Ads now show in AI Mode follow-up questions

Google Ads can now appear in the second and third questions of an AI Mode conversation, not only the first. On October 28 Google said it is launching what it calls multiturn ads in the US, labeled “Sponsored”. For a local owner, this week’s job is short: confirm your Search campaigns are allowed to show there, and make sure the ad and the page it opens answer the questions people actually ask next.

The announcement came from Shashi Thakur, Google’s VP and GM for Search Ads, in a short post on The Keyword: “To allow ads in follow-up queries in AI Mode, we are launching multiturn ads.” The same post adds, “Ads will be clearly labeled as ‘Sponsored.’” You can read it on the Google blog.

What Google announced on October 28

The post did three things. It switched on ads in follow-up questions in the US. It took ads in AI Mode to ten more countries: Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore, with Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom planned later this quarter. And it gave two numbers from Google’s own research:

• Questions are longer. “In AI Mode, queries are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches.”
• People click the ads. Google says click-through rates “are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode.” That figure is about product listings, not service ads for a plumber or a dentist.

That is all the post confirms: no rollout date for every account, no figure for local service searches, no new setting. Treat anything more specific you hear this month as a guess.

Where the second question changes things

Picture a homeowner with a leak. The first question is broad: “my water heater is leaking from the bottom, what do I do”. AI Mode explains the shutoff valve and the likely causes. Then come the questions that pick a company:

1. “Who does same-day water heater repair near me?”
2. “Which one has weekend hours?”
3. “Do any of them haul the old tank away?”

Each of those can now carry a Sponsored ad. Google’s help page says ads can appear “including across follow-up questions in AI Mode” when a conversation “has commercial relevance”. The follow-ups are where an owner wins or loses the job, because they are where the customer narrows the list.

“Weekend hours” is a filter. An ad that says “Fast, friendly service” gives the customer nothing to act on, while one that says “Open Saturdays, serving Mesa and Chandler” answers the question asked. Google’s help page says ads in AI Mode combine “headlines, descriptions, images, pricing, and landing pages”, so whatever is in those assets is what a follow-up answer can draw from.

Can your campaigns show there? The settings that decide it

Nobody opts in. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns “are automatically eligible to serve ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode.” What decides how far a campaign reaches is how it matches searches:

Setting in your account	What Google says it reaches in AI Mode	What to check
Exact and phrase match keywords	Questions with “direct commercial intent”, not “broader exploratory questions”	Whether your whole account is exact and phrase
Broad match on Search	Both the direct question and the wider conversation	Negative keywords for jobs you never take
AI Max for Search	Both, with search term matching on	Which landing pages Google may send people to
Performance Max	Both	The assets and final URLs it is allowed to use
Negative keywords and brand exclusions	Still apply in AI Mode	That the list is current

Reporting will not separate it either. Results from AI Mode are “included in aggregate” in your campaign and search terms reports, so there is no AI Mode line to pull out of your numbers.

That cuts both ways. An exact-match account keeps spend on obvious buying searches and misses many follow-ups; broad match or AI Max widens the reach and the room for waste. Neither guarantees an ad in any given conversation.

Make the ad and the page answer the specifics

Longer, conversational questions reward ads and pages that state plain facts. Go through your best-performing campaign with these in mind:

• Service area. Name the towns or neighborhoods you serve in a headline, a sitelink or the landing page, and make sure your location setting matches them.
• Hours. Say when you answer the phone and when crews go out, weekends included. If you do not work Sundays, say that too.
• Same-day work. Only claim it if you can deliver it on a busy Monday. A follow-up question will hold you to it.
• What a visit includes. Diagnosis, haul-away, permits, cleanup: whatever is true for your trade, written out on the page the ad opens.
• One set of facts. Keep the hours and towns on the landing page the same as in the ad and on your Business Profile.

That last point matters more now. Google says some AI Mode ads show with an AI explainer, short text written by Google’s models that can use “publicly available sources including your website.” You cannot write or edit that text, so the only lever is the site itself.

What to do this week

• Open each Search campaign and note its match types. If every keyword is exact or phrase, write down that follow-up questions are largely out of reach.
• If AI Max is on, read our post on AI Max against standard Search before widening anything.
• Pull the search terms report for the last two weeks and look for longer, question-shaped terms. Add negatives for jobs you do not take.
• Rewrite one landing page so the first screen states your hours, the towns you serve and what a visit includes.
• Check that your Business Profile hours match the page and the ads.

Checking it yourself or with us

An owner can do all of this in an afternoon with the Google Ads login. If you would rather hand it over:

	On your own	With Beyaoshy
What it costs to start	Your time	Nothing; the first consult is free
Who reads the settings and search terms	You or whoever has the login	One team that runs ads, the site and the profile together, nothing subcontracted
Whose name the ad account is in	Yours	Still yours; we work in it with the access you give
What you walk away with	Your own notes	A written plan you keep whether or not you hire us
Track record	Your own account’s history	4,700+ businesses served since 2015

For the organic side of the same searches, our post on AI Mode and the classic results page covers how a business gets named without paying. Our Google Ads page explains how we run local accounts. Send your website and the towns you serve through the form below, and we will tell you whether your campaigns can reach these follow-up questions and what the landing page is missing.