Weekly Prompt: Google’s SGE is getting ads

Google will include ads in its AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE)

Google is actively developing new ad formats for its generative AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), which is in its early stages and currently available for user testing. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company's plans to experiment with native ad formats for its SGE, that is designed to customize every step of the search journey, during the company’s Q3 earnings call.

Google introduced its AI-powered search experience at the Google I/O developer conference in May, initially available in the U.S. and later expanded to users in Japan and India in August. While Google already displays ads above (on desktop) and below (on mobile) the SGE results box, it is now exploring customized ads within the SGE. For example, if a user searches for a surfing experience in Maui, Google may present a personalized ad for a travel experience within the SGE, labelled as "sponsored."

SGE ads are intended to provide opportunities for companies to target their products to the right audience, ultimately benefiting users in finding what they need more efficiently. Google's Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler, said: "It's extremely important to us that in this new experience, advertisers still have the opportunity to reach potential customers along their search journeys".

Bing Chat has already made a similar move to put ads into its platform while still in preview.  The Bing Chat ads are displayed below the text-based responses that address the user's inquiry. These ads are contextually aligned with the user's query.

Sources: TechCrunch, The Verge, Zdnet,

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