Google is weighing purchases of AI ad-creation apps and is paying startup Hightouch to switch advertisers to its customer data tools as AI search slows its ad business, according to The Information. Year-over-year search ad growth fell from 17% in the second quarter to 12% in the third, which Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler partly blamed on AI Mode bringing in less ad money than regular search, since Google runs fewer ads there and its queries are about three times as long. Advertisers can’t target or exclude AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Google lumps their results in with regular search, so brands can’t see how those ads do. Some frustrated advertisers are shifting budgets to Meta, whose ad sales are rising at over double the pace of Google’s search ads.
