Ads are moving into AI answers. Here is what you can actually buy

On October 28, Google announced that ads in AI Mode would expand to ten more countries, with the UK, Brazil, and Mexico to follow before the end of the year. In the US, ads can now appear on follow-up questions as a conversation in AI Mode continues. Three weeks earlier, OpenAI said it would test visual ads alongside images generated in ChatGPT. Amazon already sells placements inside its Rufus shopping assistant. Microsoft has run ads in Copilot for over a year.

Ads in AI search are already here, so the question for most businesses is no longer whether they will appear. Some of your budget is probably being spent there right now without a line item to show for it.

Google: the placement you're probably already buying

Google is the platform where this matters most, because it's the one where you may already be in AI answers without having chosen to be.

According to Google's help documentation on ads and AI Overviews, ads can appear above an AI Overview, below it, or inside it. The above and below placements run in all of the 200-plus markets where AI Overviews exist, and they can come from Search, Shopping, Performance Max, and App campaigns. Placements inside the Overview are narrower: text and Shopping ads, English only, in the US, Canada, Australia, India, and eight other markets. Sensitive categories such as finance, healthcare, alcohol, and gambling don't get ads inside AI Overviews at all.

Two lines in that documentation deserve more attention than they get. Google says advertisers can't opt out of ads in AI Overviews and can't target the placement directly. It also says Google Ads doesn't offer segmented reporting for ads that appear inside AI Overviews. They're counted as ordinary top-of-page ads.

What decides whether you appear there is your keyword setup. Google's Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, clarified in May 2026 that exact and broad match keywords can both trigger ads above or below an AI Overview, but only broad match or keywordless targeting can put an ad inside one. AI Max for Search isn't required. Google moved many Search campaigns with broad match or automatically created assets into AI Max during September 2026, so if you haven't looked at your settings since the summer, they may not be the settings you chose.

AI Mode, Google's full conversational search, follows the same logic with more room. Ads there launched in the US in May 2025. The October 2026 expansion added Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore, and introduced "multiturn" ads in the US, which can appear on the second or third question in a conversation rather than only the first. Google says AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than traditional searches. It is also testing ads for users who connect Gmail and Google Photos through its Personal Intelligence feature. Google says those ads won't be based directly on inbox or photo content, though summaries and inferences from connected apps may shape them, and advertisers get no access to the apps.

ChatGPT: real, growing, and still unproven for most businesses

We've covered how ChatGPT Ads work in detail, including context hints in place of keywords and who should wait before testing. Two things have changed since.

In early October, OpenAI announced a test of visual ads that appear alongside images users generate, starting with a small group of US advertisers. It also expanded its measurement partnerships, including work with Haus, Measured, and WorkMagic on geography-based experiments, which is the kind of testing that can show whether an ad channel actually adds sales rather than just collecting credit for them.

The advice hasn't changed. ChatGPT Ads suits businesses selling considered purchases that people research in conversation. It's still a poor first dollar for most local service firms.

Microsoft Copilot: quieter, and easy to overlook

Microsoft started placing ads in Copilot well before its competitors. Per Search Engine Land, Copilot ads were running in English, French, and German markets by early 2025, and Microsoft piloted "Showroom ads," an interactive format where shoppers explore products and ask questions, with selected advertisers.

For most advertisers this needs no separate project. If you already run Microsoft Advertising campaigns, some of your traffic is likely coming from Copilot. If you don't, Copilot alone isn't a reason to start.

Amazon Rufus: cheap clicks, very few of them

Amazon now sells "sponsored prompts" inside Rufus, its shopping assistant. These are suggested questions that name a brand. EMARKETER's analysis found clicks costing around 31 cents, against 50 to 70 cents for traditional Amazon ads. The catch is volume. One midsized seller got 88 clicks from sponsored prompts in the same period it got 500,000 clicks from its other Amazon ads.

The prompts mostly reach shoppers who have already chosen a brand, and advertisers see the prompt text and results but not the conversations. EMARKETER's recommendation was to treat the placement as a source of insight into how shoppers ask about products, rather than as a sales channel. That seems right.

Perplexity: the one that stepped back

Perplexity began testing sponsored follow-up questions in late 2024, then pulled back. Its executives told the Financial Times that ads risked making users "suspicious of everything," according to Campaign Asia's report. It's a useful counterexample. At least one AI company decided the trust cost of ads outweighed the revenue, and the others are watching how users react.

What ads in AI search have in common

Set the details aside and the same four patterns run through every platform.

You mostly can't buy the placement on purpose. Google doesn't let you target AI Overviews. ChatGPT matches ads to conversations through descriptions, not keywords. You get into AI answers by making your existing campaigns eligible, usually through broader matching, and then accepting where the system puts you.

You can't see it clearly in your reports. Google folds AI Overview ads into top-of-page results. Amazon shows prompts and clicks without the conversations. If you want to know what AI placements are doing for you, you'll have to infer it.

The question is longer. AI search queries run longer and more specific than traditional searches. The ad, and more importantly the page it leads to, has to answer a specific situation instead of a two-word keyword.

The ad sits next to an answer. In a traditional results page, your ad competes with ten links. In an AI response, it competes with an answer the user may already find sufficient. An ad that repeats what the answer just said gets ignored. One that offers the next step the answer can't take (a quote, a booking, a specific product at a specific price) has a reason to be clicked.

What to do this quarter

Most of the work is housekeeping in accounts you already run.

Open your Google Ads campaigns and confirm which use broad match, which were moved into AI Max, and whether automatically created assets and text customization are on. These settings decide your eligibility for AI placements, and some of them changed in September without anyone in your business clicking a button. Keep them if they're working. Turn them off if they aren't. Either way, choose.

Look at the landing pages behind your broadest keywords. If a long, specific AI query sends someone to a generic homepage, you're paying for a click your page can't answer. Service pages that address a specific situation hold up much better here.

Stop expecting a clean report. Watch the numbers you can trust instead: qualified inquiries, cost per client, and the cost per click on campaigns with broad match. If broad-match costs rise while inquiries stay flat, some of that spend may be going to AI placements that aren't converting. The four numbers we recommend tracking monthly will catch this sooner than any platform report.

Don't open an account on every new surface. The overall pattern is to fund the channel where intent is clearest (still Google Search for most service businesses), get the conversion path right, and then test one new placement at a time with money you can afford to learn from. A small budget spread across Google, ChatGPT, Copilot, and Rufus produces four sets of inconclusive data.

If you advertise in the UK, plan for AI Mode ads arriving there before the end of 2026. It's a good moment to check UK campaigns' keyword settings and landing pages before the placement goes live.

The businesses that do well with AI placements won't be the ones that bought them first. They'll be the ones whose pages could answer a long, specific question when an AI system sent someone there.