CEOInterviews.AIGoogle Marketing Live 2026

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Maya Shankar8:04

Good morning to the thousands of you joining us from around the world! I'm Maya Shankar, Google's Senior Director of Behavioral Economics. I'm also the host of the podcast "A Slight Change of Plans," and author of the New York Times bestselling book, "The Other Side of Change," which blends science and storytelling to help us better navigate the unexpected change in our lives. I'm thrilled to host this year's Google Marketing Live Pre-Show! Today we are broadcasting live from the San Francisco Bay area, at Google's beautiful Bay View campus. If this is your first time joining us, Google Marketing Live is our biggest event of the year, packed with the latest insights and tools designed to empower you, our amazing community of Google Ads practitioners. For the next ten minutes, I'll be giving you a backstage pass for today's event, where you'll get the first look at the technology that will define the next decade of marketing. We aren't just talking about tools; we're talking about your competitive edge in 2026. We have an action-packed day of content coming up. Let's take a look. First up, immediately after this pre-show is the big one: this year's Product Innovation Keynote. This is where we'll reveal all of our newest innovations across Google Ads and YouTube, and from what I've heard this year, there are some exciting announcements you aren't going to want to miss. Then, after the keynote, don't go anywhere as we'll be celebrating our winners from this year's Google Ads Impact Awards. We're always blown away with the creativity that comes out of our partners every year and how they are driving real world impact with our AI tools. We're closing with something brand new -- a live recording of our popular "Ads Decoded" podcast! Think of it as a product deep dive, where our product leaders will break down some of the biggest announcements from today's keynote. So that's the content, but the biggest perk of being online? You get direct access to our product experts first. Once again, we'll be hosting a live Q&A throughout the show with Google experts on hand to answer your most pressing questions. Ask them about Gemini, Search, and YouTube -- whatever is on your mind. Alongside the Q&A, we've also added a special incentive to celebrate our Ads community. We're giving away 100 exclusive GML swag kits to people that submit a question. We're talking head-to-toe style here, people. We've got these classic caps, but the real MVP? This cooler tote bag, just in time for summer. Just submit your questions in the live Q&A to be in the running. It kicks off in a few minutes when the keynote begins. If you're currently watching on YouTube and want to ask a question, scan the QR code on screen now to join our main interactive event. As we get ready for this year's keynote, I asked one of our main stage speakers to drop in for a quick chat. I'm pleased to introduce the wonderful John Nicoletti, our Vice President of Google Customer Solutions. Welcome John! This is becoming an annual tradition! I appreciate you taking the time.

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John Nicoletti13:15

Definitely one of the more traditions. Hi, everyone. I heard we're expecting a record turnout this year. I just want to take this opportunity to say how grateful we are to you, our global community of marketers, for your incredible partnership and of course, for tuning in.

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Maya Shankar13:29

That's right, you can really feel the energy today. Someone mentioned that this feels like a 'Festival of Marketing,' but I'm seeing more than just celebration here. I'm seeing a lot of focus.

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John Nicoletti13:39

Right. And of course a great festival is all about that line-up. You're here because you want to see the headliners, like Gemini and Agentic Commerce. My job today is to help you navigate that lineup so you know exactly which “stage” your business needs to be on to win in 2026.

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Maya Shankar13:56

I see what you did there, John. Alright, since we have a few minutes, we are going to put you in the hot seat. I'm sure our viewers would love to know what you're most excited about for today's keynote, and what they can expect to get out of it.

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John Nicoletti14:11

Today is about giving you a specific edge in a very competitive landscape. The Gemini advantage is potentially the most powerful advancement in the past year and I'm really excited to see how you can use this as your competitive advantage. We've heard your questions about where Search is headed and how to unlock more than just 'reach' on YouTube. So we're going to show you how we're reinventing ads for AI Search and driving measurable, bottom-line conversions on YouTube. We're also going to show you how we're building the infrastructure for Agentic Commerce and bringing our best generative AI tools directly into Google Ads. We are going to walk you through the foundations for solid measurement and how to put agents to work for your marketing. We honestly couldn't do any of this without your partnership; it is your feedback that allows us to build the future.

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Maya Shankar15:07

I love that, everyone is always looking for that edge! John, given you are the front lines with these conversations everyday, you see firsthand a lot of the cutting edge habits people are adopting. So I have a few questions for you and would love to get your hot takes. Ready?

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John Nicoletti15:25

Hot takes, I love that. I was born ready. Let's do it!

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Maya Shankar15:27

Question one: Everyone is talking about agents. If this isn't just hype, what impact will Agentic Commerce have on consumers and marketers?

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John Nicoletti15:35

Alright, well this is definitely more than just a buzzword. It is a total shift that removes the friction from the consumer journey, built in partnership with the industry. Think of it as turning curiosity into checkout. Take the Universal Commerce Protocol as an example. UCP establishes a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses and payment providers. So instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily.

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Maya Shankar16:14

Super helpful. Okay, here is the second question. For the practitioners who are watching at home, what is one habit they have that you think they should break?

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John Nicoletti16:21

I think our practitioners are doing a pretty good job, but I guess I would say micro-managing creative. Look, marketers need control for brand safety and strategy. But the habit to break is trying to hand-craft every single variation. Shift your control to the inputs and give the AI high-quality ingredients like your best images, your brand guidelines and let Gemini assemble the perfect dish for every user at scale.

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Maya Shankar16:52

Alright, final question, John. YouTube. Is it still a "video site" or something else?

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John Nicoletti16:57

That might be a trick question. It is the world's most powerful demand engine. I said it. We're seeing a total convergence of entertainment and commerce. If you aren't thinking about how to drive performance on YouTube, and measure its impact in 2026, you're reading an outdated playbook.

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Maya Shankar17:13

You know, John, we talk a lot about being "AI-first." But for the person sitting at their desk in New York or Mexico City, what does Google's AI leadership actually mean for their daily work flow?

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John Nicoletti17:30

It means confidence and it means ROI. We're not just throwing features at the wall. We're building an integrated system where your data, your creative, and our models work as one. We want to be the force multiplier in your performance, not just another tool in your kit.

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Maya Shankar17:50

John thank you for stopping by for another fascinating conversation. I know you're needed backstage, thank you so much for dropping in.

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John Nicoletti17:57

Thank you for having me, you're a pro. I hope we can do this next year.

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Maya Shankar18:02

It's a tradition. We are now just minutes away from the start of the show. For anyone that just joined, let me recap our agenda for today. We'll kick off with our big moment, the Product Innovation Keynote, followed by a Post-Show where we'll recap the keynote and celebrate our winners of the Google Ads Impact Awards. And finally, we'll close with a new live episode of our popular "Ads Decoded" podcast, exclusively for our online audience, so stick around for that. And in case you missed it earlier, our live Q&A starts as soon as the keynote kicks off, so get your questions ready for our product experts and be in the running to win one of 100 of a GML swag kit. A reminder, if you are currently watching on YouTube and want to ask a question, scan the QR code on screen now to join our interactive event! Before we head to the main stage we have a quick surprise for you. We're going back stage live with our Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler, just seconds before he walks out to open the show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm Maya Shankar, and this was the Google Marketing Live Pre-show.

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Philipp Schindler19:17

Hello, everyone! Philipp Schindler here. We are backstage at Google Marketing Live. And the show is about to start. And I just wanted to say hello and thank you for tuning in. We have so much to show you -- the latest innovations in agentic technology, new Ads formats for the AI era of Search, new ways to drive conversions on YouTube, new ways to build creative assets that work at scale at the pace of your business, and a new playbook for measurement. So no matter what kind of business you're in, we have something to help you drive growth. Alright, I gotta go. It's show time. See you out there!

