Google unveils a search campaign-creating AI chatbot

Google, the search advertising market leader, has announced a new chatbot experience in its Google Ads platform that promises to make the creation and scaling of search ad campaigns easier – a development that points to disruption in a major ad spend category amid AI hype and some embarrassing missteps. 

Why AI in search ads matters

Two big reasons: 

• Search is the single largest advertising spend destination with around $53 billion spent in the first quarter of this year. Disruption would affect a vast swath of advertising, especially among Google’s essential SME ad buyers. 
• AI isn’t perfect. Recent screw-ups have seen inept AI chatbots embarrass companies like DPD (though it wasn’t Google’s Bard AI that was responsible). So a chatbot success story in Google’s core business would be a major milestone. 

What’s going on

A post on Google’s Ads & Commerce Blog announced the new feature, now live for users in the US and UK. The company says: 

The conversational experience workflow is designed to help you build better Search campaigns through a chat-based experience. It combines your expertise with Google AI.

All you need to start is your website URL, and Google AI will help you create optimized Search campaigns by generating relevant ad content, including creatives and keywords.

It’s a fascinating read, especially how the company has been testing new metrics, such as a copy-testing Ad Strength metric, and illuminating some of Google’s thinking on the increasingly visual nature of search. 

The new experience adds to other generative AI tools as part of Google’s advertiser products, following on from last year’s text-to-image product imagery generator, Product Studio, amid other murmurs. 

Competition

Generally, marketers have been optimistic about the possibilities of AI, even as company executives see AI driving more intense competition. 

Part of what’s so interesting about this story is how it will impact small advertisers, spreading AI’s benefits lower down the funnel – where Google and Meta have traditionally outplayed other media owners – in a way that smooths the path to buying Google inventory. Clever. 

Sourced from Google, TechCrunch, WARC, BBC

[Image: Google]