Google Ads Now In AI Mode With Personal Intelligence
Google has confirmed that ads will appear in AI Mode results for users who have Personal Intelligence switched on, reversing the ad-free position it took when the feature launched. In March the company said there were no ads for people connecting their apps to AI Mode and that this was not changing at the time, though it signalled ads would probably arrive later.
The company is now testing the format. Its updated help documentation says ads will not be based directly on a user's Gmail inbox or Google Photos library, but that summaries, excerpts and inferences drawn from connected apps may be used to personalise results and to show ads. Advertisers do not get access to the connected apps, and sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation and health remain off limits for ad targeting.
Users choose whether to connect their content apps and can disconnect them at any time. Google says ad relevance will continue to rest on the query, the context of the response and the user's interests.
For brands, the change means paid placements now sit alongside organic citations inside AI Mode answers for a slice of users who have opted into app connections. That makes the paid and earned sides of an AI answer harder to separate, and gives advertisers a route into a surface that was previously closed to them.
Reported by Search Engine Roundtable ↗
Topics: AI Mode, AI advertising, Google Search