Ads pressured to evolve as AI changes Google search
Agencies
As Google races to lead in artificial intelligence, it faces the challenge of making sure the technology doesn't slow its profit-pumping advertising engine.
The internet giant is dabbling with ads in its new AI Mode for online search, a strategic move to fend off competition from ChatGPT while adapting its advertising business for an AI age.
'There's no question that AI is becoming more commonplace as a source for answers,' IDC advertising and marketing technology research director Roger Beharry Lall told AFP. 'That will inevitably result in a shift in terms of search and the opportunities to promote a brand.'
The integration of advertising has been a key question accompanying the rise of generative AI chatbots, which have largely avoided interrupting the user experience with marketing messages.
However, advertising remains Google's financial bedrock, accounting for more than two-thirds of its revenue.
'Google certainly needs to find a way to monetize AI search in the way that it has monetized its past versions of search,' Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart told AFP at the tech giant's annual developers conference this week.
A new AI Mode enables conversational interaction with Google during search queries, providing answers in diverse formats, such as video, audio or graphs.
The internet giant said it is testing integrating ads into AI Mode responses, building on insights gained from AI-generated summaries, or 'Overviews,' introduced to search results a year ago.
These Overviews display comprehensive AI-generated summaries of results above traditional website links and ads.
'The future of advertising fueled by AI isn't coming — it's already here,' stated Vidhya Srinivasan, Google's vice president of Ads & Commerce. 'We're reimagining the future of ads and shopping: Ads that don't interrupt, but help customers discover a product or service.' Google is extending ads in AI Overviews to desktop in the U.S., following successful mobile implementations.
More than 1.5 billion users see AI Overviews monthly, according to the company.
'Google's doing very good job of adapting,' Beharry Lall said. 'The move right now is to experiment and to gain traction, just as they have.' Google's aggressive push into generative AI intensifies its competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT, which added search engine capabilities to its popular chatbot.
Google announced it is making AI tools available to streamline the creation of online ads, mirroring similar initiatives by Facebook-owner Meta, Google's primary rival in online advertising.
New features, available in the United States, will enable merchants to leverage AI for effective marketing campaigns and to 'power an algorithm capable of targeting new searches and generating additional conversions,' Google said.
'AI helps a lot in advertising as far as targeting customers more precisely,' Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi told AFP.
Google should have opportunities to charge for AI tools for ad campaigns, and even for insights from data the tech firm has about its users' lives.
'When you have AI agents doing things for you, those agents are going to need data,' Milanesi said. 'To get access to that data, you're going to have to pay.' For example, Google knowing the kinds of restaurants or places someone has searched for online would have value for targeting ads, she said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Qatar Tribune
19 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Google makes case for keeping Chrome browser
Agencies Google on Friday urged a U.S. judge to reject the notion of making it spin off its Chrome browser to weaken its dominance in online search. Rival attorneys made their final arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering 'remedies' to impose after making a landmark decision last year that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in search. U.S. government attorneys have called on Mehta to order Google divest itself of Chrome browser, contending that artificial intelligence is poised to ramp up the tech giant's dominance as the go-to window into the internet. They also want Google barred from agreements with partners such as Apple and Samsung to distribute its search tools, which was the focus of the suit against the Silicon Valley internet giant. Three weeks of testimony ended early in May, with Friday devoted to rival sides parsing points of law and making their arguments before Mehta in a courtroom in Washington. John Schmidtlein, an attorney for Google, told Mehta that there was no evidence presented showing people would have opted for a different search engine if no exclusivity deals had been in place. Schmidtlein noted that Verizon installed Chrome on smartphones even though the U.S. telecom titan owned Yahoo! search engine and was not bound by a contract with Google. Of the 100 or so witnesses heard at trial, not one said 'if I had more flexibility, I would have installed Bing' search engine from Microsoft, the Google attorney told the judge. Department of Justice attorney David Dahlquist countered that Apple, which was paid billions of dollars to make Chrome the default browser on iPhones, 'repeatedly asked for more flexibility' but was denied by Google. Google contends that the United States has gone way beyond the scope of the suit by recommending a spinoff of Chrome, and holding open the option to force a sale of its Android mobile operating system. 'Forcing the sale of Chrome or banning default agreements wouldn't foster competition,' said Cato Institute senior fellow in technology policy Jennifer Huddleston. 'It would hobble innovation, hurt smaller players, and leave users with worse products.' The potential of Chrome being weakened or spun off comes as rivals such as Microsoft, ChatGPT and Perplexity put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work fetching information from the internet in response to user queries. The online search antitrust suit was filed against Google some five years ago, before ChatGPT made its debut, triggering AI fervor. Google is among the tech companies investing heavily to be a leader in AI, and is weaving the technology into search and other online offerings. Testimony at trial included Apple vice president of services Eddy Cue revealing that Google's search traffic on Apple devices declined in April for the first time in over two decades. Cue testified that Google was losing ground to AI alternatives like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Mehta pressed rival attorneys regarding the potential for Google to share data as proposed by the DoJ in its recommended remedies. 'We're not looking to kneecap Google,' DoJ attorney Adam Severt told the judge. 'But, we are looking to make sure someone can compete with Google.' Schmidtlein contended that the data Google is being asked to share contains much more than just information about people's online searches, saying it would be tantamount to handing over the fruit of investments made over the course of decades. 'There are countless algorithms that Google engineers have invented that have nothing to do with click and query data,' Schmidtlein said. 'Their remedy says we want to be on par with all of your ingenuity, and, respectfully your honor, that is not proportional to the conduct of this case.'
