New documents show Google’s plans to bring ads in AI Mode. If you don’t think AI Mode is coming to search…think again:
This was an initial report by Ad Age and reported on by Barry Schwartz. Ad Age discovered documents from Google pitching advertisers on AI Mode ads. This is a two page document that showcases to advertisers the benefits and best practices of these ads.

This includes:

1. Ads will have both text and shopping formats
2. Google explains the benefits as being part of the user exploration and for businesses to be shown as the clear next step.
3. Google suggests using “Broad Match” keywords – no surprise there
4. With AI Max, they recommend automated and keyword-less targeting
5. They’re labeling this as an “Experiment” for now
6. They also give some “SEO Guidance” that seems like an afterthought.

This is just part of the mounting evidence that Google is bringing AI Mode the regular search experience. They’ve already announced that AI Mode is “the plan”, integrated it both the search tabs + home page, and rolled it out to the UK.

I know that a lot of people are mentioning that AI search is just a small fraction of total site traffic which is totally true. But what happens when Google decides to make the search experience completely AI-driven.

SEOs need to be prepared for that day.