Google Adds Ads to AI Mode Follow-Ups as Growth Slows

Google is adding ads to follow-up questions in AI Mode in the United States. A search about running shoes could now produce a sponsored result when someone asks a second question about cushioning or durability, rather than only when they begin the search. On October 28, Google announced what it calls multiturn ads while expanding other AI Mode ads to 10 countries outside the US. The follow-up format remains US-only.

The move gives Google another opportunity to earn money from a search conversation. It arrives alongside an uncomfortable admission from the company: AI Mode queries are growing, but they currently bring in less advertising revenue than Google wants. That makes the new placements a strategy for improving the economics of AI Search, rather than proof that those economics have improved.

More Searches, Slower Revenue Growth

Alphabet’s third-quarter results put revenue from Google Search and other properties at $63.35 billion, up 12% from a year earlier. Growth had been 17% in the second quarter. Google also said its year-over-year search-query growth rate was the highest in five years, while paid clicks on search rose 8% from a year earlier. People were using Search more; its revenue was still rising, just at a slower rate.

On the earnings call, Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler said foreign exchange was the single largest factor in the slowdown from the second quarter. He also said growing AI Mode use had an impact because of the lower monetization of AI Mode queries. Those statements can coexist. Currency movements affected the comparison between quarters, while the mix of searches increasingly included an AI experience that Google says earns less. Neither the overall Search revenue figure nor the paid-click figure tells us how much an individual AI Mode conversation earned.

Google is expanding ads in AI Overviews as well as AI Mode. AI Overviews are the generated summaries that can appear above conventional results; AI Mode lets people ask more complex questions and continue with follow-ups. On the call, Schindler described Google’s ad experiments as promising. That is a company assessment, not a disclosed revenue-per-query figure for the new follow-up placements. If an advertiser wants to judge whether a later question produces a more valuable click than an opening question, the two need to be identifiable in the results. Google’s current campaign reporting groups AI Mode performance with standard campaign data and does not separately identify clicks from follow-ups.

How Search Acquired a Second Question

Google’s Search Generative Experience experiment began in 2023. AI Overviews launched in US Search in May 2024. AI Mode followed as a Labs experiment in 2025, offering multipart questions and follow-ups, and reached everyone in the US that May. Each step changed the point at which Google could answer someone’s question: first with a summary on a results page, then across an exchange that could continue after the initial answer.

That history explains the advertising move. A conventional search ad can respond to a short query such as “running shoes.” A follow-up about cushioning supplies another opportunity to match an ad to what the shopper is considering. In Google’s account, US AI Mode queries average three times the length of traditional searches. Longer questions may reveal more about intent, but length alone says nothing about purchases, click quality or revenue. A detailed question about an injury or a school assignment can also be long. The commercial case depends on what people ask next and whether a relevant ad helps them.

For a user, an ad in a follow-up can be useful if it appears at the moment a broad search becomes a shopping decision. It can also crowd an answer when the next question is exploratory. Placement gives Google room to sell another impression; it does not guarantee that every conversation contains another shopping opportunity. Google has an incentive to find the latter without making the former feel like an ad break with a search engine attached.

Advertisers face a different version of that trade-off. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible for AI Mode, without a separate campaign or budget. Google’s AI search ad guidance does not offer a separate AI Mode opt-out. Results are folded into standard campaign and search-terms reports, the report said. That makes it easier for Google to bring existing advertisers into the format, but harder for those advertisers to isolate what a follow-up placement delivered, the report said. No reporting field separates a click on a later question from one on the first, the report said.

The distinction between product reach and product performance is especially important across borders. Google expanded AI Mode ads to Australia, Canada, India and seven other countries, but its October announcement confined multiturn ads to the US. An advertiser seeing AI Mode ads in one of the new markets should not assume the follow-up format is there too. Google has not announced whether it will bring that format to those markets.

OpenAI offers a useful, limited comparison. Its ChatGPT ads also target moments inside a conversation, and an October expansion took them to 89 countries. But ChatGPT ads appear on its Free and Go plans, with Plus, Pro and Enterprise remaining ad-free; advertisers buy through technology partners or a self-serve manager. Google is putting follow-up ads into AI Mode through existing search-ad campaigns. The shared idea is that a conversation can reveal a need after the first question. The differences in products, eligibility and markets prevent either company’s rollout from serving as a performance benchmark for the other.

Google’s strongest argument is straightforward: someone asking a sequence of questions may eventually disclose what they want to buy, and a relevant ad at that point could serve the shopper and the advertiser. Its own results supply the reason for caution. Search activity is growing, yet management says AI Mode currently monetizes at a lower rate, with foreign exchange also weighing on the quarter-to-quarter growth comparison. Follow-up ads give Google more chances to close that gap. The test is whether those later placements produce useful clicks and better returns, without asking advertisers to take the improvement on faith.