Alphabet Inc.’s Google is beginning a wide rollout of ads that will be displayed within and alongside the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of some search results — a move meant to show investors that costly artificial intelligence projects can generate revenue.
Some investors have worried that generative AI, the tech that underpins Google’s AI summaries, could cannibalize the tech giant’s search business, which is still by far its most lucrative unit. The company said in May that it would start testing ads in these search summaries, called AI Overviews, and now it’s rolling the feature out to anyone in the US using Google’s mobile app.
Sponsored panels placed above, below and within the summaries have begun suggesting products related to the search query. At a demonstration for reporters held ahead of the announcement, searching “how do I get a grass stain out of jeans?” yielded AI-generated instructions followed by ads for Tide and OxiClean laundry products.
The company will not share ad revenue with publishers whose material is cited in AI Overviews, a company spokesperson said.
Google places its AI Overviews, which summarize the contents of search results, at the top of the page for some queries. First introduced in May, they were criticized for displaying inaccurate information and reducing the need to click through to cited websites that would earn ad revenue from visits.
The company has been under pressure to prove that it doesn’t have an unfair advantage over competitors in the search and advertising technology markets, which could have implications for its progress in AI. The US Justice Department in recent years brought two antitrust cases against the company, with a judge ruling in August that Google illegally monopolized the search business. The DOJ is considering seeking remedies including forcing the search giant to share precious search data with competitors — which they could use to bolster their own AI tools and services — and even breaking up the company, Bloomberg has reported. In a separate case, the DOJ leveled similar charges against Google’s ad tech unit. That trial wrapped up late last month.
In a separate announcement on Thursday, the search giant also said it will start adding inline links to sources used in AI-generated summaries, and initial tests showed these links sent more traffic to websites compared to the old design with links at the bottom, said Rhiannon Bell, Google Search’s vice president of user experience, during the media demonstration.
In addition, Google will begin sorting search results into scrollable lists of suggestions tailored to the user’s query and account history. “AI-organized search results,” as the company calls the feature, will initially be limited to suggesting recipes to American users of Google’s mobile app.
The company also said that Google Lens, the visual search app, will now be able to process video and voice input in addition to photos and text.
