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"Google Search is AI Search."Philip Schindler
Chief Business Officer, Google
The Five Soundbites
Five exec lines that frame the era
Jyll Saskin Gales, ranked the #1 most influential PPC professional in the world, made the call in a LinkedIn post. If you only remember five things from GML 2026, remember these. They are the spine of every client conversation, pitch, and recommendation we make from here.
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"We're not just bringing ads to AI experiences — we're reinventing what an ad is."Vidhya Srinivasan
VP, Ads & Commerce, Google
3
"The only way to win in AI is with AI. You can't choose keywords anymore."Vidhya Srinivasan
VP, Ads & Commerce, Google
4
"None of the AI innovations matter if your measurement foundation can't capture it."Garbo
Measurement Lead, Google
5
"Execution is becoming a commodity. Only you can provide your strategy."Sean
GML26 wrap
Stats Worth Quoting
The numbers Google put on the record
+27%
More conversions with AI Max for Search vs manual campaigns
AI Max GA
+15%
More conversions for advertisers adopting AI Max or PMax (similar ROAS)
PMax + AI Max
+33%
Lift for advertisers using Demand Gen product feeds
DG product feeds
86%
Higher long-term ROAS for YouTube vs paid social
YouTube
+16%
Revenue uplift for Dr Martens after integrating 1P data into PMax
Data Manager API
40%
Of Demand Gen conversions happen within the first 30 days — rest is long-tail
Justifies QFC
Strategic Narrative
The six big themes Google pushed
The underlying picture of where Google wants Google Ads to go — and where they're inviting (or pushing) us to follow.
The Gemini Advantage is your business advantage
Google is the only ad platform that owns the full AI stack — chips, research, foundation models, ad platform. $180–190B 2026 capex (6× 2022).
For us: Expect product change to accelerate, not slow. "Antigravity" compressed Google's release cycle from quarters to months.
Search is AI Search through and through
AI Overviews 2.5B MAU. AI Mode 1B MAU, doubling QoQ. Search box redesigned for the first time in 25 years. AI Mode searches are 3× longer on average.
For us: Brand-as-answer is the new top-of-funnel; product-as-answer with promo is the new mid-funnel.
From chat to ACT
Spark (consumer agent) + Ask Advisor (marketer copilot, shared memory across products) + Universal Commerce Protocol with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stripe.
For us: Daily account-management hours will be eaten by Ask Advisor. Specialists who learn to prompt it will be 5–10× more productive.
The world's most powerful demand engine
#1 streaming watch time three years running, beating Netflix + Amazon + Disney combined. 90%+ US adult reach. 86% higher long-term ROAS than paid social.
For us: The most credible "move budget out of Meta" argument we've had — backed by Google's stat-stack + Campaign Type Attribution.
Creative is the last big lever — and Google owns the assembly line
Asset Studio = creative home base. Gemini + Veo + Nano Banana + Omni (this summer). One-click A/B asset experiments with causal incrementality.
For us: "One video a quarter" is uncompetitive. Volume + iteration cadence is the bar. Productise creative throughput.
Measurement is the gating factor
Data Manager API + Tag Gateway → Attributed Branded Searches + QFC → Meridian-powered GA360 with TikTok / Pinterest / Snap in one place.
For us: Agency narrative shifts from "we run your ads better" to "we feed Google's AI better data than your competition feeds theirs."
Rollout Schedule
The real timeline — what's live, what's shipping, what's "soon"
Every product announced at GML 2026 plotted by rollout phase. Use this to set client expectations and sequence internal pilots.
Search / AI Mode
Creative & Asset Studio
Demand Gen / YouTube
Commerce / UCP
Measurement
Agents / Ask Advisor
Live Now
As of May 2026
Summer 2026
Jun – Aug · US first
Late 2026
Sep – Dec · CA / AU / UK rolling
Coming Soon
Undated / beta
AI Max for Search
Gemini 3.5 in Search
Search Box redesign
Asset Studio
One-click A/B asset experiments
Data Manager API
Google Tag Gateway
Attributed Branded Searches (ABS)
Qualified Future Conversions (QFC)
Campaign Type Attribution
Meridian (open-source MMM)
DG creator surfacing
AI Brief
Gemini Omni in Ads
Universal Cart (US)
Ask YouTube broad rollout (US)
Shoppable YouTube + native checkout
UCP expansion CA / AU / UK
Reimagined GA 360
AI Brief → PMax + AI Max Shopping
DG on Maps
DG Pause Ads + Tablet feeds
Universal Cart → YouTube + Gmail
UCP beyond retail
Ask Advisor expansion
TransUnion YouTube integration
Asset Studio API access
Accelerate w/ Google Rewards
Product Reference
Every announcement, what it does, and what changes for us
Grouped by area. Each card includes the product, its rollout status, and the operational impact for our accounts.