Hello! And welcome to the 13th Annual Google Marketing Live! Yo! We are here at our Bay View campus in Mountain View, and this is, without question, our most global GML ever. We are livestreaming around the world. People from more than 100 countries are tuning in. GML in EMEA is happening right now in Dublin. And coming up this summer, GML will hit 13 more cities across APAC. It's such an exciting time for our industry. Now, history used to be a reliable guide for the future but not anymore. In this moment of rapid technological advancement, we have to start looking at the rate of change to see what's truly coming. And the current rate is simply mind-blowing. I'm not exaggerating when I say we have made a decade's worth of innovation in the last year alone. Remember how a year ago generating images of a video was hit or miss? And today, our generative media models like Veo, Nano Banana and Genie are able to create incredibly realistic images, videos and interactive simulations, while maintaining state consistency when required. As a fun example, let's take another look at this year's Intro video. Compare it to last year's video. The leap is mind-blowing. By the way, if any skate brands are watching, I'm available for sponsorships. The best part is no Philipp Schindlers were harmed in the production of this video. It would not have been possible to create this even a few weeks ago because it was made with Gemini Omni, which we just announced at I/O yesterday. Omni combines Gemini's reasoning with the best of our generative media models. We're starting with this but over time Omni will be able to generate output from any input. One of the big questions researchers have had is whether or not these models could really understand physics. Are they just pattern matching? Or are they capable of comprehending the physical world and generating outputs that reflect reality? With Omni, we're starting to see this might actually be possible. Look at this. The physics of this are extraordinarily difficult to simulate. Gemini Omni Flash is available now and will come to Ads this summer. It's clear these models are going to change the game for advertising, not only in terms of creative generation but also in terms of getting things done. A year ago, agents started becoming a huge buzzword but truthfully, they weren't all that useful yet. What a difference a year makes. AI has moved from chat to act. It is an active partner that can plan, execute and optimize complex workflows under your supervision. We are now firmly in our Agentic Gemini era. All of this is driven by the first model in our newest model series, Gemini 3.5 Flash. This is a very capable model at the frontier, and comparable to the best models, but it's still very, very fast. When looking at output tokens per second, it is four times faster than other frontier models. The magic happens when you pair this model with Google Antigravity. This is our AI-powered agent-first development platform, and it unlocks agentic coding at scale. Antigravity has radically transformed our own engineering velocity. It's accelerating major ad product rollouts from quarters to mere months. And we're deploying autonomous agents to turn your realtime feedback into code updates. Developers have been operating in this world for a while, but we want to bring agents to everyone. We're rolling out Gemini Spark right in the Gemini app. This is the first experience you're seeing made possible by 3.5 models and Antigravity. Spark is a 24/7 personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life. It takes actions on your behalf under your direction. Gemini Spark connects the dots across your digital world to check off tasks in your everyday life and at work. Small businesses can teach Spark custom skills using plain language. For example, you can train it to monitor Gmail for high-quality customer inquiries and have the agent take the next step for you. For enterprise customers, you can use Spark to automate highly complex, multi-step workflows. You can have Spark pull and analyze consumer insights from multiple sources, build and deploy creative across all of your channels, measure impact, and send your reports. Our latest AI models bring us one step closer to true realtime outcome-based marketing. You handle the strategy and define your goals. AI handles the optimization. In milliseconds, you get insights that talk to your creative. Your creative talks to your media. And your media talks back to your measurement. And measurement can feed the whole system back as it learns. This was once a distant goal, but you will see how we're making huge strides towards this reality. Today you're going to see how you can use agents across our Ads platforms to help you with campaign optimization, asset creation and measurement. But of all the incredible innovations you will see today, the biggest opportunity for your business is the AI transformation of Search. AI is the best thing that has ever happened to Search. It gives Search superpowers. Let me ask you a question. Which product is bringing the benefits of Gen AI to more people than any other product in the world? Yes, it is Google Search. We have been on a journey to bring together the best of a Search engine with the best of AI. We started this massive transformation when we introduced AI overviews two years ago. It now has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users. And believe it or not, it was just a year ago that we introduced AI Mode, which allowed you to have a back-and-forth conversation with Search directly. It's already surpassed more than a billion monthly users, and we're seeing phenomenal growth. Searches in AI mode have been doubling every quarter since launch. It's our most powerful AI search bringing in our most advanced Gemini models. And as of yesterday, we upgraded it on Gemini 3.5. By the way, pretty cool to ship our latest model and launch it in our biggest product the same day. Okay, to reflect the new reality of how people are searching today, we're making the biggest update to the iconic search box in 25 years. It now expands so you can fully describe what you need, and it gives you easy access to all the modalities so you can search with text, images and videos. We're also bringing AI overviews and AI mode into one seamless AI search experience so you can flow effortlessly from your question to your response to your follow-ups. Search is also getting more personalized. Earlier this year, we introduced personal intelligence in AI mode. You can now opt in to securely connect your Google apps like Gmail, Photos, and soon Calendar. It's much easier to find things to do during a layover when it knows where you are, how much time you have, and what you actually like to do. And finally, Search doesn't just help you find information, it helps get things done for you. It's already helping you make reservations and buy tickets. And coming soon, personalized information agents, working for you 24/7 to find you exactly what you need at exactly the right moment and help you take action. For example, if you're apartment hunting, just do a brain dump of what you want and Search will continuously scan the web for you. Or say you want to know when your favorite athlete announces new sneaker drops. Search will monitor everything for you from blogs to our shopping graphs, so you do not miss it. All of these innovations are completely changing the way people search and discover. After decades of searching in fragments or simple keywords, suddenly we can ask anything. In our natural language, in a conversation, and increasingly through voice, photos, or even live video. As people have learned how much more Search can do, well, they've started bringing more questions. So much so that last quarter, we saw Search queries reach an all-time high. Look at this search here. A year ago, you wouldn't have dreamed of attempting a search like this. Now it's becoming habit. How many searches would this have taken before? 10? 20? More? And maybe after all that, you still might not have found what you need. Now it's one super search or a conversation. And that's why AI mode searches on average three times as long as traditional searches. And people are using Search earlier in their discovery journey. Searches with terms like "ideas for, where should I" and "which" in the sense of which something should I buy, are growing. Brainstorming searches are growing 30% faster than AI Mode searches overall. So, it's time to acknowledge a fact. Google Search is AI Search through and through. So, what does this mean for you as a marketer? First, longer and more conversational searches mean richer signals of intent for us to better match what you offer with what people are looking for. And a more personalized agentic search means a quicker path for your customers from discovery to decision. This means you can't think in terms of simple keywords anymore and you definitely can't manually choose them. And why would you? Just let the best AI do it for you. We designed AI Max for Search for exactly this reason. It helps you show up in the specific nuanced queries and take advantage of the new ads formats you will see today. We introduced AI Max at GML last year, you remember, and now it's out of beta and available globally. And those of you who are already using it know it's working hard, driving 27% more conversions compared to manual campaigns. Search is already the leader in driving ROI for your business. You know we love numbers at Google. We truly love numbers. On average, at scale for every $1 you spend on Google Search globally, you get an incremental $6 back. Not bad, right? Okay, so what's the best thing to pair with Google Search to get even better returns? It's YouTube, of course. Now, I don't need to tell you what a powerhouse YouTube is in terms of reach. And relevance. YouTube now reaches more than 90% of U.S. adults. And this didn't happen by accident. For more than two decades, we have focused on staying one step ahead of how the world watches. Years ago, we predicted that people would want to watch YouTube on the biggest screen in their home, so we invested in the TV watching experience. And today, YouTube is number one in streaming watch time and has been for three years beating out Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and all of Disney. Surprisingly, viewers come to the biggest screen in their home for the shortest format of all. Over 2 billion shorts are watched in the living room each month. YouTube is the only platform where people can be part of the biggest cultural moments from the Artemis II launch to Coachella and sporting events like the MLB, NBA and the World Cup. And of course, our very own GML, yes. Working on this one. It's all the creator-led conversations happening around them. Just to give you an example, there were more than 3 billion views of Oscar-related videos in the last year. And by the way, the Oscars are moving to YouTube in 2029! Yes, I can see you like this. How about GML 2029 in Hollywood, huh, hanging with the stars? That would be cool? Well, let me tell you, a not so secret secret. No need to go to Hollywood to meet the stars, because we all know YouTube is the home of the creators, and they are the real stars. People rank YouTube the number one platform for creator content. And that's because YouTube creators aren't just making content to capture fleeting moments of interest; they're building lasting connections and loyalty with communities of fans. Most-trusted platform for creator content about products or services. When a YouTube creator talks about your product, viewers are 13 times more likely to search for your brand and 5 times more likely to buy. These are real results, not just engagement metrics. With YouTube, you can build brands and drive business results across the entire journey. And this is the power of YouTube. And we're taking that performance to the next level with Ask YouTube. This will make it an even more powerful engine for discovery and purchase decisions. People search on YouTube billions of times a day and now finding the perfect answer is no longer just a search; it's a conversation. Let's say you want to teach your 3-year-old how to ride a pedal bike and they already know how to ride a balance bike. You can just type that all in and click "Ask YouTube." It surfaces the most relevant videos, and you can follow up with questions. This is the same profound shift that Search has been going through and going to have a similar impact of how people use YouTube, by making it easier to find information, people will spend more time searching and discovering on YouTube. We're starting to test Ask YouTube now and it will roll out broadly in the U.S. this summer. Today we will show you exactly how to tap into trust, media's most valuable currency, partner with creators to unlock huge ROI and leverage the most advanced AI in the world to drive results like never before. We're going to go deep on Demand Gen. It's gotten a huge upgrade with our latest Gemini models, taking the strongest signals of intent we have across the entire Google ecosystem to get your brand in front of customers. So, for everyone here who knows they could be doing more with YouTube to boost your performance, today is for you. And we're going to show you why YouTube delivers more than double the long term ROAS of linear TV, paid social and streaming platforms. So, let's look at the power of these platforms together across the consumer journey. Google and YouTube are present in 82% of all journeys where products or brands are discovered. Some of our competitors will claim that discovery only happens on their social feeds, which frankly, is a lovely story for their sales pitch, but unfortunately for them, we brought the data. In 89% of purchase journeys, people use Google and YouTube before the largest social media platform or they skip that social platform entirely. So please, please, please check the data carefully. Social platforms are often just capturing intent that started in Google and selling it back to you as discovery. Nothing compares to the performance you get from Google and YouTube together. On this stage a year ago, we told you we drove 21% higher ROAS versus all other media. Our latest MMM study with TransUnion shows it has gone up by 40%, 4-0, 40%. This is the Gemini advantage, and it is your business advantage. We are able to move faster than anyone else because we own the full AI stack. We don't rent our intelligence. We build the entire engine from the chips to the research to the models to the app platform all built on a secure foundation. And this is what gives us a direct pipeline from our labs to your business results. To drive this even more, we're making the most ambitious capital investment in our history. In 2022, we were investing $31 billion in CapEx. This year, we are on track to approximately 6X that investment to a stunning $180-190 billion. This level of investment is how we stay at the frontier. It's also a big reason why we are the best partner for you in this new world. We're quite literally investing in your success. We believe a full-stack approach and our foundation models will drive even stronger results for you. No other advertising platform has anything like it, not even close. I want to leave you with a fascinating economic theory you have probably heard about called Jevons Paradox. It goes like this. When technology makes a resource more efficient, we don't do less. We do vastly, exponentially more. And we're seeing this at play everywhere. As AI makes it more efficient to find what you want in Google Search, you search more. When it becomes easier to build high-performing creative, you create more. When you can gather insights more effectively, you optimize more. And when marketing delivers more, you market more, reach more customers, open more markets, drive more growth. In the spirit of Daft Punk today, we're going to show you how we're putting the Gemini advantage in your hands. Harder-working ads formats, better insights and measurement, faster ways to build creative, stronger AI integration, and one more time, a huge thank you for your trust in us and for your partnership. And to show you exactly what we're building for you, next up is the leader of Google's Ads and Commerce teams, my dear friend and colleague, Vidhya. Thank you.

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Vidhya Srinivasan42:17

Hello everyone! Thank you so much for joining us at GML today. We hope you're enjoying the festival vibes this year. We'll do anything to make the show on digital Ads a little more entertaining. This year the innovation really does speak for itself. Today you will see all the ways in which we are applying the power of Gemini to serve your business. We really know the pressure that you are under to deliver, and we know the growth that all of you need to drive. So we're going to show you how we're addressing what you need. You asked us where Search is headed. We are going to show you how to win in this new landscape. Now, we are not just bringing Ads to AI Search experiences; we are reinventing what an ad is in this context. You asked us about the promise of Agentic Commerce. We are going to show you how we are building the infrastructure to power the future of online sales, not in a vacuum, but with the industry. You asked us how to unlock performance on YouTube. We are going to show you how to use the platform for more than just reach. We'll show you how to drive demand and measurable, bottom-line conversions. You asked us to help building creative at scale. We are gonna show you how we are bringing our best generative AI tools to Google Ads. So every business can create high-performing ads in every format. And you asked us how to use data to make better investment decisions. We are going to walk you through the foundations for solid measurement. And finally, you have been asking us to reduce the burden of execution and help you get the best possible results across all of our Ads platforms. We are gonna show you what a difference agents can make in this space. We have the engine. You have the ambition. Today it's really about putting the two together. I'm just going to cover Search and Agentic Commerce and my team will cover the rest. Let's start with Search. Now, if you look at a search, it really all comes down to human curiosity. For decades, Search gave you the world's information at your fingertips and really just helped you understand the world better. But it's also true that when it came to making a choice or solving a problem or buying exactly what you need, it came with a tax. We called it "Research," but it was still work. 15 open tabs, cross-referencing reviews, many, many videos to watch, comparing prices, all of this while dealing with the lingering fear that you might be making the wrong choice. This gap between wanting to do something and actually doing it was full of friction. But now something really new is taking shape. The age-old trade-off between making a smart decision and a fast decision doesn't really hold up anymore. Because with Google Search, deep, thoughtful and personalized research is now possible at the speed of impulse. I'm gonna give you an example. So I really enjoy hiking, but sometimes my schedule just doesn't cooperate. One of my friends raves about her walking pad. So I search: "I'm looking for a walking pad for my home office. I love hiking. I want it to be reliable and quiet. What are the best options for me?" It gives me personalized recommendations that fit all of my criteria with links to learn more. A simple table lays out my top options. The heavy research is done. And I really trust what I'm seeing. That's why I can make the right decision faster than ever. In fact, 75% of people agree that they make faster, more confident decisions when they use AI Overviews and AI Mode. So by the time they visit your site, they're really ready to buy. But of course the billion-dollar question is, "How can I best show up in AI Search?" Let's just go back to my walking pad search and talk about what it takes to show up in organic results. Look at the pages Google Search is highlighting and you'll see a pattern: Expertise and experience. In this case, Search is citing reviews, articles, and videos. It even brings in real user perspectives. And because our features make use of our core ranking systems, our SEO best practices are just as important as they have ever been. So our guidance to you is this. First, lead with what your brand can uniquely say. Be specific. Stay away from generic, commodity information. You want one-of-a-kind content. Share those reviews, share the firsthand experiences or expert takes that only you can provide. Next, just focus on the most

Helpful content for your customers, because that's really what our systems reward. Do not try to write for bots. And think beyond text. People appreciate finding relevant images and videos. Generative AI search pulls all of this content right into the results. And finally, get your website ready for users, systems and agents. Your content needs to be well structured, accessible and easy to navigate, and make sure your product and business listings are accurate in places like the Merchant Center as well as Google Business Profiles.

