Google brings ads to AI Mode in India as AI answers earn less

Google has started showing advertisements inside AI Mode, the chatbot-style answer page of Google Search, for users in India and nine other countries. The company announced the expansion on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, the same day it reported its July-September results, when its chief business officer Philipp Schindler told investors that AI Mode searches currently earn less money than classic searches. Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom are due to follow before the end of 2026.

AI Mode is Google's answer to chatbots such as ChatGPT. Instead of a list of ten blue links, the user types a longer question and gets a written answer produced by a large language model, the kind of AI system trained on huge amounts of text to predict and write words. The user can then ask follow-up questions in the same thread. India was among the first countries outside the United States to get AI Mode.

The problem for Google is money. Classic Search makes most of its revenue when people click on ads placed beside results. When the AI writes a full answer, people may not click anything at all. On the earnings call, Schindler said the fast growth in AI Mode queries had held back Search revenue because AI Mode is monetised at a lower rate. He also said currency movements were the biggest reason growth slowed compared with the April-June quarter, and that many AI Mode questions are early-stage research, which Google sees as a chance to reach buyers sooner. Google has not said how much less an AI Mode search earns, or what it costs Search overall.

Putting ads inside AI Mode in big markets such as India is the company's first answer to that gap. Investors were not reassured straight away: Alphabet's shares fell sharply in trading after the results.

For Indian businesses that advertise on Google, the change matters because it happens by default. A small shop running a Shopping campaign may now find its ad shown next to an AI-written answer, without having asked for that placement. Advertisers keep their usual controls, such as negative keywords (words for which an ad should never show) and brand exclusions, but they cannot remove AI Mode alone.

Short-term: Users in India will start to see "Sponsored" product and text ads within or below AI-written answers. Advertisers may see new impressions and clicks reported without changing any setting, and should check their search reports for traffic from these placements.

Long-term: If AI answers keep replacing the classic results page, the price and value of a click on Google could change. Publishers and websites that depend on visitors from Google already worry that AI answers reduce clicks to them; ads in the same space add more competition for the user's attention. How Google balances useful answers with ad space will shape search in India.

Who is affected: Indian users of Google Search on phones and computers; businesses of every size that run Google Ads campaigns; digital marketing agencies; and Indian news and content websites that rely on search traffic.

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