Ads are showing up on Google’s AI Mode now

Hope it doesn’t go the same route as Google Search!

We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

Google has officially turned on the ad spigot in AI Mode, the search giant’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Ads started showing up in Google’s AI Overviews about a year ago, and now they’re coming to the company’s flagship conversational search experience.

That means the roughly 75 million daily active AI Mode users will see not only the AI’s best guess at their queries, but also sponsored results alongside them. Ad Age reported this summer that in AI Mode, Google serves ads based on a person’s conversation with the AI — not just on keyword matches, as was the case in traditional Search.

In my own quick tests — about a dozen searches and short conversations — I was served just one sponsored result: a link to a local car dealership tucked at the bottom of the answer, below other organic links.

Google has to walk a fine line here. Advertising is its primary moneymaker, the engine that turned Search into one of the most powerful products on the planet. But Search also suffered from its own success, as results became increasingly clogged with sponsored content and SEO filler. One could argue that this ad saturation helped drive users toward AI competitors like ChatGPT, which, for now, remains blissfully ad-free.

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Even OpenAI is worried about Google’s Gemini 3

When OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, it sent shock waves through Silicon Valley’s biggest names. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon had all been developing generative AI, but OpenAI’s breakthrough sparked an all-out race to catch up. Until now.

It seems that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is feeling the heat from Google, whose newly released Gemini 3 has been receiving stellar reception from AI leaderboards, analysts, and consumers alike.

“We know we have some work to do but we are catching up fast,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month, after learning about Google’s AI advances, The Information reports. “I expect the vibes out there to be rough for a bit.”

Google’s AI progress, Altman said, could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company,” but he said OpenAI would emerge on top.

However, it’s worth remembering that, despite OpenAI’s first-mover advantage and supersized valuation, Google is a substantial adversary that is peppering its AI models across its giant existing — and highly lucrative — product suite.

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google

It seems that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is feeling the heat from Google, whose newly released Gemini 3 has been receiving stellar reception from AI leaderboards, analysts, and consumers alike.

Google’s AI progress, Altman said, could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company,” but he said OpenAI would emerge on top.