Now, of course, the other way you can get discovered is with Ads. And just as Search is becoming more intelligent, helpful and agentic, so are the ads. Now, you can ask Google anything, so the best ads must be answers. Look, the only way you can win in this age of AI is with AI. These long, complex queries were previously super hard to match with Ads. That is not the case anymore. AI Max for Search and PMax are unlocking billions of net new searches. Advertisers are already seeing great results. With AI Max, Lufthansa Group saw a 24% increase in their return on ad spend. And IKEA saw a 65% lift in non-branded clicks on Google, along with a 28% boost in incremental ROAS.

Today we are excited to introduce a new generation of ad formats for Search in the AI era. These ads bridge inspiration and action, enabling you to show up in the moments that matter most. So let's take a peek at the future of Ads, and to help me out I'll bring Sylvanus to the stage.

Hello, Sylvanus, thank you for being here.

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Sylvanus Bent49:49

Hey, it's great to be back!

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Vidhya Srinivasan49:54

Yes, happy to have you back. Okay, everyone, this is an exclusive first look at what we've been building. Let's get started with a really new powerful format in AI Mode.

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Sylvanus Bent50:10

Let's do it. I'm always looking for ways to make my space more relaxing. So let's say I search, I am trying to make my house smell like those fancy spas or a rainy forest. What are some ways to make my home smell amazing? Check it out. AI Mode is going to give me tips on how to keep my home fresh. It's also comparing scent profiles. And then I see an ad for 'Pura.' Now, I hadn't considered a smart diffuser, and I don't know this brand well, but it fits this 'calming' vibe I'm seeking.

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Vidhya Srinivasan50:40

First off, I really like how it looks. What made you want to buy this?

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Sylvanus Bent50:45

Well, it's a high-quality answer that explains exactly why that diffuser solves my problem: It runs automatically on a schedule and has a big library of scents to choose from. That's what won me over, especially since I wasn't familiar with this brand.

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Vidhya Srinivasan50:54

And you can't really do this without AI Max. It's using Gemini to give you a natural, human answer based on Pura's assets and brand guidelines. Okay, let's talk about Direct Offers. These are incredibly powerful, because they give your high-intent customers something exclusive, right at the moment they are ready to buy. And we are bringing them into AI Mode as a seamless part of the conversation. Can we show them one?

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Sylvanus Bent51:24

You got it. Okay, so summer's almost here and I have family coming to stay with us. So I might do a search like: 'I'm setting up my guest bedroom. What are some things I can get to make my guests feel comfortable?' Okay, I'm going to get some really great recommendations here starting with this, high-quality bedding, makes sense, right? And then Google matches that with an ad, a couple products from Wayfair. Look, I can get a discount if I buy both the duvet set and the matching sheets. That looks pretty good to me.

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Vidhya Srinivasan51:54

I agree. And also a Direct Offer can be many different things: It could be discounts. It could be local coupons, custom deals. You just provide the products that you want to include and the promotional rules. And then Gemini will dynamically create just the perfect offer. Also, Direct Offers are not just for retail. Hotel advertisers will also be able to run them. Okay, now let's look at some AI-powered shopping ads.

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Sylvanus Bent52:29

Okay, some of my family are coming for a visit and they are big coffee drinkers. I need to get a better coffee setup for them. Let's say I do a search for: 'I need a compact espresso pod machine that can fit my small countertop. I need to be able to make both.' Let's check it out. Now, these are shopping ads but with a major Gemini glow-up. This text at the top helps me understand the features I should be thinking about. Like different settings for different drinks. By the way, I'm totally team iced coffee.

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Vidhya Srinivasan52:59

I love that for you. You would not believe how hot I drink my coffee. But that's why we personalize ads. These ads have been curated for you, with key product features written in helpful, human language. And again, you can only get them in PMax as well as AI Max for shopping campaigns. Alright, let's do a few more!

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Sylvanus Bent53:23

Okay, let's show them Business Agent for Leads. This is an agentic ad that helps you capture leads. Here's a search for 'What are some top colleges for business and tech on the west coast?' Okay, so here we see an ad for Rainier Business School with the option to ask a question inside the ad.

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Vidhya Srinivasan53:37

What do we ask?

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Sylvanus Bent53:42

How about, 'How is Rainier using AI in the classroom?' Okay, I see the response, which is informed by what's on the advertisers website, and an option to talk to the admissions department. And then the form is pre-filled with all of my information, and now I'm a much more qualified lead.

V

Vidhya Srinivasan53:58

We are testing this format for Education, Automotive as well as Real estate. And these are also exclusive to AI Max and Performance Max campaigns. Are you picking up on a pattern here?

S

Sylvanus Bent54:12

Yes! There's more. Let me show you two more new ad formats coming to AI Mode. They make your brand a great answer and make it really easy to buy. What I love about this first one is how naturally the brand fits into the conversation. It's clearly labeled as an ad and it's just as helpful as the organic results. Now, this second one connects products recommended in AI Mode directly to retailers who have them in stock.

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Vidhya Srinivasan54:38

As soon as you figure out what you want to buy, the ad is right there to close the sale. In all of these new formats, one thing is clear: Your brand doesn't just show up; it actually answers a question. And as I said before, to be the best answer, you need to be AI ready. You can't choose keywords anymore. Your ads go from good to great when they are automatically tailored to the context of the Search. And then they drive your most relevant landing pages, this means you have to really lean in to AI Max or PMax fully. Now, I can actually see the thought bubbles popping out of your head! How will I know you get my brand voice just right? How can I trust my ads actually look good or reach the right audience? This is why we're launching AI Brief. This is the control that you've been asking for. Think of it like giving an agency a creative brief with guidelines for your campaign. You can share insights. You can tell them more about the brand. The audiences you're trying to reach, and the guardrails to follow, all in conversational language. And the AI Brief will interpret what you want and create ad guidelines. It gives you previews so you can refine and make sure it's understanding your instructions properly.

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Sylvanus Bent56:05

All of this is so important. How can we get people to remember to go all-in on AI Max and PMax? How about with a little jingle? ♪ Take it, take it to the max. ♪ Take, take, take it to them, take it to the Max! Nice, a little catchy. What do you think, Vidhya?

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Vidhya Srinivasan56:30

It's cute for some groups, but moving on. So while these formats are all coming soon, your opportunity to win is right now. Advertisers who adopt AI Max or PMax see 15% more conversions at a similar ROAS. This performance is only possible if your budget allows you to capture all of the demand that you deserve. Everybody got that, yes? Should we play the jingle again? Thank you so much, Sylvanus.

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Sylvanus Bent57:00

Always a pleasure. Thanks, everyone!

V

Vidhya Srinivasan57:08

Okay, so now let's talk about Commerce. For years, we've been building the foundation for what comes next, a world of Agentic Commerce that works for you. It starts with the Shopping Graph. With over 60 billion listings, it's the world's most comprehensive shopping dataset. And add to that the trust of YouTube and Search, supercharged by Gemini, and you have an engine that understands intent like never before. Then, GPay and Wallet ensure secure and fast transactions. And for global commerce infrastructure, we have the scale and trust of Google Cloud. Most recently, we announced the Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP. This is a new industry standard that we co-developed with an incredible group of founding partners. And we recently welcomed Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Stripe to help continue steering this open standard. It may just be the first time we all agree on something. UCP is a common language, connecting agents and merchants effortlessly, so companies don't have to waste time building all this custom code for every new connection. UCP allows your live data -- from inventory to account linking to loyalty benefits -- to just flow directly to the customer in realtime. This helps facilitate product discovery and reduces friction during key moments like checkout, while ensuring merchants retain control over their relationships and over their data. We're expanding UCP-powered experiences on Google beyond the U.S. ━ to Canada and Australia and the UK in the coming months. Even if you aren't located in one of these markets, perhaps your customers are, and this is an important export opportunity for you. We're also expanding UCP beyond retail to support the apps you love. By partnering with global leaders in food and travel, we are co-creating new experiences that will reshape the future of these industries. Imagine the ease of ordering food delivery while on the go with Ask Maps or booking your hotel in AI Mode. So now you see how we have really just assembled all of these components for Agentic Commerce. Let's take a look at what our new shopping experiences look like in the real world! For that, let's bring Shavi to the stage.

Hi Shavi! So I just talked about re-imagining shopping. So let's actually see how it looks. First up, this one's a total game-changer. Yesterday we announced The Universal Cart. This is a truly intelligent shopping cart and think of it as your new agentic hub for shopping on Google. It works across merchants and across Google products. You'll now be able to add things to your cart while you're browsing search or chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube or even just reading your Gmail. As soon as you add a product to the cart, it goes to work for you.

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Shavi Goel1:00:35

Exactly. Isn't that great? Here you can see items added from Wayfair and Nike. It tracks pricing changes. It alerts you when an item is back in stock. And when you are ready, you can buy directly on Google or take the cart to the merchant's site.

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Vidhya Srinivasan1:00:51

That's right. Just think of this as shopping with superpowers. It runs on our Gemini models so your cart gets even smarter as the models keep improving. It's rolling out to the U.S. to Search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail coming next. Shavi, can you show us how we can actually buy something from an ad?

S

Shavi Goel1:01:11

For sure. UCP powers native check-out on Google. And now we are bringing that same capability right into your ads. Let's go back to the Direct Offer Sylvanus showed us earlier for the 'duvet and sheets' bundle. Remember the one that was too good to pass up from Wayfair? Well, retailers who are set up with UCP will soon be able to facilitate checkout directly from offers in AI Mode. So you just click the 'buy with one-time code' button in the ad, and you're taken to a new screen to review your order. Notice that the discount is automatically applied. And from there you just tap 'pay with GPay' and you're done!

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Vidhya Srinivasan1:01:47

So what I like about this, it allows a shopper to go directly from discovery to action in just a few clicks. This direct check-out in ads is actually a great benefit of just setting up UCP. Okay, let's do another example.

S

Shavi Goel1:02:01

This next one is really exciting. We are also bringing the power of UCP to YouTube.

V

Vidhya Srinivasan1:02:11

You're going to hear a lot more about how YouTube is driving performance. Shavi is going to show us how YouTube is becoming a lot more shoppable.

S

Shavi Goel1:02:21

So, a few weeks ago I was on YouTube, and I saw a Mother's Day ad from 'ETSY.' What I love about this shoppable ad, is you don't just see the video ad, you also see these product listings. And what's new is this nifty 'Buy now' button. When you click it you are taken directly to a branded checkout screen in YouTube. My shipping and payment info is pre-filled like usual and all I need to do is click 'pay with GPay' and I'm done.

