THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • Ads in AI Mode are scaling in 10 countries including India, Canada, Australia, Nigeria and Pakistan, with Brazil, Mexico and the UK planned for Q4 2026.
  • Google is launching multi-turn ads that appear on follow-up questions in AI Mode in the US.
  • Alphabet's Q3 revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion; Search grew 12%, down from 17% in Q2, while Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.7 billion.

Google is extending advertising in AI Mode, its conversational search experience, beyond the United States. The company announced the move on October 28, the same day Alphabet reported third-quarter results that showed its core Search business growing more slowly.

Where the ads are going

In a post on Google's blog, Shashi Thakur, who leads Search ads, said ads in AI Mode are now scaling in 10 countries: Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. More locales, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom, are planned for the fourth quarter. In the US, Google is launching multi-turn ads, which can appear when users ask follow-up questions in AI Mode. Ads remain labelled "Sponsored", and the company says it will keep testing other formats.

Google supports the push with its own data: AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than classic searches, and click-through rates on sponsored and organic product listings in AI Mode are already similar, based on US data from late August and early September. On the earnings call, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said this was the first time Google was taking that monetization footprint global, TechCrunch reports.

Why it matters now

Alphabet's revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion in the quarter. Search revenue grew 12% year over year, according to TechCrunch, after 17% in the second quarter and 19% in the first. A transcript summary published by TradingKey indicates that management cited currency effects, retail dynamics and lower monetization in AI Mode among the reasons, while saying most AI Mode queries are additional rather than replacing older ones. Expanding ads there is one way to close that gap. Shares fell sharply in after-hours trading, with Fortune and TechCrunch reporting drops of around 8%.

Google Cloud was the strongest unit: revenue more than doubled to $30.7 billion, and the call summary puts its backlog at $561 billion. Capital expenditures reached a record $51.4 billion in the quarter, according to Fortune. Alphabet kept its 2026 capex guidance of $195 billion to $205 billion and said it expects spending to rise significantly in 2027.

How users and advertisers outside the US react to ads inside AI answers remains to be seen; Google has not published performance data for the new markets.