The way the ads appear, as seen in the videos and screenshots Google has provided, does not require us to come up with new, out-of-the-box solutions. Blocking ads in Google’s SGEīased on our initial observations, it seems that ads in Google’s SGE are similar to the ones in regular Google Search results, and can be blocked with conventional ad blocking methods. To some extent, Google follows in the footsteps of Microsoft, which introduced ads into Bing AI, its own AI-supercharged search experience, back in April. After all, Google makes most of its money from advertising, and search ads account for a lion’s share of its ad revenue. The fact that Google is filling its Generative Search Experience with ads from day one is not surprising. If the user scrolls to the bottom of the SGE experience, they’ll see another row of ads.Īnd if the user, assuming they are still not deterred by the amount of ads at this point, decides to ask more follow-up questions ( “is it easy for them to learn surfing” in Google’s example), they should be ready to see more ads in replies. The never-ending ads galoreīut let’s go back to ads in the SGE. Truth be told, it’s already hard to tell apart paid and genuine results in the SGE. Google’s claim that its ad labels are industry-leading is questionable, but even if we assume it’s true, it is not a compliment to Google, but rather a criticism of the industry’s poor standards for marking ads clearly.Īs for “clear and transparent,” well, judging by the direction Google’s ad design is going, it seems that at some point the labels may become so “transparent” that we will barely be able to see them at all. First, by removing background shading in 2013, and then by doing away with colored ad labels in 2019. They say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in our opinion, there is nothing beautiful about ads populating your chatbot’s answers.Īnyone familiar with Google’s history of ad labeling knows that over the years, Google has made ads in search more and more indistinguishable from organic search results. When describing the new ad placements and how they can help advertisers reach users with highly-relevant ads, VP of Google Ads Vidhya Srinivasan called it a “beautiful moment.” We thought she was being sarcastic, but she wasn’t. Besides, what catches the user’s attention first is arguably the product image, the description and the price, and not a line of text in fineprint at the top. That’s partly because, in Google’s example, other products also have labels: “good for mountain biking” and “good for kids,” which make the “sponsored” label less noticeable. However, if you look at the backpacks in the screenshot above, without peering too intently, you may not be able to tell which one is the advertised one (or if they all are). The former would “feature our industry-leading clear and transparent labels with the ‘Sponsored’ label in bold black text,” he said. Touting the “new ad experience”, Google’s VP of Ads Jerry Dischler claimed that search ads within SGE would be hard to confuse with organic results. ‘Industry-leading’ ad labels that hide in plain sight A sponsored result came first, followed by organic results. The first AI-generated response was ad-free, but the first follow-up question to the AI chatbot - “hiking backpacks for kids” - triggered an answer that already included ads. After scrolling down, the user could see some tips on outdoor activities to enjoy in Maui, framed in green to indicate that they were generated by AI. In the presentation showed by Google, an SGE user searched for “outdoor activities in Maui” and was greeted by two Google ads at the top of the search results before he could even see the AI’s suggestions. And if the example Google gave is anything to go by, it’s not a pretty sight. There, Google revealed that ads would not only appear before and after the AI-powered snapshot, as originally announced, but would also infiltrate the AI-generated responses. Google offered a sneak peek at ad placements in its brand new Search Generative Experience (SGE) at an event for advertisers on May 23. But how many ads is too many? For Google, it seems, the more, the better. Google says its new generative AI feature will start a “new era of search” by “unlocking new types of questions” and “transforming the way information is organized.” But a closer look at Google’s own promotional materials reveals a downside: you may have to face a barrage of ads every time you use it.
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