V

Vidhya Srinivasan1:02:49

This will totally change how video ads can drive conversions instantly.

S

Shavi Goel1:02:54

I know. I already get so many ideas from YouTube creators and now I can buy them. Shopping on YouTube is going to be my favorite kind of entertainment.

V

Vidhya Srinivasan1:03:01

Yeah, I have the same issue. Thank you so much, Shavi.

S

Shavi Goel1:03:06

That was fun. Thank you, everyone!

V

Vidhya Srinivasan1:03:07

I want to leave you with this. As we redefine what's possible with Search, YouTube and Commerce, the aperture of opportunity for your business only gets wider. We aren't just showing an ad ━ we're framing your products as the perfect answer. And with UCP and Universal Cart, we are reducing friction across the entire journey, getting your customers from discovery to decision in ways that were not possible before. We're so excited to build this future with all of you. Thank you so much.

J

John Nicoletti1:05:23

Well, hello, everyone and welcome to YouTube Marketing Live. YouTube is now the number one podcast platform, so we're going to try this a little bit differently. We're going to go podcast style inside of GML. Nicky, are you ready?

N

Nicky Rettke1:05:44

Oh, yeah.

J

John Nicoletti1:05:45

Nicky leads our Ads Product Organization at YouTube. All the performance that you've seen before and all the goodness that you're about to hear today, that comes directly from Nicky and her team. But first, ahem, a word from our sponsor, which is us.

N

Nicky Rettke1:05:57

Nice.

J

John Nicoletti1:05:58

Today's episode is brought to you by the end of compromise. Stop choosing between brand building and conversions. YouTube gives you both.

N

Nicky Rettke1:06:06

Ooh, I like it! Do you have any promo codes?

J

John Nicoletti1:06:12

No, that's just a better way to work.

N

Nicky Rettke1:06:14

Okay.

J

John Nicoletti1:06:15

So now back to our regularly-scheduled program. Nicky, this is how we're getting to do it. I'm going to channel all of our friends in the room, livestream and marketers and agencies and bring the questions they want answered about YouTube. Number one, what makes YouTube the best performance marketing platform right now? Number two, how do they get these results that everybody's been talking about. And number three, how do we show those results in a way that the CFO is actually going to care about? And given that it's GML, I'm sure you've got some exciting product announcements in there as well.

N

Nicky Rettke1:06:47

I sure do. We've been pretty busy. I've got a lot of good stuff to share.

J

John Nicoletti1:06:52

Alright, so let's jump into it. A lot of marketers believe or think they know what they're getting on social platforms. The question is, is that real value or vanity metrics? Question number one, why is YouTube the best performance marketing platform right now?

N

Nicky Rettke1:07:06

I mean, I think it comes down to two things that everyone here knows are essential for driving performance, audiences and attention. Let me start with audiences. Now yes, virtually everyone in the U.S. is on YouTube but when we look more closely at the data, we see YouTube reaches audiences that you can't find anywhere else. So for example, 45% of YouTube Shorts viewers are not on TikTok and 65% are not on Reels.

J

John Nicoletti1:07:33

Okay, so the audience is massive and it sounds like it's unique. Can we talk about attention?

N

Nicky Rettke1:07:38

Yeah, I mean, look, I think attention is a really big differentiator for YouTube. Now, we spend a lot of time looking at user behavior on YouTube, and it's really different from social media. So people come to YouTube intentionally. They often start their session with a search for something specific or they're coming to watch content from a creator they love. They're not just passively scrolling by, although they could. They're actively engaged.

J

John Nicoletti1:08:05

That begs that question. This higher attention, what does that mean for ads?

N

Nicky Rettke1:08:10

It means they're paying more attention to the ads as well. Research shows YouTube ads rank number one in attention compared to streaming, social and linear TV. That informs the way that we design our products because we want to build ad formats for those engaged users so that they can lean in, learn a little more, browse the brand and products and act on their curiosity.

J

John Nicoletti1:08:32

I love that. What you're building is working. I'm not just saying that because we're friends. The stats back it up. Customers say they're more likely to consider a purchase on a YouTube ad than TikTok or Reels. Question number one, YouTube is the best platform for growth, reach, highest attention for ads and leads to better purchase decisions. Nailed that, alright. So let's get back to it. Question number two, for marketers that are under pressure to drive results right now, which is literally everybody, how do I get the best possible performance with Demand Gen?

N

Nicky Rettke1:09:09

Well it's simple. If you want the best performance on YouTube you need Demand Gen in your mix. Now, we look at the performance of advertisers who are just running search campaigns or only running PMax versus those who added Demand Gen into their mix and we see a 10% higher ROAS and 12% higher sales effectively.

J

John Nicoletti1:09:30

Massive lift. Step one, get Demand Gen in the mix. Also seems like the campaigns are driving better and better performance. What's behind that?

N

Nicky Rettke1:09:37

It's Gemini. The latest models have supercharged our audience targeting. They learn from users' behavior across Search, YouTube and Maps to deeply understand what they're interested in. Now, have you ever discovered something perfect on YouTube, before you even thought to search for it?

J

John Nicoletti1:09:53

Yes.

N

Nicky Rettke1:09:54

Great, that's Demand Gen at work. The signals that we have are much better predictors of real intent than anything on social.

J

John Nicoletti1:10:01

Well, I mean that makes sense. I think if you looked at my social feed you'd see a bunch of puppies right now but that doesn't mean my wife is going to let me get another one. But Search, YouTube and Maps is a true reflection of who I am.

N

Nicky Rettke1:10:14

Yes, it sure is. First of all, I kind of want to see your feed. I also love puppies.

J

John Nicoletti1:10:19

That's an entirely different podcast.

N

Nicky Rettke1:10:21

I think this is something people really need to understand. Demand Gen captures billions of moments of real world intent, not just to match, but to actually predict what customers are going to want next and that's how you create demand. Our team has made hundreds of demand changes resulting in 30% conversions on average.

J

John Nicoletti1:10:47

Massive, the Gemini advantage paying off. We've seen the results from many of you in the room. I'm going to give a couple examples. You know these but for everyone else. Start with GM. Anyone looking for a new car? I heard a couple. I got one over in the corner, thank you. Probably on the livestream. Buying a car is not an impulse buy. It is a long-term business decision. From a marketing perspective, you have to capture someone early and stay with them through the process. GM stayed with them until the car rolled off the lot. It works, 3X ROI on YouTube across the portfolio.

N

Nicky Rettke1:11:26

Nice.

J

John Nicoletti1:11:27

You like to travel. Allianz, different challenge, similar approach. Nobody thinks about travel insurance until we need it, which meant if Allianz wanted to wait until check-out page to introduce themselves, it was way too late. They used Demand Gen to catch travelers early when excited about planning and made insurance a smart choice, not an afterthought. Again this worked. A 4% incremental lift on revenue, yes, we can cheer for that.

N

Nicky Rettke1:12:01

Those are amazing results but we also know it works super well for retail.

J

John Nicoletti1:12:07

We love lead gen and retail. I'll talk about puppies. Petco, any pet parents out there? Let's wake it up, folks. Petco finds loyal pet lovers, not people just chasing a one-time discount. So naturally they expanded to YouTube and the results blew past expectations. Their Demand Gen campaigns outperformed social benchmarks especially during cyber week, which drove stronger ROAS, more clicks and a lift in purchase intent.

N

Nicky Rettke1:12:37

Love it. Great results, more puppies for everyone.

J

John Nicoletti1:12:41

That's the tent outside.

N

Nicky Rettke1:12:42

Okay, great. We are always pushing ourselves to deliver more.

J

John Nicoletti1:12:46

Wait a minute, so is this the part of the show at GML where you're going to come up with some product announcements?

N

Nicky Rettke1:12:52

You know it. That's why everyone's here, right? This is why I'm here.

J

John Nicoletti1:12:57

That's why I'm here, too. Let's go.

N

Nicky Rettke1:12:59

Just to lay some ground work, Demand Gen is already powerful because it gets you in front of your customers on our most visual surfaces. We have Gmail.

J

John Nicoletti1:13:10

I'm on that 100 times a day.

N

Nicky Rettke1:13:12

Aren't we all? Discover just got a major upgrade with Gemini.

J

John Nicoletti1:13:18

I've been spending more time with the feed, the Ads look fantastic as well.

N

Nicky Rettke1:13:22

Obviously YouTube but I have some big news. This is our first Demand Gen launch of the day.

J

John Nicoletti1:13:28

Okay.

N

Nicky Rettke1:13:29

I hear you're a drummer, so can I maybe get a drum roll going?

J

John Nicoletti1:13:34

I got something better. Check this out.

N

Nicky Rettke1:13:40

Nice. You really came prepared.

J

John Nicoletti1:13:43

The high-production show. Here we go.

N

Nicky Rettke1:13:46

So Demand Gen Ads are officially expanding to Google Maps. Yes, let's hear it! So Maps plays an important role in the purchase journey. You're reaching people already on a mission to buy.

J

John Nicoletti1:14:00

That's cool. Maps is something that I feel like is embedded in our lives and everything that we do. If you're putting Demand Gen Ads with Maps that's a game-changer for performance.

N

Nicky Rettke1:14:11

It will supercharge Ads but wait there's more. Go for it. I know you want to.

J

John Nicoletti1:14:16

Let's talk about Product Feeds.

N

Nicky Rettke1:14:23

Do it. They make ads more interactive and shoppable.

J

John Nicoletti1:14:26

YouTube is going to shorten the path to purchase for consumers.

N

Nicky Rettke1:14:30

Short-cut to check-out. For those of you using Product Feeds you've seen the results, they drive a 33% increase in conversions. So we're going to be expanding these Product Feeds to more places like tablets. First time coming to tablets and also bringing them to pause ads starting on mobile. If you stop the video, you can keep on shopping and the thinking behind the launch is we want to put your most shoppable ads where people are ready to shop.

J

John Nicoletti1:14:57

Okay and happening on every device. So much goodness here. Google Maps, we have Product Feeds in more places. What else is coming?

N

Nicky Rettke1:15:04

Well, this is YouTube Marketing Live.

J

John Nicoletti1:15:08

We said that, yes.

N

Nicky Rettke1:15:10

We have to talk about the power of creators. We see that adding creator assets to Demand Gen campaigns increases conversion lift by an average of 20%. So we're making it easier to discover and boost those creator assets. So hit it, John. When you set up your Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads we'll be surfacing relevant creator partnerships that feature your brand, just like a 'get ready with me' video featuring E.l.f. products. If you like what you see, you can easily add them into your campaign.

J

John Nicoletti1:15:43

Super easy.

N

Nicky Rettke1:15:44

If you happen to be part of the YouTube Affiliate Program you can take some of those affiliate partnership videos and boost them, you can see which creators are driving the most sales, take the affiliate videos and boost them directly in Demand Gen.

J

John Nicoletti1:15:57

I love all of that. Talk about a brand in the room or livestream putting that into action, Coach. Coach is a classic luxury brand that needed to win over Gen Z, I feel is something I'm doing every day. They know they could not optimize their way to Gen Z just by focusing on performance. They turned to YouTube and Demand Gen creators to help and they did it with Haley Pham, like 4 million subscribers for authentic storytelling and scaled the assets with Demand Gen. The results were massive here, a 60% increase in global top-of-mind awareness and six-fold increase in consideration and sustained growth in Gen Z acquisition, all in one quarter. The big takeaway, they did not choose brand or performance. They did both. They did it on YouTube and that is how you lead in your category.

