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Google is expanding advertising across its AI-powered Search experiences into international markets as growth in its core search advertising business slows. The move aims to create new revenue opportunities by placing ads within AI-generated answers and conversational search results.
Alphabet announced the move during its third-quarter earnings call on October 28, 2026. The company reported revenue of USD 127.6 billion, up 25% year-on-year, but its shares fell 8% following the results.
Google is expanding AI Mode ads to international markets for the first time. The expansion includes Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore.
The company also plans to introduce advertising in additional markets, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom, in the fourth quarter of 2026. In the United States, Google is introducing multi-turn ads that can appear during follow-up questions in AI Mode.
Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer, said the company was scaling high-quality advertisements within AI Overviews and AI Mode to reach more users and queries.
Google said early results were encouraging. Click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode were comparable to those for organic listings, and user research indicated people found the ads relevant.
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The expansion comes as Google's traditional search advertising business loses momentum. Search revenue grew 12% year-on-year in the third quarter, down from 17% in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter.
The slowdown increases pressure on Google to turn its growing AI features into a meaningful source of advertising revenue. The company introduced new Gemini-powered advertising formats in May, including conversational discovery ads that respond to users' questions and sponsored recommendations integrated into AI-generated answers.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Search queries had recorded their fastest year-on-year growth in five years, although he did not disclose the exact rate.
Queries in AI Mode are three times longer on average than traditional searches. One in five AI Mode searches globally involves voice, images or documents, while Google has surpassed 50 billion visual searches per month.
Alphabet's Google Services division, which includes Search, generated USD 96.3 billion in revenue, up 11% year-on-year. Google Cloud revenue surged 103% to USD 30.7 billion.
The results highlight Google's effort to balance AI-driven search innovation with the need to sustain advertising growth as user behavior evolves.
