Google is bringing advertising into its AI Mode conversational search experience in ten more countries, including Pakistan, as the company looks for new ways to make money from AI-powered answers. The expansion, announced on October 28, adds sponsored placements inside AI-generated responses for users in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore.
The move extends a monetization experiment Google began in the United States in May 2025. Until now, users outside the US had largely used AI Mode without ads; that changes with this rollout, which covers English-language searches in the ten new markets.
What changes for searchers
Ads in AI Mode will be clearly labelled “Sponsored” and can appear inside or alongside the AI-generated answer when a conversation turns to shopping or another commercial topic, according to Google’s announcement by Shashi Thakur, vice president and general manager of Google Search Ads. In Pakistan, the rollout is limited to text ads, while other markets also get product-style listings.
Google says AI Mode questions run about three times longer than traditional searches, giving advertisers more context about what a user wants. The company also claims users are comfortable with the ads and find them relevant, and that click-through rates for sponsored product listings are already similar to organic ones — though that comparison rests on Google’s own internal US data from late August and early September, not independent measurement.
Multiturn ads arrive in the US
Alongside the international expansion, Google is launching multiturn ads in the United States. These let sponsored placements surface during follow-up questions in the same AI Mode conversation, not just on the first query — a format that matters because AI Mode conversations, unlike a single search, can run for many turns.
For advertisers, joining is automatic: existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns become eligible using their current budgets, with no separate fee. Advertisers cannot buy AI Mode placements on their own, and they cannot exclude them either — a point that has drawn attention from marketers who want finer control over where their ads appear.
Why now: search growth is slowing
The timing is tied to Alphabet’s latest results. Google Search revenue grew 12% year on year in the third quarter to $63.35 billion, down from 17% growth in the June quarter, while overall Alphabet revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion and Google Cloud jumped 103% to $30.7 billion. Executives have pointed to lower monetization in AI Mode as one reason search revenue growth is cooling: AI answers, for now, earn less per query than the classic list of blue links.
Google says Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom will follow later in the fourth quarter of 2026, though it has given no firm dates. Separately, the company confirmed it is testing a shopping layout in AI Mode that groups listings under “Sponsored” and “All products” headings — an experiment, not a full rollout, and one more sign that the ad-free era of AI search is ending.
