Google is now pushing search ads on AI Mode and the desktop version of AI Overviews. Google's Vidhya Srinivasan said at Google Marketing Live, "we're expanding ads in AI Overviews to desktop, and bringing ads to AI Mode to create new opportunities for our customers."
Google announced a new bidding update to Google Ads named Smart Bidding Exploration. Google said this is the "biggest update to bidding in over a decade."
Google announced a number of AI-related features to help advertisers create and manage their ads account across Google Ads and Merchant Center. These include new AI tools for creating ads and creatives and also agentic capabilities to help you with this on the backend.
Google has published two new help documents on the topic of AI; one on guidance on using generative AI content on your website and the second on AI features and your website. Google also published a blog post on the topics over here.
Microsoft is testing a double border style around the Bing Search box. This goes around the main search box but not the auto-complete box, I believe.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web...