Search & AI Mode
7 products
Live · Global GA
AI Max for Search
Out of beta globally. Drives 27% more conversions vs manual campaigns. Required to access new AI Mode ad formats.
Action: Enable on every search campaign this fortnight.
Live
Gemini 3.5 in Search
AI Mode upgraded to Gemini 3.5 the day before GML. 1B MAU, doubling QoQ. 2.5B AI Overviews MAU.
For us: Brand-as-answer is the new top-of-funnel.
Live
Search Box Redesigned
First major search box update in 25 years. Long, multi-modal, conversational input. AI Mode searches 3× longer on average.
For us: Translate to intent + audience language, not keywords.
Coming Soon · AI Max/PMax only
Personalized Recommendations Ad
Gemini composes a conversational ad answer using brand assets + AI Brief guidelines. Pura smart diffuser demoed.
Prep: AI Brief + rich brand-asset library required.
Coming Soon · Retail + Hotels
Direct Offers in AI Mode
Gemini assembles promotional offers in real time against high-intent queries — time-limited bundles, location-targeted coupons, inventory-driven savings. Wayfair demo completed in-line with "Buy with one-time code."
Prep: Promotions feed must be live, accurate, and tied to current inventory.
Coming Soon · PMax + AI Max
AI-Powered Shopping Ads
Feature-driven, written in "human language", personalised per query. Espresso pods demo (iced vs hot coffee context).
Prep: Shopping Graph feed depth determines outcome.
Beta · Edu / Auto / RE
Business Agent for Leads
Agentic ad with in-ad Q&A from advertiser's site, then pre-filled lead form. Rainier Business School demoed.
Prep: Pre-build conversational FAQ + form pre-fill data.
Testing
Native Ad Format in AI Mode
Classic-style Search ad sitting alongside AI responses, labelled "Sponsored." Duolingo demo for "learn Italian."
For us: AI Mode answer-ads coexist with familiar Search-like placements.
Creative & Asset Studio
5 products
Live
Asset Studio
The single creative workspace inside Google Ads. Generation powered by Gemini, Veo 3.1, and Nano Banana, with Gemini Omni joining this summer. Two-way connections to YouTube Studio and major design tools (Adobe, Canva) so creative doesn't live in scattered Drive folders.
Action: Make it the canonical creative library — replace Drive folders.
Summer 2026 · In Ads
Gemini Omni in Ads
Multimodal any-input-to-any-output. Already in Gemini app, Google Flow, YouTube Shorts. Coming to Ads this summer.
For us: Generative video for ads becomes table stakes.
Live
Image Asset Creation
Drop in a website URL and Asset Studio generates image variants that already reflect the brand's palette, type, and product context. Guideline constraints are enforced at generation time and outputs land directly in the campaign library.
For us: Replace stock-image purchases for ad creative.
Live
Video Asset Creation (Storyboards)
Start from a narrative choice, edit the storyboard scene-by-scene, then render the finished video in every aspect ratio YouTube needs. Tight enough that one specialist can ship a campaign's worth of video formats in an afternoon.
For us: Reshoot is no longer the answer. Repurpose existing footage.
Live
One-Click A/B Asset Experiments
Tick the assets you want to test, save as an experiment, and Google runs them against the current top performers — surfacing causal lift instead of historical CTR. Makes incremental creative testing native, not a trafficking project.
For us: Causal creative testing without trafficking-sheet acrobatics.
Demand Gen & YouTube
6 products
Rolling
Demand Gen on Maps
First time DG ads appear on Google Maps. Reach consumers in physical / local intent moments.
Pilot: Test on clients with stores or location-anchored intent.
Rolling
DG Product Feeds → Tablets + Pause Ads
Two new placements for feed-driven Demand Gen: a shoppable product strip surfaces when a viewer pauses a YouTube video on mobile, and tablets now serve the same feed-based units. Advertisers running product feeds reported a 33% lift in conversions.
