The story. Yes, AI Mode is slowing Google’s search advertising growth, and Google has said so itself. Its answer is to put more ads inside AI Mode, in more countries and on follow-up questions. (AdExchanger, 11 November 2026)
The numbers in this piece
01What happened
- The slowdown. On Google’s third-quarter call an investor put search ad growth at 19% in Q1, 17% in Q2 and 12% in Q3, AdExchanger reports.
- The admission. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler: “The strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode.”
- The money is still large. Search advertising grew from $56.6 billion to $63.4 billion year on year. The stock still fell more than 10% after hours.
- More countries. Search Engine Journal reports ads in AI Mode are expanding to 10 more countries, in English. Brazil, Mexico and the UK are planned for Q4.
- Follow-up questions. Multiturn ads are launching in the US. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz saw them on second, third and fourth follow-up queries.
- No separate reporting. Google Ads folds AI Mode clicks, conversions and cost into campaign totals, so an advertiser cannot work out a return for AI Mode alone.
- Some budgets moved. Six advertisers and agency executives told The Information they shifted spend to Meta, according to AdExchanger’s roundup.
- Others are doing the same. Microsoft now shows ads at the top of Bing’s AI Mode, and Yahoo Scout left beta after more than 3 billion answers.
Schindler also told investors that AI Mode ads already get click-through rates on par with search ads, and that Google is scaling them “to more queries and more international markets.”
02What it means inside a GAM network
Google has a revenue reason to keep people inside AI Mode for longer, and it is now building the ad formats to do it. CEO Sundar Pichai said AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than standard ones. Search Engine Journal notes that an AI Mode ad can match on the context of the question and the AI’s answer, not only on a keyword. A reader comparing two products used to click through to a review. That comparison now happens in a conversation, and the sponsored result appears on the second or third turn.
For a publisher this is the second half of a change that is already visible in traffic. People Inc. told investors its Google search referrals are down 70% over two years, and that AI Overviews sit on 90% of the searches tied to its content. That was the loss of the informational click. Multiturn ads go after the commercial follow-up, which is the visit that carried the highest-paying page views on review, comparison and how-to-buy content.
Our reading is that the 12% figure makes this faster, not slower. A company whose stock fell more than 10% on one question about search monetisation will close that gap quickly. Each market and each format it adds takes a little more of the session that used to end on a publisher’s page. None of this shows in Ad Manager as a pricing change. It shows as fewer impressions on your best-paid templates while CPMs look steady.
There is a smaller effect on the demand side. Advertisers who cannot see what AI Mode returns, and who say their budgets are not delivering, are moving money. The Information’s six went to Meta. That is a small sample, not a trend to plan around, but it is worth asking your direct advertisers where their search budget went.
Google has told investors that AI Mode earns less per query than search, and it is closing that gap with ads on follow-up questions and in new markets.
03What publishers should do about it
04The bottom line
Google has told investors that AI Mode earns less per query than search, and it is closing that gap with ads on follow-up questions and in new markets. That is good news for its next quarter. For publishers it means the conversation now holds the commercial query as well as the informational one. The time to measure your exposure is before the format reaches your largest market.
If you want a second read on where your search-dependent revenue sits, see our publisher services. Related: Google’s AI Opt-Out Is Live, The Click Data To Judge It Is Not.