Google has introduced personalised ads into its AI shopping features, such as Google’s AI Mode, which is powered by the tech giant’s large language model (LLM) Gemini.
Advertisers will be able to put exclusive offer ads in AI Mode, the search giant’s AI feature that summarises search results in a conversational answer, to shoppers who want to buy an item.
Google also outlined it will introduce ‘universal commerce protocol’ – an agentic shopping tool that lets AI agents research and purchase products.
More users now than ever are using AI search tools over traditional search.
OfCom’s Online Nation report found that despite Google still being the most used search tool in the UK, GenAI is changing the way we behave online – 30 percent of keyword search queries on Google deliver AI Overviews (Google’s search summary feature) and over half (53 percent) of UK people report seeing AI summaries when they search.
Shopping in AI Tools
The ad feature from Google will make use of the contextual information from user conversations.
This move signals Google attempting to be ahead of competitors in monetising the use of AI tools to the millions of people who now use them.
Rival OpenAI stalled plans to put adverts in its AI chatbot ChatGPT over the need to improve the platform, this was due to concerns rivals were taking the lead in developing their AI models.
Simultaneously, OpenAI has been rolling out a checkout feature and Microsoft launched Copilot Checkout, which lets users purchase through the chatbots.
