Google is bringing ads in AI Mode, its conversational search experience, to 10 more countries: Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences, announced the expansion in an October 28, 2026, post on Google’s Ads & Commerce blog. The company plans to add more markets in the fourth quarter of 2026, including the United Kingdom, Brazil and Mexico. In the U.S., it is also launching ads in responses to follow-up questions.
No European Union country is on the list. An updated Google Ads help page restricts ads that appear inside AI Mode and AI Overviews answers to English. France, where both features have been live since July 22, 2026, is not among the countries where these ads run.
Ten countries, one language
Google’s post runs just a few paragraphs. It opens with a stat from a May 2026 Google report on the U.S.: queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches.
The help page, “About ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search,” fills in the details. Ads above or below an AI Overview run in every country and language where AI Overviews are available, which means more than 200 countries and territories. Ads inside AI Overviews and AI Mode run only in English and only in 12 countries: the U.S., the 10 announced on October 28 and Indonesia, where they are limited to AI Overviews.
In Pakistan, only text ads are eligible. Google notes that the list may not be exhaustive because it keeps testing and expanding ad serving across countries, territories and languages, but it gives no timeline. The post doesn’t say why no EU country made the list. On October 29, the French version of the help page loaded in English.
These markets already have ads in Google’s AI answers. On December 19, 2025, Google opened ads inside AI Overviews to 11 markets outside the U.S. for English-language searches. It did so with no formal announcement, by updating its help documentation, according to the trade site PPC Land. Google announced ads in AI Mode for the U.S. at its Google Marketing Live event on May 21, 2025.
Sébastien Missoffe, managing director of Google France, announced the French launch of AI Mode and AI Overviews on July 22, 2026, on mobile, desktop and the Google app. A guide to AI Mode and AI Overviews explains how they work and how they affect clicks to websites.
Ads further into the conversation
In the U.S., Google is launching what it calls multiturn ads. “Multiturn ads show up on responses to follow-up user queries as users engage in back and forth conversations with AI Mode,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Roundtable. The ads are labeled “Sponsored,” and Google says it will keep testing new formats.
On October 16, Google confirmed to Search Engine Land that it had started testing ads in AI Mode for people who connect their apps, such as Gmail or Google Photos. Until then, the company had presented that experience as ad-free, Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 19. That Gmail and Google Photos connection isn’t offered in the European Union.
Existing campaigns qualify automatically
Advertisers don’t need a new campaign or a separate budget. According to the help page, existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are “automatically eligible.” Text ads and Shopping ads are the formats serving today, and Google is experimenting with others, such as local inventory ads and vehicle ads.
The page describes two kinds of matching. When a query already shows purchase intent, such as “pool vacuum cleaners,” Google matches ads to the query, just as on the standard results page. For a broader question like “why is my pool green and how do I clean it?” Google weighs both the question and its AI’s answer.
AI Max for Search campaigns, broad match keywords, Shopping campaigns and Performance Max are eligible in both cases. Phrase match and exact match keywords only match the first kind.
Advertisers can’t target these placements on their own or opt out of them separately from Search. Existing guardrails such as negative keywords, brand exclusions and asset pinning still apply.
Performance is included in aggregate in standard campaign reports and in the search terms report, with no separate breakout. These ads run through the same auction and the same cost-per-click or conversion-based bidding models as standard Search ads, and advertisers aren’t charged extra.
Gemini-written text next to the ads
In some placements, ads come with “AI explainers,” short text snippets generated by Google’s Gemini models. Depending on the layout, an explainer either introduces a group of ads or adds context next to an ad, drawing on the user’s question, the AI’s answer and public sources, including the advertiser’s website. Explainers aren’t part of ad headlines or descriptions, and advertisers can’t write, edit, approve or opt out of them, Google says.
Another help page, spotted by the trade site PPC News Feed on October 24, describes AI-written review summaries in Search ads, which advertisers don’t control either.
Similar click-through rates, Google says
Google says its research shows people are comfortable with these ads and find them highly relevant. Its only number covers one format: in AI Mode, the click-through rate of sponsored product listings is already “similar” to that of organic product listings. The footnote cites internal U.S. data from August 20 to September 3, 2026. Google doesn’t give the rate itself, or any figure for text ads, conversions or cost per click. On October 28, presenting its quarterly results, Alphabet acknowledged that AI Mode earns less and helped slow its search growth.
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable has doubts: product results are very graphical, he wrote, so what about text links? Google also published no click data on October 15, when it moved links to websites higher in AI Mode answers.
What it means
Ads inside AI Overviews left the U.S. in December 2025. Ads in AI Mode now follow them to 10 more markets, but only in English. In France, AI Mode and AI Overviews have been answering in French since July, and Google’s help page already allows ads above or below AI Overviews there. For ads inside the answers themselves, the page lists no EU country.
For French or Belgian advertisers, the change for now affects English-language campaigns running in one of the listed countries, such as those of a Belgian company targeting English-speaking Canada. The U.K. would join them if it opens as planned in the fourth quarter. Those campaigns enter the new placements automatically, with no setting to opt out of them separately. Their results are blended into existing reports, and some of the text shown next to their ads may be written by Gemini.
OpenAI is already selling ad space to businesses in France. On August 31, 2026, it opened the self-serve beta of its tool for buying ads in ChatGPT to eligible advertisers in 31 European markets, including France, according to the French trade site Blog du Modérateur. Google has set no date for French.
Google’s only figure rests on about two weeks of U.S. data, limited to product listings. It hasn’t disclosed the click-through rate of text ads in these answers or their actual cost per click, and it hasn’t said when languages other than English will arrive.
Three things to watch: the planned U.K. launch in the fourth quarter (the first European market on the list), a second language showing up on the help page and any expansion of multiturn ads beyond the U.S.
Sources
- Ads in AI Mode expand to new markets, Google (Ads & Commerce blog), October 28, 2026
- About ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search, Google Ads Help, accessed October 29, 2026
- Google Expands Ads In AI Mode To More Countries & Multiturn Ads In U.S., Search Engine Roundtable, October 28, 2026
- Google Ads Now In AI Mode With Personal Intelligence, Search Engine Roundtable, October 19, 2026
- Google quietly expands AI Overview ads to 11 countries without fanfare, PPC Land, December 22, 2025
- Google Marketing Live 2025: News and Updates, Google, May 21, 2025
- Lancement des Aperçus IA et du Mode IA dans la Recherche Google en France, Google France, July 22, 2026
- ChatGPT : l’Ads Manager est disponible en libre-service en France, Blog du Modérateur, September 1, 2026
Header image: MACCUS chart, data from Google and PPC Land, October 2026
