If you happened to listen to Alphabet’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, you might have heard that searches are up, but ad revenue is down. According to Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler, search ad revenue growth slowed in the third quarter of 2026 because user queries are migrating to AI Overviews and AI Mode, which suffer from “lower monetization.”

You actually know how this works. When you type a question into Google, a summarized AI response often appears immediately, reducing the classic ad-clicking behavior further down on the page, which generates Google’s core revenue.

Now, the tech giant is expanding how and where we see ads when using AI Mode during searches.…