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
US gov't and Google face off in search monopoly case
Google has been back in federal court to fend off the United States Department of Justice's attempt to topple its internet empire at the same time it is navigating a pivotal shift to artificial intelligence (AI) that could undercut its power. On Friday, the legal and technological threats facing Google were among the key issues being dissected during the closing arguments of a legal proceeding that will determine the changes imposed upon the company in the wake of its dominant search engine being declared an illegal monopoly by US District Judge Amit Mehta last year. Brandishing evidence presented during a recent three-week stretch of hearings, Justice Department lawyers are attempting to persuade Mehta to order a radical shake-up that includes a ban on Google paying to lock its search engine in as the default on smart devices and an order requiring the company to sell its Chrome browser. Google lawyers say only minor concessions are needed, especially as the upheaval triggered by advances in artificial intelligence already are reshaping the search landscape, as alternative, conversational search options are rolling out from AI startups that are hoping to use the Department of Justice's four-and-half-year-old case to gain the upper hand in the next technological frontier. Mehta used Friday's hearing to ask probing and pointed questions to lawyers for both sides while hinting that he was seeking a middle ground between the two camps' proposed remedies. 'We're not looking to kneecap Google,' the judge said, adding that the goal was to 'kickstart' competitors' ability to challenge the search giant's dominance. After the daylong closing arguments, Mehta will spend much of the next several months mulling a decision that he plans to issue before Labor Day in the US (September 1). Google has already promised to appeal the ruling that branded its search engine as a monopoly, a step it cannot take until the judge orders a remedy. While both sides of this showdown agree that AI is an inflection point for the industry's future, they have disparate views on how the shift will affect Google. The Justice Department contends that AI technology by itself will not rein in Google's power, arguing additional legal restraints must be slapped on a search engine that's the main reason its parent company, Alphabet Inc, is valued at $2 trillion. Mehta indicated in court Friday that he was still undecided on how much AI's potential to shake up the search market should be incorporated in his forthcoming ruling. 'This is what I've been struggling with,' Mehta said early in the hearing. Justice prosecutor David Dahlquist urged the judge to issue forward-thinking remedies that would 'pry open' the search market to competition and not allow Google to use its search monopoly to unfairly benefit itself in the AI race. Google has already been deploying AI to transform its search engine into an answer engine, an effort that has so far helped maintain its perch as the internet's main gateway despite inroads being made by alternatives from the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity. The Justice Department contends a divestiture of the Chrome browser that Google CEO Sundar Pichai helped build nearly 20 years ago would be among the most effective countermeasures against Google continuing to amass massive volumes of browser traffic and personal data that could be leveraged to retain its dominance in the AI era. Executives from both OpenAI and Perplexity testified last month that they would be eager bidders for the Chrome browser if Mehta orders its sale. Google's lawyer John Schmidtlein said on Friday that AI companies should 'get to work' on their own products rather than try to persuade the court to give them unfair access to Google's innovations. The debate over Google's fate also has pulled in opinions from Apple, mobile app developers, legal scholars and startups. Apple, which collects more than $20bn annually to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone and its other devices, filed briefs arguing against the Justice Department's proposed 10-year ban on such lucrative lock-in agreements. Apple told the judge that prohibiting the contracts would deprive the company of money that it funnels into its own research, and that the ban might make Google even more powerful because the company would be able to hold onto its money while consumers would end up choosing its search engine anyway. The Cupertino, California, company also told the judge a ban would not compel it to build its own search engine to compete against Google. In other filings, a group of legal scholars said the Justice Department's proposed divestiture of Chrome would be an improper penalty that would inject unwarranted government interference in a company's business. Meanwhile, former Federal Trade Commission officials James Cooper and Andrew Stivers warned that another proposal, which would require Google to share its data with rival search engines, 'does not account for the expectations users have developed over time regarding the privacy, security, and stewardship' of their personal information. The App Association, a group that represents mostly small software developers, also advised Mehta not to adopt the Justice Department's proposed changes because of the ripple effects they would have across the tech industry. Hobbling Google in the way the Justice Department envisions would make it more difficult for startups to realise their goal of being acquired, the App Association wrote. 'Developers will be overcome by uncertainty' if Google is torn apart, the group argues.