Pilot: Ecom clients with strong YouTube spend.
Live
Creator Assets in Demand Gen
In-product surfacing of relevant creator videos for one-click boost. YouTube Affiliate Program videos boostable in DG. +20% conversion lift on average. Coach case study: +60% top-of-mind awareness among Gen Z in one quarter.
Pitch: Creator-collab packages with Google's stat-stack behind them.
Live
DG Measurement Updates on YouTube
Campaign Type Attribution + TransUnion multi-touch + Engaged View Conversions (≥5 sec). Only 40% of DG conversions happen within 30 days.
For us: Stop reporting DG on a 30-day window — under-credits the channel.
Test now · US broad summer 2026
Ask YouTube
Conversational search inside YouTube. Returns personalised videos + lets user follow up with questions.
For us: Creator content discovery shifts — structured / question-led video content becomes more valuable.
Live
DG Audience Targeting · Gemini Models
DG audiences now learn from cross-product behaviour (Search + YouTube + Maps) — predict what users want next, not just past social engagement.
For us: The "+10% ROAS, +12% sales effectiveness" claim when DG is added to Search/PMax mix.
Agentic Commerce
4 products
CA / AU / UK in coming months
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
An open protocol that lets AI agents talk to merchants and payment providers in a consistent way — co-developed with a cohort of major platforms (Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stripe). First-wave use cases are retail; the next wave covers food delivery and hotel booking.
For us: Run a UCP-readiness assessment for every US / CA / AU / UK ecom client.
US Summer 2026
Universal Cart on Google
A persistent cart shared across Search, the Gemini app, YouTube, and Gmail. Shoppers add from anywhere; the cart watches price drops and back-in-stock signals on their behalf. Checkout happens on Google or hands back to the merchant site.
Watch-out: Erodes session attribution, abandon-cart flows, list growth. Mitigation playbook needed.
Rolling · UCP-powered
Shoppable YouTube + Native Checkout
"Buy now" button in YouTube ads → branded checkout screen in YouTube, pre-filled shipping + payment, Google Pay completes.
Pilot: Shopify client willing to set up UCP.
Coming Soon
In-Stock Retailer Connector (AI Mode)
AI Mode connects product recommendations directly to retailers who have stock. Inventory accuracy = visibility.
Prep: Real-time inventory feed accuracy in GMC.
Measurement & Data
4 products
GA
Data Manager API
Universal connector for measurement + audiences. Built on IAB Tech Lab ECAP. Share data once, works everywhere. +11% incremental ROAS lift cited; Dr Martens +16% revenue.
Action: Implement for top-10 accounts this quarter.
Live
Attributed Branded Searches + Qualified Future Conversions
Attributed Branded Searches tracks ad exposure → brand search (always-on). QFC predicts conversions up to 6 months out. Crew Clothing example: 70% long-term lift surfaced via QFC.
Action: Add to standard monthly report — label QFC clearly as predictive.
Rolling
Meridian in Google Analytics 360
Cross-channel command centre incl. TikTok, Pinterest, Snap. Natural-language scenario planning ("what should I budget next quarter?").
Pilot: One enterprise client; potential to replace bespoke BI dashboards.
Guidance · Live
AI Visibility (the new SEO)
Google spelled out how brands surface inside AI Search: well-structured Merchant Center feeds, an active Google Business Profile, expert content with first-hand reviews, and crawlable pages with schema. The work that used to win SEO now wins AI discoverability.
Productise: AI Visibility Audit for ecom + local prospects.
Agents & Automation
3 products
Live · Rolling
Ask Advisor
Last year's product-specific advisors collapse into one cross-product agent that holds context across Google Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, and GMP. It remembers the advertiser's goals between sessions, so questions like "where is new-customer acquisition leaking?" or "compare abandoned carts across regions" return answers grounded in actual account data.
Action: Build internal prompt library; train all specialists in 1-hour sandbox.
Live · Gemini app
Gemini Spark
A consumer-facing personal agent inside the Gemini app — runs on Gemini 3.5 Flash and chains multi-step actions across the user's tools (Gmail triage, calendar follow-ups, research tasks). Owners can describe a new skill in plain English and Spark will pick it up.
For us: Consumer agents will mediate purchase journeys — feed quality is survival-critical.
English · AI Max for Search
AI Brief
Conversational input where you brief Gemini on brand voice, audience, guardrails, do-not-say list. Expanding to PMax + AI Max for Shopping in coming months.
