Channable Feedonomics data feed, Watch whomever. I have an affinity to the company Channable now just because I've worked with them and they're pretty cool. And again I have a video that I've referenced that's going to go to their YouTube channel so you can go check them out. But if you don't want to use a feed provider then you need to make sure you still are optimizing your feed yourself. I do have a video on feed optimization. It's a couple years old but I will have that video in the description below. You need to make sure you have a very well optimized feed though. I mean this, it's Google stating this in their own doc like feed hygiene is absolutely critical because think of how these LLMs work and how AI mode is going to be able to pull this data right to know when to show ads, especially one of your ads. And so if you have a poor feed that doesn't have all that data, your chances of showing are probably going to be less than those that have a very well optimized feed. So this, this to me is stating how important feed optimization is especially as we roll into the future of what Google could look like in regards to utilizing more AI mode or if consumers and users start using more of AI mode. Otherwise as long as you have broad match on or AI max testing or a PMAX campaign or a shopping campaign, you can get coverage. Unfortunately right now you just might not have any reporting on that.
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