Google is taking ads in its AI-powered Search tools to international markets for the first time. The company announced the move on Wednesday during Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings call.
Alphabet reported revenue of $127.6 billion for the quarter. That is up 25% from the same period last year.
However, growth in Google’s core Search advertising business continued to slow. The company is now looking to its AI features as a new source of ad revenue.
Search Growth Slows in Third Quarter
Google Search revenue grew 12% year over year in the third quarter. That compares with 17% growth in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter.
The slowdown adds pressure on Google to turn its AI features into a meaningful source of advertising revenue. The company has been adding AI tools to Search throughout the year.
Alphabet’s Google Services division, which includes Search, brought in $96.3 billion in revenue. That was up 11% year over year.
Google Cloud had a much stronger quarter. Its revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion.
AI Mode Ads Head Overseas
Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, spoke about the ad plans during the call. “We are now scaling high-quality ads within AI overviews in AI mode to more users and queries,” he said.
He said the company is “taking our monetization footprint global for the first time.” Google is also launching multi-turn ads in AI Mode in the U.S.
Schindler said early results look positive. Click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode are already comparable to those for organic listings.
Google’s own user research also shows that people find the ads relevant, according to the company.
The expansion builds on new Gemini-powered ad formats Google announced in May. These include conversational discovery ads that respond to users’ questions and sponsored recommendations placed inside AI-generated answers.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Search queries grew at their fastest yearly rate in five years. He did not share the exact growth figure.
Pichai said AI features are changing how people use Search. Queries in AI Mode are three times longer on average than traditional searches.
He also said one in five AI Mode searches around the world involves voice, images, or documents. Google now handles more than 50 billion visual searches each month.
“People are using our AI features more, searching in entirely new ways,” Pichai told investors. “Their queries are longer, personalized, and multimodal.”
The results follow a busy quarter for Google. The company released its Gemini 4 Argon model, launched its Pixel 11 phone lineup, and saw the Gemini app reach 1 billion monthly users.
Investors reacted to the report on Wednesday. Alphabet shares fell 8% following the third-quarter results.