Qatar Tribune
5 days ago
- Qatar Tribune
Misinformation casts shadow on US-China trade truce
Agencies From false claims of Americans panic-buying Chinese goods to bot-driven attacks on US brands, a tide of misinformation is casting a shadow over a temporary trade truce between Washington and Beijing. The world's two biggest economies agreed earlier this month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de-escalation in their bitter trade war following high-level talks in Geneva. But an alternate reality is unfolding across social media platforms, including China's Douyin and Weibo, where a surge of falsehoods is fueling anti-American sentiment that could undermine the fragile truce. One online video, which garnered millions of views across those platforms and TikTok, claims to show panicked American shoppers snapping up Chinese-branded television sets in the aftermath of trade tensions. But in reality, that was old footage from 2018 showing Black Friday shopping frenzy at a US supermarket. The falsehood was further amplified by Chinese state media outlets, including China Daily, which ran headlines such as: 'Americans are starting to stock up like crazy amid tariffs and snapping up Chinese-branded TVs.' A news clip on its website - more recycled footage from 2018 - bears a 'file footage' watermark in the upper left corner, apparently to shield the outlet from legal liability. Other unfounded claims emerged on Chinese platforms about Americans flying to China to shop for Chinese goods, and that US citizens - reeling from the economic fallout of the trade war - were queuing up to purchase supplies in bulk. 'These narratives are almost certainly curated by the state, which has become increasingly fluent in harnessing social media,' Andrew Mertha, director of the SAIS China Global Research Center at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP. '(They) help align Chinese public opinion with governmental strategy, in this case demonstrating - albeit inaccurately, certainly prematurely - that 'the US is already feeling the pain, so China must stay the course.'' US President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs have sent jitters through the world economy, unnerving investors and roiling financial markets. Under the May 12 truce, the United States agreed to temporarily reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30 percent from 145 percent, while China said it would lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. Some of the false narratives emerged before the agreement but have continued to spread online, fueling confusion and a broader wave of information chaos. 'A lot of friends in China asked me: Are there no eggs in the United States? Is it very unsafe? Are people rushing to buy things? Have you stockpiled anything?' Vivian Wei, a Chicago-based content creator, told AFP. 'Some people even (suggested) not to come to the United States for tourism or study.' The rumors prompted Wei to tour several supermarkets across Chicago, only to find shelves stocked. While American shoppers seemed unfazed by the swirl of online misinformation, Wei observed that the 'Chinese were getting very excited.' Last month, disinformation security firm Cyabra uncovered an anti-US influence campaign on the Elon Musk-owned X involving thousands of fake or bot-operated accounts. They targeted global brands such as Gucci, Chanel and Amazon, amplifying the unfounded narrative that they produced goods in China while branding them as 'Made in France' or 'Made in Italy.' The accounts blamed Trump's trade policies for enabling such deceptive marketing practices, while urging consumers to ditch those brands and purchase products directly from China. 'This was a digital blitz. A third of the accounts weren't real, but the backlash they triggered was,' Dan Brahmy, chief executive of Cyabra, told AFP. 'Fake profiles hijacked luxury brands, pushed anti-US narratives, and steered buyers away without raising suspicion. That's what makes it effective.' Last month, AFP also uncovered viral TikTok videos by Chinese content creators promoting the spurious claim that international luxury brands were secretly manufacturing their products in China. The targeted brands did not respond to the claim, which appeared to be part of a sprawling campaign exploiting US-China trade tensions to market counterfeit luxury goods. The false narratives are unlikely to fade as trade negotiations continue, experts say. 'I believe these narratives will continue and will evolve in parallel with strengthening the Chinese government's negotiating position,' said Mertha from Johns Hopkins University.