N

Nicky Rettke1:16:51

Love it.

J

John Nicoletti1:16:52

I love it, too. Lots of goodness on Demand Gen. That brings us to our final question, alright, and this is a big one so pay attention. This is the number one question you all ask me every day. I'm hearing more and more marketers say they think YouTube is undervalued. In the media mix, they don't know how to prove it. Final question, how is this paying off in a way that my CFO will care about?

N

Nicky Rettke1:17:15

Okay, so the truth is that many measurement tools are built off of this legacy concept of clicks. But if that's the way that you're looking at your video campaigns, then you're not seeing the full value. You're not seeing what's really driving sales. To get that full picture of what's actually working, you have to look at measurement with three things in mind. So what counts as a view, how to assign credit across different channels, and how to measure value over time. Now, one thing that's pretty different about YouTube and I touched on this earlier is that people aren't just scrolling past. They really remember the ads that they see. Sometimes they might see the ad and buy something immediately but more often the engaged view kicks off a journey that leads to a sale a little bit later. We leaned into the engaged view conversions, the gold standard for video measurement. For a reminder on YouTube, an engaged view means someone actually chose to watch at least five seconds of your ad.

J

John Nicoletti1:18:14

Alright, what you're saying is not all views are created equal. To the audience I'd ask you, please take a look at your mix and question some of the impressions that you're getting where elsewhere, a split-second scroll-by is not the same as an engaged view.

N

Nicky Rettke1:18:30

No. Demand Gen and social campaigns can look really similar to consumers but for us all as marketers, the measurement is worlds apart.

J

John Nicoletti1:18:38

I think there are some platforms out there that are counting every impression as a win for them, which would mean if your customer engaged on a beautiful YouTube ad, blew by something in their social feed, clicked an ad and converted, another platform could claim credit for the whole conversion.

N

Nicky Rettke1:18:56

Exactly. Many platforms count every passive impression as a total win for them, which really makes it hard to do apples-to-apples comparisons. But we want to change that. Actually we're bringing the real-world value of YouTube into your measurement and two new updates I'm excited to share.

J

John Nicoletti1:19:17

You're rolling. Go.

N

Nicky Rettke1:19:18

You asked for more clarity in your Google reporting. Historically we de-duped conversions across our different campaigns which sometimes made it a little bit tricky to see which conversions were actually driven by your Demand Gen and that's exactly why we're launching campaign-type attribution. So this highlights every conversion that Demand Gen contributes to, so you can see finally how it's performing alongside all of your other channels.

J

John Nicoletti1:19:46

Two things. First of all a very clear explanation and secondly, thank you. That's something everyone has been asking for quite a while. Thank you for listening.

N

Nicky Rettke1:19:52

You're welcome.

J

John Nicoletti1:19:56

There you go!

N

Nicky Rettke1:19:57

Alright, keep it coming. This is great.

J

John Nicoletti1:19:59

It's a good audience.

N

Nicky Rettke1:20:00

I've got more, actually. We know that you also want to see the impact of YouTube in your third-party tools. For that independent third-party validation we're working with partners like TransUnion. You can see the true impact of your video spend across your entire media stack. Finally, providing modern multi-touch attribution that goes beyond this legacy concept of just clicks.

J

John Nicoletti1:20:26

Alright, we

We got first party. We got third party. That is the best proof your CFO is going to get, that is us talking about the ultimate metric here, ROI, real tangible performance that drives your business. That is how you change the conversation with your CFO from being a budget spender to a growth driver.

N

Nicky Rettke1:20:45

Work, I like that.

J

John Nicoletti1:20:47

Thank you very much.

N

Nicky Rettke1:20:48

As marketers, you are accountable for short-term sales and long-term brand equity, and the metric we use for that is long-term ROAS. The data shows that YouTube drives more than double the long-term ROAS of TV and streaming and paid social, and actually with paid social comparison specifically, YouTube's effectiveness is 86% higher.

J

John Nicoletti1:21:12

Okay, I like it. I get it. Some are like a sugar rush, but higher long-term ROAS is how you build a business that lasts, the difference between buying the click and investing in real growth.

N

Nicky Rettke1:21:25

Exactly. But to really see that growth, I urge you all to look at YouTube differently. Only 40% of Demand Gen conversions happen in the first 30 days, but really that's just the beginning. And when we look past that initial window, we see a journey that drives value and grows your brand well after that first view.

J

John Nicoletti1:21:41

That's well said. Let me recap this: don't overlook the power of the view, get the full breakdown of your YouTube performance in Google Ads and own independent third-party reporting. Thank you, we did it. This is probably a good place to wrap up.

N

Nicky Rettke1:21:56

Yeah, we certainly covered a lot and that was fun. I can't wait to see what you all do with some of these new tools.

J

John Nicoletti1:22:02

Great stuff. If you have more questions, and I know you do, keep it coming and maybe we'll do an episode two. Now we have to go. Please smash the 'like' button and subscribe and thanks for joining us.

N

Nicky Rettke1:22:15

Thanks, everyone.

U

Unknown1:22:46

If we want to be a part of culture, we have to be part of creating with culture, like Cat's Eye, tapping into the magic of what they do.

It's not about just being in the mix. It's leading the way. Search and YouTube help to get us there.

Relevance is revenue and there's very few places to do that like Google.

We want to be where the audiences are. YouTube is the only platform that gives a three-minute video the space that it deserves.

As important as the Hero video, it's a six-second idea as well. I think that's the reality of how people are engaging with content.

It's a video platform that then supercharges things like search and intent and conversion.

We think very carefully about the consumer journey, scrolling and searching and streaming and shopping. Google can provide us every single tool throughout the journey.

The Performance Max and AI Max, the power and the speed with which we can convert an intent into an action has become faster and more collapsed from the content to the commerce.

My measure of success is when we are able to move someone from passive scrolling to participation.

Gap, Cat's Eye, inject all of this.

When you see people recreating what you're doing, that's when you know you've permeated culture.

We have seen a double-digit increase in our ROAS year over year. We've seen our brand searches for Gap outpace that even of Cat's Eye.

And I see people go into the store because of something we made, it's extremely validating.

People who were exposed to the Cat's Eye YouTube video had bigger basket sizes.

The results we're seeing, the conversations with our CFO is even more fun.

That's the name of the game and nobody does it better than Google.

J

Josh Moser1:24:59

Hi, everyone. It's time to talk about creative! We're going to talk about a very -- thank you for the cheer. It is an awesome topic. We're going to talk about a specific kind of creative today, it's the creatives that drive performance at scale. With me is Michelle Pham, the founder of Inner Child, and she'll show you some of the latest innovations we're bringing to the Google Ads Asset Studio.

M

Michelle Pham1:25:29

Thanks, Josh! It's exciting to be with you today.

J

Josh Moser1:25:34

You'll see, Michelle has built something really special.

M

Michelle Pham1:25:35

Thank you! It's been a wild two years starting this company! We use Google products every day.

J

Josh Moser1:25:42

Thank you for that.

M

Michelle Pham1:25:47

The biggest game-changer for us has been the creative tools. We sell so many beautiful products, handmade by artisans all over the world. I love telling that story. But we're a very lean team. I always need more assets and fresh content than I can actually make.

J

Josh Moser1:25:57

You are not alone in that. Something we've heard from so many of you. No matter how big or small your business is, everyone is hungry for more and better creative. And that makes sense, because we see that creative drives nearly half of all incremental ad sales. It's a huge number and that means it's the single biggest driver of your ad effectiveness by a wide margin, and that's exactly why we built Asset Studio. It's your creative home base in Google Ads -- one place to organize, build, and test everything.

M

Michelle Pham1:26:29

Josh, it's definitely become my creative home.

J

Josh Moser1:26:32

And it keeps getting better. We've integrated our most advanced models, Gemini, Veo and Imagen into Asset Studio. And this summer, we're adding our latest model, you just heard about at I/O, Gemini Omni. Asset Studio is also becoming more connected to your creative workflows. We know that your creative assets live in a lot of different tools. So we've made it very easy to just pull them all into Asset Studio. That means whether you're using YouTube Studio, Product Studio, Pomelli or if you're working in tools like Adobe or Canva, it all just shows up in your library. And for those of you managing thousands of ads at scale, we've even opened this up through our API to help you scale instantly. Michelle, you've been spending some time in Asset Studio lately. Want to show us what you've been building?

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Michelle Pham1:27:26

Absolutely. Let's go, Josh. So, my brand is all about whimsical home decor. We have a large and growing catalogue. And keeping things fresh for every single product is a constant challenge.

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Josh Moser1:27:40

I can only imagine. So where do you start?

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Michelle Pham1:27:42

I've been using Pomelli; it's this incredible tool from Google Labs. It's really simple. I just paste in my website URL, and it instantly generates on-brand images and videos for my site and social. Just like these amazing assets here.

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Josh Moser1:27:55

These are beautiful. Let's show everyone how you actually turn them into ad campaigns in Asset Studio.

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Michelle Pham1:28:01

Let's do it. I'm working on a new campaign for summer right now. And I really need some variety and some different visual directions. I'm going to pull in some images from my Asset Studio Library. We need to add in the brand guidelines. Then, tell the tool what I'm dreaming up. You can be super conversational like, 'I'd like to create an ad campaign focused on my new line of marbled lampshades. I'm trying to reach millennial home decorators.'

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Josh Moser1:28:34

I like it gives you a ton of headlines, descriptions and image options to choose and edit and refine. What do you think?

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Michelle Pham1:28:44

Yeah, they look great. They're vibrant and sticking to my brand guidelines.

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Josh Moser1:28:53

Question we did plan this. Glad it's going well. You need video and a lot of them so you can crush those campaigns. When you make videos in Asset Studio, you can be confident they are built to perform on YouTube.

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Michelle Pham1:29:05

Video is a pain point for a lot of us. I definitely need more videos. Let's see what happens when my idea turns into a video.

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Josh Moser1:29:15

Let's do it. This is where it gets fun. First, you choose a narrative, which will be the basis of your video content. Next you get a storyboard where you can see it before it's rendered. You can tweak the storyboard, swap out scenes, or change the flow right there.

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Michelle Pham1:29:29

It's fantastic. I love how I have more than one option. There's a lot of versions depending on my goals.

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Josh Moser1:29:35

Should we watch the video?

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Michelle Pham1:29:36

Yep, let's see it.

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Unknown1:29:40

Welcome to a life in color, lampshades hand crafted by master artisans, each one unique. Shop Inner Child.

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Michelle Pham1:29:54

Thank you, Josh, this is unreal. This is incredibly exciting. As a small team it's a huge lift to make videos and they just take too long for us. I feel like this opens a whole new world for us.

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Josh Moser1:30:08

Not only are the videos easier to make, it's super fast to run campaigns with the assets. That brings us to the most important point. Your business can't afford to waste money on ads that don't work.

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Michelle Pham1:30:24

You know it, every dollar counts.

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Josh Moser1:30:26

That's why we're making testing a standard part of Asset Studio. Just select your assets, hit 'Save and Create Test,' and the system automatically runs them against your current top performers to see which one wins. For larger businesses, even if you are creating your assets elsewhere, this is a really important function for you. It gives you the agility to constantly test new variations and see what's driving results.

