Google expands ads in AI Overviews, AI Mode to desktop

By Anu Adegbola

Published: May 21, 2025 at 12:00 pm

Search and Shopping ads in AI Overviews are now rolling out to desktop users in the U.S., as announced today at Google Marketing Live 2025.

Driving the news. Starting today, desktop users in the U.S. will begin seeing Search and Shopping ads embedded within AI Overviews.

Later this year, these ad formats will expand globally to select countries on both mobile and desktop, focusing on English-language queries.

Google is also testing ads in AI Mode, the company’s advanced AI search experience, designed for complex, follow-up-heavy queries.

How it works. In AI Mode, users can ask open-ended questions and receive in-depth, conversational responses, complete with relevant links and now, contextual ads.

Example: A user searching “how to build a website for a small business with limited resources” might get a step-by-step AI guide, plus ads for website builders relevant to their needs.

Why we care. These new placements put brands and businesses in front of users earlier in the journey, right when AI is helping shape their decisions. With high visibility in the SERPs and automatic eligibility for existing campaigns, it’s a low-lift way to stay visible as the Google Search experience evolves.

The big picture: Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode shouldn’t show randomly. They’ve been built to appear when relevant to the user’s journey.

The approach is designed to feel more assistive than interruptive, supporting users as they move from research to decision-making, according to Google.

Between the lines. Advertisers running Performance Max, Shopping, and Search campaigns using broad match (including AI Max for Search) are automatically eligible for these placements.

Google is pushing advertisers to explore its AI Essentials toolkit to fine-tune campaigns for this new AI-driven landscape.

What to watch. As AI search grows in influence, so too does the pressure on advertisers to adapt. The challenge: balancing visibility with relevance in a space where user expectations and formats are evolving fast.

Dig deeper. More Google Marketing Live 2025 news from today:

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About the author

Anu Adegbola

Paid Media News Editor, Search Engine Land

Anu Adegbola has been Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more.

In 2008, Anu started her career delivering digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively Paid Search) by building strategies, maximising ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from every part of marketing departments through inspiring leadership both on agency, client and marketing tech side. Outside editing Search Engine Land article she is the founder of PPC networking event - PPC Live and host of weekly podcast PPC Live The Podcast.

She is also an international speaker with some of the stages she has presented on being SMX (US, UK, Munich, Berlin), Friends of Search (Amsterdam, NL), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, AdWorld Experience (Bologna, IT) and more.