Google expands AI Mode ads to international markets as Search ad growth slows

Google announced on October 28, 2026, during Alphabet's third-quarter earnings call, that it is expanding ads in AI Mode to international markets and introducing multi-turn ads. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said the company is scaling high-quality ads within AI overviews in AI Mode to more users and queries, marking the first time its monetization footprint in this area goes global.

Alphabet reported third-quarter revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25% year over year. Google Search advertising revenue grew 12%, decelerating from 17% growth in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter, adding pressure on Google to turn its AI features into a meaningful advertising revenue source.

According to the company, click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode are comparable to those for organic listings, and user research indicates people find the ads relevant. The expansion builds on Google's May launch of Gemini-powered ad formats, including conversational discovery ads and sponsored recommendations integrated into AI-generated answers.

CEO Sundar Pichai said Search queries grew at their fastest year-over-year rate in five years, with AI features prompting longer and more complex queries. He noted that queries in AI Mode are three times longer on average than traditional searches, one in five AI Mode searches globally involves voice, images, or documents, and Google has surpassed 50 billion visual searches per month.