Google is transforming how search works. AI-powered search experiences such as AI Overviews and Gemini AI Mode now dominate the search results page and Google is increasingly placing more ads within these AI responses.
At Google Marketing Live 2025, the company shared that is launching Search and Shopping ads in AI Overviews and is experimenting with the ability to show ads in AI Mode conversational flow. The idea is to make ads digitalization, a natural follow-up step in an AI search.
Learning about these changes is essential to the marketer who wishes to remain visible in a dynamic search economy.
Google AI search is what is changing.
1. Inside AI Overviews Ads
Advert placements are found lurking in the AI-generated sums. Such advertisements are marked explicitly yet they blend aesthetically into the contextual response given by the AI.
2. AI Mode expansion
Users can ask follow-up questions without returning to traditional results, and ads will appear directly in these conversational flows.
3. Traffic impact is contested
Pew research shows click-through rates drop when AI summaries appear, falling to 8% compared to 15% without AI. Google says overall outbound clicks remain “stable,” but the real impact depends heavily on the type of query and industry.
4. Publishers are raising concerns
Platforms like Cloudflare have criticized AI summaries for reducing referral traffic and concentrating user attention within Google’s ecosystem.
How This Affects Brand Visibility
Position Zero now means AI plus Ads
The AI block dominates above-the-fold space. Being visible now requires either being cited within the AI summary or appearing in the embedded ad unit.
Organic real estate is shrinking
When AI Overviews appear, organic listings get pushed further down. This is especially challenging for informational queries, where fewer users will scroll past the AI block.
User journeys are changing
Many searchers treat the AI-generated block as the complete answer. They will only click if something inside the AI section captures their interest.
Opportunities and Risks
Opportunities
- Premium ad visibility: Inline ads within AI Overviews are among the most visible placements on the page.
- Contextual relevance: Ads will correspond with what the AI suggests, which may increase the clicks and conversions.
- Authority building: When AI uses your content it increases your content and makes your brand appear valuable.
Risks
- Decreasing organic clicks: The fact that AI answers directly might reduce the number of users that navigate to your site.
- Higher competition and CPCs: Prime AI placements may drive up advertising costs.
- Measuring challenges: the AI Mode limits communications to a closed environment, which increases difficulties in attribution and tracking of the route.
Established vs. New Brands
Well established brands have greater budgets and authority in their domains, which makes the probability of being mentioned in AI citations higher. Nevertheless, they have to protect themselves even when they are not brands in non brand-searches where they can be overtaken.
Newer brands also get an opportunity to take over high-intent requests by paying to grab specific placements and also creating content that has a potential to be cited on websites. Smaller brands have the opportunity to shine through niches where the currently employed AI leaves space to be shaped by ingenious creativity.
Paid and Organic Strategies How to Adapt
PPC and Shopping Paid
- Tax audit AI-triggered questions
Find out what keywords within your business are activating AI Overviews. Place more emphasis on advertisements on such queries.
- Asset-rich ads would suffice
Put in photos, product rating reviews, deals, and stock information. AI models prefer advertisements that give full and practical knowledge.
- Match AI background
Put the same wording as used by the AI in ad copy so that it appears like this is simply a continuation of what the AI was already guiding.
- Justify your brand
Bid on secure branded and competitor related terms in AI placements so the competitors does not interdict traffic of high value.
Organic SEO
- Post AI citable material
Produce work producing new research, in-depth as well as detailed comparisons, and comprehensive responses to queries of the customers.
- Utilize data structure
Mark up products, FAQs, how-to information and reviews with schema to raise your odds of being quoted in AI answers.
- Demonstrate expertise
Provide author bios, credentials, and trust signals, which are additional evidence of expert status in your topic.
- Wrap up the whole job
Include all of the required steps, tools, images, and summaries on a single page in order to allow the AI to leverage your content to generate a complete answer.
- Bring value added-ness
Provide what the competitors cannot offer in information and perspective.
Measuring and Diversification
- Segment AI vs. AI (Non-Segment) performance
Monitor the variation of metrics on queries activated by AI Overviews comparatively to those ones not activated.
- Adjust KPIs
It is time to go beyond raw count of clicks. Tracked interaction, assisted conversion and brand lift.
- Get into different spaces
Increase presence in YouTube, social platforms, podcasts and communities to alleviate over-dependence on Google Search.
What To Track
- AI Overview frequency of your category
- CPC trends and competitiveness of ad auction
- Boredom of the users and alterations in CTR, time on page, and conversion rates
- Policy changes because publishers and regulators are moving against AI-powered search tools
Bottom Line
The AI-first search results that Google offers are allowing the concentration of focus towards the answers that are generated by AI and these are now monetized by having inbuilt ad placements to them. The organic visibility will continue to be important but more difficult to achieve. The halo of becoming the imputed authority will be drawn further to whoever can afford it or can buy its placement in AI.
Whether you operate a national brand, or are looking to find the best freelance digital marketer in Kochi and have him/her handle your campaigns across channels, the shift in the competitive landscape means having to re-think how you put your paid and organic appearance into view.
In order to be competitive:
To increase sales, buy smart by using contextually relevant ads in targeting high-intent, AI-triggered queries
Gain credibility by original, professional, organized material that AI likes to refer to
In the new search environment, your brand needs to be featured within the AI answer box whether