Action: Author per-client AI Briefs immediately — see example below.
Template · The new mandatory setup step
The AI Brief — Google's only documented control surface for AI-generated ads
Treat AI Brief as a mandatory setup step
English · AI Max for Search → PMax + AI Max for Shopping
The AI Brief is the only documented control surface for the new AI Mode ad formats. Without a well-authored brief, Gemini will hallucinate claims, mis-tone the brand voice, and surface off-strategy messaging.
Every brief needs four slots:
- Brand premise + audience. One paragraph — who the brand is, the substantive value, the buyer they're built for.
- Tone constraints. Two or three adjectives that pin down voice. Be explicit about what the tone is not.
- Explicit do-not-say list. Forbidden words, claim categories, themes, competitor mentions.
- Capitalisation, spelling, naming rules. Brand-name handling, trademark conventions, product-line capitalisation.
Worked example — Ecom Nation authored, illustrative only
Brand & audience. Ridgeline Coffee is a small-batch, single-origin coffee subscription for serious home brewers who already own a grinder and care about provenance. Buyers chose us over a supermarket bag because they want traceability and freshness, not novelty flavours.
Tone. Knowledgeable and understated. Never flashy, never effusive about "the best coffee ever." Speak the way a coffee shop owner would talk to a regular, not the way a marketer would write a banner.
Never use. Instant, cheap, bulk, fast shipping, deal, sale, discount, the word "smooth," superlatives ("world's best", "#1"), references to caffeine kicks / energy. Do not mention competitor roasters by name.
Spelling & capitalisation. Always one word: Ridgeline. Origins capitalised (Yirgacheffe, Geisha, Bourbon). Cup sizes lowercased (cortado, flat white, pour-over).
Fictional brand for shape only — write each client's brief from their real brand book.
Tone. Knowledgeable and understated. Never flashy, never effusive about "the best coffee ever." Speak the way a coffee shop owner would talk to a regular, not the way a marketer would write a banner.
Never use. Instant, cheap, bulk, fast shipping, deal, sale, discount, the word "smooth," superlatives ("world's best", "#1"), references to caffeine kicks / energy. Do not mention competitor roasters by name.
Spelling & capitalisation. Always one word: Ridgeline. Origins capitalised (Yirgacheffe, Geisha, Bourbon). Cup sizes lowercased (cortado, flat white, pour-over).
Fictional brand for shape only — write each client's brief from their real brand book.
What this means for specialists
Implications & risks we're managing actively
Implications for the agency
What stops working
- Manual keyword grooming as the central lever — Google has publicly retired this mindset.
- One-creative-per-quarter workflows — Asset Studio + Veo + Omni change the cost of variants.
- "Trust me PMax is working" reporting — Campaign Type Attribution and GA360 raise the bar.
- Standalone CAPI / GTM consulting — Data Manager API + Tag Gateway absorb this.
- Set-and-forget PMax — new ad formats require AI Brief + creative volume to fire.
New leverage points
- AI Brief authoring & governance — translating brand books into Gemini-actionable inputs.
- Creative trading desk — 20 image + 5 video variants/month per client, A/B tested causally.
- Cross-channel measurement consulting — Meridian + GA360 + CFO-facing reporting.
- UCP / agentic commerce readiness — feed enrichment, Shopping Graph, structured data.
- AI Visibility Audit — packageable offering for ecom + local prospects.
- Ask Advisor adoption coaching — productize internal prompting expertise.
Risks & watch-outs
Trust the numbers carefully
- Aggregate self-reported stats — +27% AI Max, +15% PMax, +33% feeds — no methodology disclosed.
- QFC is a prediction, not realised revenue. Always reconcile with actuals before client reports.
- Campaign Type Attribution undeduplicates DG credit — risk of double-count in reporting.
Brand-safety & observability
- AI Brief is the only stated brand-safety control — weekly QA sample of AI outputs is essential.
- "You can't choose keywords" means even less observability — build internal intent reconstruction.
- Regulated verticals (skincare, supplements, finance) face high claim-accuracy risk in AI Mode.
Disintermediation
- Universal Cart erodes attribution + abandon-cart + list growth for merchants.
- UCP concentrates merchant trust in Google + 4 partner cohorts.
- "Execution is becoming a commodity" — reprice retainers away from execution hours.
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