News: 0180173059

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Google Starts Testing Ads In AI Mode

(Friday November 21, 2025 @10:30PM (BeauHD) from the would-you-look-at-that dept.)


Google has [1]begun testing sponsored ads inside its Gemini-powered AI Mode, [2]placing labeled "sponsored" links at the bottom of AI-generated responses . Engadget reports:

> [A] Google spokesperson says the result shown is akin to similar tests it's been running this year. "People seeing ads in AI Mode in the wild is simply part of Google's ongoing tests, which we've been running for several months," the spokesperson said. The push to start offering ads in AI Mode was announced in May. The company also [3]told 9to5Google that there are no current plans to fully update AI Mode to incorporate ads. For now, the software seems to be prioritizing organic links over sponsored links, but we all know how insidious ads can be once the floodgates open...



[1] https://x.com/brodieseo/status/1991711614975029298?s=20

[2] https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-starts-testing-ads-in-ai-mode-192800265.html

[3] https://9to5google.com/2025/11/21/google-showing-ads-ai-mode/


"Ads In AI Mode" (Score:2)

by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )

Google's ad machine pretending to be AI? This could prove there is no "Intelligence" in today's AI.

Re:"Ads In AI Mode" (Score:4, Insightful)

by martin-boundary ( 547041 )

I hate to say I told you so, but..... I told you so! The economics of capital and resource intensive AI services coupled with low demand needs somebody to step up and pay for it. It's not the users, who don't value AI enough to cough up real money and so must be tricked into using it for free. It's no longer the investors, who have put in real money for the last 3 years and are starting to ask for real returns on their investment, not a Ponzi scheme. The last resort to pay for AI are the advertisers. Like advertising in search, advertising in AI will cause the service to degrade and lose its value.

Speed run (Score:2)

by liqu1d ( 4349325 )

Enshittification of enshittification

Enshitishitification you mean? (Score:2)

by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 )

But then eventually you can pay for the search results AND have it give you ads, so it's enshitishitishitification.

Well...... (Score:2)

by VertosCay ( 7266594 )

At least it doesn't make AI any worse than it was.

One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
[...]
sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".