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Michelle Pham1:30:50

Every business needs more data. As a bootstrap founder this is a dream. It's helping me grow and giving me time back to focus on the parts of the business I love.

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Josh Moser1:31:00

I love to hear that. That's exactly what we want for all of our partners, creatives that perform at scale. Michelle, thank you so much for being here. I hope all of your lampshades sell out after this demo.

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Michelle Pham1:31:12

I wouldn't complain! Thanks so much, Josh, for having me here today.

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Josh Moser1:31:17

Alright, everyone, the tools are ready. No more excuses. It's time to start creating! Thank you.

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Gaurav Bhaya1:31:35

Hello, GML! It's great to be back! We've seen some incredible AI innovations on this stage today, tools that transform your creative and supercharge your campaigns. And now, the section you've all been waiting for. Oh, I wish I had that YouTube buzzer with me right now. There you go! Thank you. It's data and measurement! Alright, I'm not delusional. I know this isn't the most fun and exciting topic for many of you. I'm the person asking you to eat broccoli when you're at the dessert table. But hey, you got to eat your broccoli. Measurement is arguably the biggest difference-maker in the performance of your ads. None of the incredible AI innovation you saw today matters if your measurement foundation isn't built to capture it. Measurement is the competitive edge that powers your AI. It helps you make smarter decisions. And it makes your outcomes more valuable. Successfully navigating this complex landscape requires a modern measurement playbook. It's anchored on three things. First, data strength, this is your ground truth. Connecting your data is how you fuel your strategy. Second, causality. To move at the speed of AI, you need timely signals that you can trust. Causality is what proves what exactly is driving your business. And third is a unified view. You cannot measure modern consumer journeys in silos. You need a unified picture across every channel to invest your next dollar in confidence. To show you what this looks like in practice, how about an explainer video from someone you probably follow on YouTube? Let's hear it from Neil Patel, the founder of NP Digital.

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Neil Patel1:33:48

Last year, a client came to us with a campaign that crushed it. Seven figures in tracked revenue. Everyone was high-fiving. Happy days right? Not so fast. They couldn't explain what drove the success. All the reports pointed to different things. So they didn't know how to replicate the results. So I started to dig in to see how we could solve this, because it seems like a lot of companies have this problem. And I found that Google has a three-part approach that actually works. First you need data strength, a clean signal. Most companies have their data scattered across five or six different tools that don't talk to each other. And on top of that, ad blockers and browser restrictions are quietly eating your data before it even reaches you. So you're making decisions based on incomplete data and you don't even know what's missing. To address this, we consolidated everything through Google's Data Manager -- one place where all our sources connect. Then we activated Google Tag Gateway to protect our signals. That's part one. Bring your data together. Second, you gotta have the right measures to know what works. Look, customer journeys are complex. You see a video ad. You go search to learn more. You forget about it. You get retargeted, click an ad and buy something. How do you really know what worked? Which step was important? A sale isn't a single moment. It's a process. You can run incrementality experiments. But they are time consuming and only provide a snapshot, not the whole picture. And your customers and business are more dynamic than ever before. The tough question is, how can you make good investments without timely information? Our attribution said one thing. Our experiments said something else. And people would pick whichever number made them feel the most comfortable. That's why you need always-on ways to measure causality. We created one clear picture of performance. It's transparent to your finance team or any third party can trust the math. Now you can sit down with your CFO and say, 'Here's exactly what our marketing drove. Here's the proof. Here's where we should move money next quarter.' Since adopting this approach, we've gained the clarity and confidence to double down on what's working and cut what isn't. And for the first time, our clients, CEOs and CFOs, have stopped asking 'what would happen to our sales if we turned off our ads.' Instead, they started asking how we could deploy more. Look, the playbook already exists. The real question is, when do you want to take the guesswork out of marketing?

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Gaurav Bhaya1:36:18

Thank you so much, Neil. Well said. I see why he does so well on YouTube. Let's unpack what Neil just laid out. First, data. In a market moving this fast, the rewards of getting your data right compound quickly. In fact, advertisers who build their 'data strength' with first-party data see an 11% average increase in incremental ROAS. The iconic shoe company, Doc Martens, is a great example of what data can do for you. They integrated their first-party data into Google Ads and fed it directly into Performance Max. This drove an immediate 16% jump in revenue. And that is just the initial gain. These gains should accelerate over time. If you aren't connecting your data, you are already behind. And you're feeling behind every day. Which is why we're making it easier for you. It is one connector across Google that measures audiences. It's built with the whole industry using standard lab copy. You don't have to share data over and over the different network. You share it once and it automatically works everywhere. Second, you need to understand causality. Here we're giving you two powerful new signals. First, Attributed Branded Searches, now available in Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform. This is the clear signal that your ad created intent. Attributed Branded Searches tracks short-term. This is important. But what about long-term impact? This is why we are introducing a new powerful metric: Qualified Future Conversions. They connect the signals such as follow-up branded searches, video views or site visits up to six months in advance. This means you can finally change the conversation you're having with your CFO. Instead of defending your spend, you're proving its long-term value. UK retailer Crew Clothing is a great example of why this matters. They ran a YouTube prospecting campaign that looked flat over a 30-day window. The results just weren't there. In the past they would have cut the campaign. But when they looked through the lens of Qualified Future Conversions, the true value was revealed: A 70% uplift in long-term conversions. Because they could see the future value of their ads, they didn't cut their campaigns, instead they scaled it. So you have the signals: Attributed Branded Searches for the short-term and Qualified Future Conversions for the long term. They give you both speed and truth. And you know we love our acronyms so much at Google so feel free to say ABS for Attributed Branded Searches and Qualified Future Conversions, QFC! Believe me, this is a team you are gonna want to be a part of! To get the full, unified picture, they need to talk to each other, otherwise it just tells a part of the story. This brings us to the third and final point: A Unified View. That's where Meridian, our next generation open source MMM, comes in. The more data and more signals you provide it, the better it gets. But whether you have an army of data scientists or a lean team, you need a command center that is powerful and actionable. For those of you who want a powerful, turnkey solution, we are bringing the intelligence of Meridian directly into a reimagined Google Analytics 360. This is your new command center for modern measurement. We are making cross-channel measurement seamless. For the first time, you can analyze your performance across Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Snap and other social media platforms, all in one place! And now you can actually 'scenario plan' across these channels in Google Analytics 360, powered by Meridian. We are making it easy by connecting sophisticated intelligence to our agentic experience. So you can just talk in natural language. You can ask questions such as, 'How should I budget for next quarter?' Or, 'How are my ads performing across channels?' My colleague, Selin, will be out in just a moment to show you how agentic experiences work end to end. But before I pass the baton, remember, measurement is your competitive edge and the engine for your growth. Build your data strength. Leverage timely causality signals. Unify your view in one place. And don't forget to eat your broccoli. This is your playbook, and we are your partner in this journey. Thank you.

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Selin Song1:41:50

What a transformational moment in marketing for us as an industry, and as individuals. With all these new opportunities, we are all rethinking how we spend our time. How we spend our energy. Look, you all know your stuff. You are excellent at running media campaigns. Whether you're getting under the hood yourself or hiring rock stars to do it, you know how to navigate that media maze, that expertise in execution is one of your superpowers. But things are changing; execution is becoming a commodity. And will no longer be a competitive advantage. Because when the technical side becomes easier for everyone, your true edge comes back to what only you can provide: Your strategy. Now, what's making that possible? I'm going to use the 'A' word. No, not that one. Close, but not that one either. I'm talking about 'Ask.' Think about how you 'ask Google' for help. You ask Maps, 'Is there a pickleball court with lights on where I can play tonight?' You ask Photos the name of that amazing restaurant you loved on vacation with the amazing tacos. You are already an expert at asking for what you need. Now you have 'Ask Advisor' working for your ads business. Last year we started rolling out agents in our various ads products. But thanks to your feedback, we're moving from a family of agents to one Ask Advisor. Yes! Ask Advisor acts as your new team of experts all rolled into one experience. Now you can ask tough questions like, 'How can I optimize my campaign for new customer acquisition?' Or 'Show me abandoned carts across new and existing customers by region?' And you'll get responses tailored to your data. You shouldn't have to have a PhD in data analytics to get the best results. We're using agentic technology to shoulder the burden of technical execution, so you can spend less time wrestling with tools and more time following up on strategic insights to win in the market. Now, we're here at our Bay View campus with the very team who is building it. Let's check in with them. Priya, are you there? Tell everyone what you've been up to.

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Priya1:44:43

Hey, GML! This is the team working on the coolest agentic technology for marketers. Hey, GML! Last year, we gave you AI advisors everywhere. It was a great start but we are not stopping, because we know that moving between our platforms still feels like work. And we wanted to change that. Turns out, the latest Gemini models are precisely the breakthrough that we needed. The tech is now so powerful that we have been able to connect the dots across our entire ecosystem. Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, Google Marketing Platform -- you're talking to one continuous intelligent partner that understands your business as deeply as you do. We built a shared memory layer, so Ask Advisor remembers your goals as you move from one task to another. No more reprompting. No more 100 open tabs. Just proactive guidance every step of the way. I could geek out about the engineering all day, but trust me, this is so cool. We can't wait for you to try it. Back to you, Selin.

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Selin Song1:46:04

Thanks, Priya. Bye! There's nothing like hearing directly from the people building the products, but we really want to show you what the Ask Advisor can do for you. Let's watch the video.

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Unknown1:46:21

Wow, that's a big target. Where should I start? What if I just ask?

Introducing Ask Advisor. An agentic end-to-end workflow to help achieve your marketing goals. All you need to do is ask.

I want to focus on new Dyson customers. Hmm, a strong plan. Let's go.

A single continuous conversation that connects across Google Ads, Merchant Center, Google Analytics and other platforms to achieve your goals across every campaign. Ask Advisor keeps track of your goals no matter where you are and recommends strategies to reach them.

Nice. You remembered. Yes. Let's optimize and add those product details. Looking good.

It remembers your conversations, understands your business and spots opportunities for improvement.

Sure. Let's try it.

Ask Advisor can offer creative assistance, brainstorm and generate assets and copy.

Generate a draft? Yes. Let's add to that Google Ads. Looks great.

It can even launch campaigns for you.

Wow, almost there. Woo, that worked out. That's great engagement.

See what's driving results with Ask Advisor's holistic reports and understand reports across Google's platform.

Nice, precision paid off. Okay, great. Home stretch now.

And it continuously optimizes with you.

We did it! So don't start from scratch. Start with the conversation, and hit all your marketing goals. Just ask.

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Selin Song1:48:08

Alright, wow, what an unlock! It is so powerful to have these advisors working for marketers across platforms. And this is just the beginning of what agentic technology is going to do for your business. What was previously impossible is truly becoming possible. If you are a large enterprise, you always have more ideas and opportunities than you can go after. Expand to new markets. Reach more consumer segments. Deepen your customer experience. You're always being asked for more. Now you can spend more time on the outcomes you want to achieve rather than the minutiae of execution that will get you there. If you're a small business, you've spent years feeling like the underdog. Limited by resources and capabilities, the Advisor will act as your equalizer. You may not have 10X the resources but you can have 10X the speed, agility and impact. This is the outside expertise you thought you couldn't afford. And finally, my agency partners. With more agentic support, you'll have new avenues to be successful and new services to offer. I've spoken with agencies who say they can now serve customers they didn't have the capacity to work with before, or they didn't think would be profitable. The impact equation is evolving! You can service 50 clients with the same team that used to be stretched thin with 10. So whether you are a global titan, an underdog, or the agency that powers them, the opportunity is clear: We are building a world that was previously impossible. Soon all you'll have to do is 'Ask.' You'll just open up your Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, Google Marketing Platform or any of our advertising tools and start using the Ask Advisor. We're entering this new frontier together. It is such an honor to be on this journey with you. Now, my colleague Sean is going to wrap us up and ensure you have everything you need to put all this technology to work for your business. Thank you!

