Google Expands Ads in AI Mode to 10 Countries as Stock Plunges
Google is bringing ads in AI Mode, the conversational tab in Google Search, to 10 more countries: Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. The company announced the expansion on October 28, 2026, alongside Alphabet’s third-quarter results, and a day later Alphabet shares fell more than 13 percent as investors reacted to slowing search ad growth.
Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom are next, with Google planning to add them in the fourth quarter of 2026. No European Union market is on the list yet.
How Ads in AI Mode Will Work in the New Markets
According to Google’s announcement by Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads, sponsored results inside AI Mode answers will be clearly labeled “Sponsored.” In the United States, Google is also launching multiturn ads, which can appear in follow-up questions within the same AI Mode conversation, not only after the first query.
Google backs the move with two figures from US data: AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than traditional searches, and click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product listings in AI Mode. The company has not published the underlying click-through rates, and neither figure was measured in the newly added countries.
Why Google Is Pushing AI Search Ads Now
The timing is not accidental. Alphabet reported third-quarter revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25 percent year over year, but Google Search and other advertising revenue grew just 12 percent to about $63.3 billion. That is down from 17 percent growth in the second quarter and 19 percent in the first, according to TechCrunch. We covered the headline numbers in our report on Alphabet’s $127.6 billion quarter.
On the earnings call, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said “the strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact because of the lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode,” as reported by Search Engine Land. In other words, people are moving to AI Mode faster than Google can earn money from it there.
Investors did not wait. Alphabet stock dropped 13 percent to $281.37 in early trading on Thursday, wiping about $511 billion from its market value, its biggest one-day loss in value ever, Bloomberg reported. Only Nvidia has lost more market value in a single day, when it shed $589 billion in 2025, NBC News noted.
What It Means for Users and Advertisers
If you use Google in one of the 10 new countries, expect sponsored product and service listings to start showing up inside AI Mode answers, much like they already do in the US. UK users should see the same change before the end of the year.
For publishers and advertisers, the shift matters as much as the ads themselves. AI answers keep more people on Google’s results page, which is why Google is also opening new surfaces for content, such as Discord messages in Google Search, and new AI formats like Immersive Explorations in Gemini. Whether ads in AI Mode can make up for slower classic search revenue is now the key question for Google, and the next few quarters will show if the global rollout is enough.
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