Google Ads says sponsored results in AI Mode are now available in English in more than 10 additional countries, and that multiturn ads — placements that can follow a conversation into later questions — are launching in the United States. The company’s 9 November post pointed readers to a Google Ads & Commerce blog entry by Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences, dated 28 October.
In that blog post, Thakur named the scaling markets as Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. Google says it plans further locales in the fourth quarter of 2026, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Exact dates for those later markets aren’t stated.
“To allow ads in follow-up queries in AI Mode, we are launching multiturn ads in the U.S.”
— Shashi Thakur, Google Ads & Commerce Blog
What Google says is shipping
AI Mode is Google Search’s conversational answer surface. Ads already appear in some AI Mode and AI Overviews experiences in the United States. The October post frames the change as scaling those “Sponsored” placements into the listed English-language markets, and extending US AI Mode ads onto follow-up turns of a conversation.
Google’s Ads Help page on AI-powered Search experiences — linked from the blog — fills in operational detail that the short post doesn’t. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible; advertisers don’t create a separate AI Mode campaign or budget. Text ads and Shopping ads can appear within AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says it’s also experimenting with formats such as local inventory ads and vehicle ads.
That same help page lists countries where ads can appear within AI Overviews and AI Mode as the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore, with two qualifiers: Indonesia is marked AI Overviews only, and Pakistan is marked text ads only. The language listed for those within-experience placements is English. Ads above or below an AI Overview, rather than inside it, can run in the 200-plus countries and territories where AI Overviews are available, according to Google.
Controls, as Google documents them: There is no separate opt-out for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google says you can’t target those surfaces alone either. Negative keywords and other existing campaign guardrails still apply. Performance for these placements is rolled into standard campaign and search-terms reporting; Google doesn’t publish a dedicated AI Mode line item in those reports.
How matching and labelling work
Google says ads in these surfaces are labelled “Sponsored” and visually distinguished from organic content, and that paid placements don’t change the organic AI response. Matching can be direct to a commercial query, or contextual to both the query and the AI answer when someone asks a longer, exploratory question and commercial intent shows up in the suggested next steps.
AI-powered targeting — including AI Max for Search, broad match, Shopping and Performance Max — is eligible for both direct and contextual matching, Google says. Exact and phrase match keywords remain limited to queries with direct commercial intent and aren’t eligible for that broader contextual matching.
In some layouts, ads may sit beside “AI explainers”: short Gemini-generated text that introduces a Sponsored group or adds context from the query, the AI response and public sources including the advertiser’s site. Google says advertisers can’t write, edit, approve or opt out of those explainers, and that they’re meant to be distinguishable from ad copy.
Multiturn ads in the US
Thakur’s line on multiturn ads is brief: they’re meant to allow ads on follow-up queries in AI Mode in the United States. A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Roundtable that multiturn ads “show up on responses to follow-up user queries as users engage in back and forth conversations with AI Mode.”
Barry Schwartz later reported seeing those follow-up placements live while testing AI Mode, with Sponsored units under second, third and fourth turns, and published screenshots and a short clip on Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Land. Sulat hasn’t independently reproduced that session.
Barry Schwartz summarised the country list and the US multiturn launch when the blog post landed, linking through to Search Engine Roundtable’s write-up.
What remains Google’s claim
Google cites an internal AI Mode report (US, May 2026) for the claim that AI Mode queries are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches. Separately, it cites internal US data from 20 August to 3 September 2026 for the claim that click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items in AI Mode. Neither figure is independently audited in the materials Google published with this announcement.
The company also says people are comfortable with ads in AI Mode and find them highly relevant. That comfort claim sits on Google’s own research summary rather than a public third-party study released alongside the post.
Availability can still lag the blog’s wording in individual markets. One reply under Google Ads’ November post asked whether the United Kingdom was on the live list; the blog itself places the UK among planned Q4 expansions, not among the ten markets named as scaling now. Google’s help page continues to describe within-experience ads as English-only in the United States and selected English-speaking markets, with ongoing expansion.
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