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Sean Downey1:50:47

So what do we think? It's an exciting time to work in our industry, right? But listen, I get it. It can feel a little overwhelming at times. I want to make sure when you leave here you have absolute clarity so you can take it back to your teams. If you remember one thing and one thing only, I hope it's this: Our Gemini advantage is your business advantage. The performance you see today is actually just the baseline for tomorrow. Why? Because our technology gets better every single day. So let's quickly recap. AI has supercharged -- AI has supercharged -- no, wait, this doesn't work. Maybe it's like my TV at home. Sometimes you got to knock on these things, maybe do one of these. I thought we were going to have a seamless show. I'll check, it's unplugged, bear with me. Hopefully it works. Is this on? Okay, let's do a recap. But first, a quick tour.

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Unknown1:52:03

We are hearing that AI has supercharged Google Search. There's more searches than ever and more ways for you to ask. Now the best Ads are answers. Back to you.

AI Max and PMax make you that answer.

Agentic Commerce is here. It all starts with Merchant Center. To be discovered, make sure your product feeds are rich and accurate.

YouTube is a brand-building powerhouse and a massive driver of conversions.

Demand Gen is how you create and convert that demand.

Need high-performing ads across every new format? Our most powerful AI models power Google Ads Asset Studio to generate ads that work at scale.

Getting measurement right has compounding effects for your business. Nail the foundations. Connect and tag your data, measure causality, and compare with MMMs.

I understand it now. Woo!

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Sean Downey1:53:36

Okay, other Sean, you can take it from here. That was super cool. You all got to get one of those things, it's a best way to get around. Thank you, other Seans. I've been waiting for those other Seans my entire life. They can help on productivity. I'd like to get to New York faster. Since they're late on details, I'm going to wrap up for them. Bear with me for a beat longer. If there's any room that understands that repetition aids recall it's certainly this one. Let's get to it. Okay, Vidhya opened by telling you we are listening to you. And trust me, we are! When you win, that's when we win. Which means your pain points are our pain points. So let's see if we delivered on everything that we said we would. And remember, no matter what you sell or how big your business is, there's something for everyone in the room. Okay, you asked for clarity on where Search is headed and most importantly what it means for your business. We showed you how AI is the best thing that has ever happened to Google Search. People can now search for whatever they want, however they want. And they've responded by searching more than ever before. We actually showed you new ad formats, personalized recommendations, direct offers at the highest moment of intent and then ads that you can chat with and even ads that have native check-out. Now the best ads are really just great answers. AI Max and PMax make all of you that great answer. Okay, You also asked 'how to be a part of the future of Commerce' and we showed you that Agentic Commerce isn't just coming; it's here today. We've assembled all the pieces that you need, the shopping graph, the payments, the cloud infrastructure, and now Universal Commerce Protocol. But the most important thing that you can do today is focus on your Product Feeds in Merchant Center. Rich feeds are the fuel to help you get discovered. You also asked, 'How to unlock performance on YouTube.' Until marketers are asked to choose. Build your brand and culture or drive sales and the sooner the better. I ask all of you, why should you compromise when YouTube can do both for you. Demand Gen is driving conversions like never before, with better signals, more shoppable formats and even more surfaces. You can get better results when you add YouTube creators that build a community, the trust and the resonance that drives your brand growth and we have new measurement solutions like Campaign Type Attribution that finally lets you stack YouTube up against social. Demand Gen is how you unlock performance on YouTube. You also asked how to help with generative creative because you need ads that work at scale. Creative is still the number one driver of your performance and we're making it easier to take advantage of all the visual ads formats we offer. We showed you how you can create, edit and optimize image and video assets directly in Google Ads with Asset Studio. And finally, you asked for tools that better guide your marketing investment. We showed you the compounding effects of data strength. So first, you got to connect those signals. Help us show you what's working best for your business. When you upgrade to Google Tag Gateway and integrate your offline CRM, you will see a world of difference. Second, prove your impact through true measures of causality, and finally get that unified view across your channels.

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Philipp Schindler1:57:30

channels with MMMs like Meridian. And if you want, you can transform Google Analytics 360 into your unified command center to invest with speed and confidence across your entire marketing mix. Now, marketers like you and in this room and on this stream are leading the way on AI transformation. But there is still a gap between what the technology can do and what marketers are actually doing with it. I want to make sure you close this gap so you can realize the performance you saw today and improve your businesses. That's why we created the ROI Essentials company. Think of these on the must-dos to get you on the right road. I like to call them the brilliant basics, but they're really just practical next steps to share with your teams, your agencies, your partners, things that get everyone on the foundational path to excellence. And also to make sure you are getting the best performance out of Search, YouTube, and our Commerce solutions. So scan away. Get your teams working. Set those AIs, maybe deadlines for two weeks, probably a good timeline for you, and we'll get you on the right path. Okay, it's an absolute privilege for all of us here at Google to be a part of your business success. So we thank you for your trust. We thank you for your partnership as we go on this incredibly wild ride together. And I thank you for joining us at this year's Google Marketing Live event. For those of you on the livestream, please stay with us because we have an incredible post-show coming up. You'll hear from more product leaders who will take your questions and go deeper into the product innovations that you saw right here this morning. So I really thank you for being here again.

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Maya Shankar1:59:28

Wow, what a keynote. For those who missed the pre-show, I'm Maya Shankar, and I am thrilled to be your host as we debrief the latest updates. That keynote has jam-packed with new features and solutions that are going to really translate AI-powered innovation into tangible impact for customers in the industry. And back from his stint on the main stage, I'm excited to welcome back John Nicoletti, Vice President of Google Customer Solutions.

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John Nicoletti1:59:58

Thanks, Maya. There's so much to be excited about. If you need a recap of the announcements made or more recordings and takeaways for the day, find it on Accelerate with Google. We're also bringing your most pressing questions from the live Q&A to search and YouTube product leaders in our 'Ads Decoded' podcast recording right after this.

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Maya Shankar2:00:20

You know I love a good podcast, John. Before we get into the product deep dive, I think you wanted to talk about the people who actually are using these innovations. It's one thing for us to demo features on stage, but the real magic happens when they're in the hands of marketers and agencies.

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John Nicoletti2:00:34

Exactly, Maya. That's really the essence of what we want to celebrate with The Google Ads Impact Awards—the people who do incredible things with our products. These awards honor the individuals and agencies who are innovating with AI and Google Ads to push the boundaries of creativity and make marketing magic, all while driving measurable business impact. And the competition this year was fierce. We had hundreds of submissions from the U.S. and Canada. Our jury, including some of our distinguished colleagues at Google, as well as leaders from the 4As, the Association of Canadian Advertisers, and the Canadian Media Directors' Council had the massive task of selecting only the best-of-the-best.

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Maya Shankar2:01:21

This is super exciting! Let's announce the winners, John.

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John Nicoletti2:01:29

We had five award categories this year, but I want to start with our highest honor, the AI Excellence Award. This award recognizes a truly holistic mastery of AI across Search, Measurement, and Creative. Our first winner, Heidi Giggie, representing Royal Bank of Canada, redefined what's possible in the financial services space. They didn't just use AI—they integrated it across AI Max for Search and Bid Exploration, Performance Max, and Demand Gen to drive a 76% lift in approved credit card applications. Let's see how they took a challenge and turned it into a competitive advantage.

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Narrator2:02:04

In the high-stakes world of credit cards, winning means being the first choice for consideration with new customers. Royal Bank of Canada replaced disconnected campaigns with a synchronized Google Ads engine. By unifying their search and Discover channels, the impact was transformative: a 341% increase in reach and a massive 76% surge in approved applications. For mastering a full-funnel AI-driven strategy, we congratulate our AI Excellence Award winner, Royal Bank of Canada.

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John Nicoletti2:02:37

Their approach to orchestrating AI solutions proved to be a total game-changer in a competitive market. And our agency winner, Wpromote, took a different but equally bold shift by modernizing the conversion engine to fuel Performance Max and broad match with data-rich CRM signals for their client, Learning Care Group. Here's how they used AI to boost Learning Care Group's enrollment growth, resulting in a 331% increase in registrations.

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Narrator2:03:08

In early education, every search represents a family's future, but not every lead is a perfect match. To help Learning Care Group grow across 15 brands, Wpromote connects intent with real-world enrollments. They reached the people most likely to enroll. The result: a 331% increase in registrations while making every marketing dollar work 49% harder. For redefining growth at scale with data-driven empathy, we congratulate our AI Excellence Award winner, Wpromote.

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Maya Shankar2:03:43

It's so inspiring to see campaigns that are not just driving traffic; they're driving transformational business impact. But the excellence doesn't stop there. We also want to celebrate our winners in our specialized categories, starting with Creative Impact. Creative Impact recognizes those who are creating engaging and effective ads that deliver powerful and relevant marketing messages to their target audience. I'm thrilled to announce Kevin Le, representing Brennan Enterprises, and our agency winner, SearchKings, for their exceptional work. Next up, our Data Innovation Award showcases those who used Google Ads data, along with AI, to make data-driven decisions that improve their campaign strategy and performance. Congratulations to Matthew Umbro from Arbutus Digital and our agency winner, Glassroom.

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John Nicoletti2:04:43

As we continue to recognize more exceptional work, I'm excited to announce the winners of a new award category this year. International Growth demonstrates how marketers are leveraging Ads and AI to navigate business expansion, connecting with new global customers to drive sustainable growth. Our very first winners of this award are Tim Davis from ElevenLabs and Brainlabs Digital for Agency! And last, but certainly not least—Media Achievement honors those driving real business impact by delivering specific, personalized ads to the right customer at the right time. Congratulations, Christian Walker from VistaPrint and LGG Media for Agency.

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Maya Shankar2:05:23

Congratulations again to our winners, and thank you for raising the bar for the industry by pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI in Google Ads. If you'd like more details on their winning strategies, visit accelerate.withgoogle.com/awards. Now John, I know that winning a Google Ads Impact Award is a huge achievement for marketers. But for every one of these winners, there are thousands more who are in Google Ads every day; they're optimizing, testing, and putting in the work to get to that level.

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John Nicoletti2:06:00

We want to recognize the vital role marketers play in driving business results, ensuring every step, from creating concept to final execution, delivers tangible growth. So I am thrilled to officially launch Rewards, an exclusive new offering from Accelerate with Google. It's simple. Once you join, you'll receive personalized goals specifically designed to drive ROI for your business and grow your expertise. As you complete these goals—driving real impact through strategic refinement, testing, and adoption of new features—you'll earn points. And here's the best part: you can redeem your points to claim premium prizes in our Rewards store, like a subscription to Google AI Pro for advanced AI features, access to MasterClass courses, and more. We're rolling out Rewards on an invite-only basis to users in the U.S., with more markets to follow shortly. Keep an eye out for more details! To access Rewards, in addition to the latest announcements, product training direct from our experts and more, make sure to sign up for Accelerate with Google. Whether you're winning a Google Ads Impact Award or earning points through our new Rewards program, we want to celebrate you for your work and the impact that it drives.

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Maya Shankar2:07:16

Thanks, John. We want to get you on your way to driving results using some of the big announcements we saw on the main stage. That's why coming into this Studio next is 'Ads Decoded,' live from Bay View. Our Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, is sitting down with the literal architects behind these products to break down the tech behind the headlines. I'm Maya Shankar. Thank you so much for watching today.

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Ginny Marvin2:07:56

Hello everyone. I'm Ginny Marvin and this is a very special edition of 'Ads Decoded' here at Google Marketing Live. Joining me today are advertising platform senior director Josh Moser, Christine Turner, managing director for measurement, data and audiences, and Chris Monkman, senior director for Ads and AI experiences. Welcome, Josh, Christine, and Chris. It's great to have you here. Each of you have been in Search, YouTube, and measurement for so many years, and what is standing out to you about this moment? Josh, why don't we start with you?

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Josh Moser2:08:31

One thing that stands out to me is the pace of development. It's really cool how we're seeing some of these new AI-enabled workflows and other capabilities take product ideas that felt like science fiction a year or two ago and let us turn them into real live products for people to use. The creative space is certainly one where we've seen a lot of that. I think both the quality and the capability to help brainstorm new creative messaging, create images, and even video is remarkable. And part of what I like about these developments is it's not just about the quality of what's being produced. We're basically finding new ways for advertisers to provide inputs around how do they want their brand to show up, what are the types of audiences they want to reach, and what types of creatives do they want to show to the audiences. That enables a level of personalization that wasn't possible even a year or two ago. So fulfilling to work on those types of products and bring them to life.

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Ginny Marvin2:09:27

How about you, Chris?

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Chris Monkman2:09:28

It's an exciting time to work in Search. With the AI experiences, I feel like Search has become so much more powerful and helpful. You know, like we're seeing it definitely in the user data, a lot more long queries and complicated queries coming our way, definitely more growth in the kind of things that users bring to us. And even in my own personal life, we introduced AI Mode exactly a year ago, and you know, it was at first a really helpful feature, but now I find I'm starting all of my search journeys there. The other thing that's really striking to me is the technology pace itself. So you know, I've been working on quality models for Ads for over a decade. And it's really striking to see how good Gemini is at things like relevance. And lastly, you know, I think the change in user behavior and their sort of expectations around what a search result looks like has really shifted. We're seeing a lot more demand for answers, and in fact, that's what Vidhya called out in the keynote. To me, this is driving a lot of our roadmap these days.

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Ginny Marvin2:10:31

How about you, Christine?

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Christine Turner2:10:32

How exciting to be here talking about creative and AI, and I think just as an industry, it's a really exciting time. But for me on the measurement side, I think what's been really fascinating—I've been in this space now for over 20 years—and it feels like on the measurement conversation, we've officially graduated from the world where we're really talking about campaign metrics, things like tracking clicks, to really being in a space where this is all about business outcomes for advertisers. And we have been on that journey a long time and we're on the other side of that. Hopefully people have seen this in the announcements today. We're moving to a world where measurement is not just about a report card. It's not looking backwards and here is the proof on how I performed, but it's actually becoming the fuel for performance moving forward and becoming more predictive. It gives marketers a lot more data to make great decisions on.

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Ginny Marvin2:11:29

The through-line AI is impacting all aspects from creative to the Ads to the way we can measure and report and activate. We'll dig into several of the announcements we heard about on stage around YouTube creative and new ad experiences in AI Mode. Chris, let's start with you. Sylvanus and Vidhya showcased new ad experience your team is working on for AI Mode, and Vidhya mentioned specifically we aren't specifically putting Ads in AI experiences. We're reinventing what an ad is. Your team is behind that, no small task. You spoke a little bit about the changing consumer behavior, but how are those changes that you're seeing in AI Mode, AI Overviews shaping the work that you're doing on ad experiences?

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Chris Monkman2:12:21

We've always been really focused on trust, on ad healthiness and relevance as well as advertiser value. The difference is that expectations are really changed. The bar is so much higher these days. So let's just take trust, for example. You know, definitely what you see in the ad form as we showed today is clearly labeled and sponsored. With direct offers, users can only get a better deal. It's working to find more value. Another thing that is striking is the change in relevance. These days the context matters so much. The users come to us with a long and complex query. It's hard to understand that query with traditional methods, and then there's a rich AI response. And we need to match the ads not to the more complicated query but also to the rich AI response. And so we're leveraging Gemini to match ads to the query now. That's really changed like the quality I think of the results that we're giving and the healthiness of the response.

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Ginny Marvin2:13:25

This brings me to keywords, long been a north star of intent. You type in a few words, you get results back on Search, YouTube, that is changing as you've been explaining. So it's requiring a lot of rewiring, mindset shift for advertisers. AI Max has built to help respond to these shifts, and we've also heard ways today about how PMax and Demand Gen are also getting better at understanding intent. And so PMax and AI Max were very much emphasized as the ways to show up in these new ad experiences and AI Mode. Question again also from our live Q&A that has come up is, why are AI Max and PMax the ways to buy these new ads and what can they enable that standard shopping and search campaigns cannot?

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Chris Monkman2:14:20

So there's really two important parts to this. The first is that the query stream has materially changed. So we're seeing a lot longer queries, much more complex queries with very interesting sort of constraints on them. The users are coming to us with much harder problems. And you know, it's just very difficult to ever choose keywords manually that can match these queries. We're seeing a lot of benefit from using Gemini to look at the context of the AI Mode response as well as user's query and decide what ads are relevant. And so it's very important that advertisers enable automated targeting so that we can match their ads better to these queries. And the second part that you sort of saw in the formats that Vidhya announced today, we're trying to dynamically generate the query text to better answer the user's need. What we're clearly seeing in the user search is that users are expecting answers. They don't want results out to a page. They want to have a better understanding of why the ad is relevant to them. So that text customization part of PMax and AI Max is critical for advertisers to adopt. The thing we heard a lot from advertisers, though, is that they worry a lot about control. We've been listening very carefully to advertiser feedback, and that's why we announced the AI Brief. The idea here is that yes, we need to adapt this creative, real-time to really understand the user's needs and sort of explain the why, but we also have to do it in a way that respects the advertiser's brand message and gives them the control over the audiences that they want to target as well. So the AI Brief rolls that all into one. So there's the targeting aspect to it. There's the creative messaging part to it, and we think this is a really great way for advertisers to take advantage of all this AI sort of matching and text customization in a way that fits their goals and gives them the control that they need.

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Ginny Marvin2:16:08

That's building on the text guidelines that we have already had and will roll automatically into AI Brief. And there were at least a couple of formats that were specifically tailored for the lead gen advertisers, which I'm sure a lot of our audience is excited to see. Christine, data and measurement are so important for ensuring that lead gen advertisers can generate quality leads. We talked about this in-depth in a recent Lead Gen episode, and Gaurav talked about the compounding effects of data strength. And we've also announced more tools to help do the heavy lifting for advertisers. So what do you see as the biggest opportunity for lead gen advertisers in particular to improve their data and measurement game?

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Christine Turner2:17:01

Data, data, data in all formats—that's something we talk a lot about. One of the very interesting things is a continued evolution of our access or implementation of tagging, but very importantly for lead gen advertisers as well. One of the things I'm excited is bringing the simplicity of tagging through Google Tag Manager into Google Ads and Google Analytics. Regardless of where you are as a marketer, you'll have access to that upgrading of your tags. In addition to that, of course, we've spent the last few years really talking about the importance of bringing in offline data as well as identifiers in through Data Manager. And I think the importance for lead gen advertisers is being able to shift from the place where you're just looking at volume on some of the early signal, things like somebody completed a form or clicked through to a website, and actually being able to bring back in the value that comes on the other side. So for lead gen in particular, we see longer sales cycles or longer zig cycles. Being able to get that data back into our systems ultimately is what fuels your AI products even better, right. So we don't just want to drive leads. We want to drive high-quality, high-value leads for marketers. And so building those connections continues to be critical.

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Ginny Marvin2:18:28

And I think also the point about—I just wanted to go back to the Google Tag Manager, which is underscoring the fundamental importance of tagging. I think it's something that people set it and forget it, do it once, don't come back to it, and so having Tag Manager accessible in Analytics, I was excited to see that.

C

Christine Turner2:18:54

Very exciting. We had an evolution in Tags. You look at what we've done with Google Tag Gateway in particular, this is helping marketers enable signals ad blockers would have otherwise stripped from your campaigns and not just drive a view of attribution, but actually that helps you like feed back into optimization, which is a compounding effect that Gaurav was talking about today.

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Ginny Marvin2:19:19

I know not today, but we've recently announced more partnerships for Google Tag Gateway to be able to more easily implement that.

C

Christine Turner2:19:25

And more coming. So we're very excited about that.

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Ginny Marvin2:19:27

Alright, we also announced some other things for measurement. Branded searches is largely rolled out at this point. We also announced new Qualified Future Conversions and campaign type attributions. What are you excited about in this area and why?

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Christine Turner2:19:47

I'm excited about all of it. I'll start from the bottom of that. Campaign Type Attribution has been a request from marketers for a very long time. I think many people know as a default in our conversion attribution, we do conversions across all campaign types within your Google mix. And I think in particular for the campaign type of Demand Gen leading a consumer down the path to conversion, there's always been a question of what role has it played in that conversion path for consumers. And so Campaign Type Attribution allows marketers to look at the direct link that Demand Gen has in that attribution path and see that, which is a more apples-to-apples view for what we also get a lot of requests about to other social platforms. Really it's about isolating that Demand Gen performance and really understanding how it's influencing future conversions as well.

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Ginny Marvin2:20:44

You can see the full spectrum of where it's assisting along the way.

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Christine Turner2:20:48

Exactly. You've also mentioned attributed branded search, which is an exciting, new metric as you said, it has mostly rolled out. But really this is about linking, after a user is exposed to an ad, did they take a search for your brand or your specific product, which we know through a lot of research is highly connected to future intent. But it's a metric that gives marketers that real-time view of what's happening and how your campaign is ultimately driving more people again through that funnel. We've seen in different categories that marketers actually can use that information on attributed brand searches to predict future market share, future sales. And then the Qualified Future Conversions is very much in that category, too. It looks at signals like attributed brand searches, but importantly a lot of other signals that consumers do after being exposed to an ad, and what it does is really mathematically predict what future profitable growth would look like for that marketer. And so I'm really excited about this, because we know decision cycles for consumers can be longer, and so this allows marketers again another tool to recognize things that might come further downstream.

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Ginny Marvin2:22:07

And both attributed branded searches and qualified future conversions are always on in the UI, it's not something that you need to run experiment tests for or—

C

Christine Turner2:22:20

Correct. These are intended to be really strong proxies for marketers to make decisions on.

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Ginny Marvin2:22:25

So speaking of demonstrating the value of YouTube, we're on the topic of video. Josh, you demoed the ability to generate text, images, and video in Asset Studio on stage. So for businesses who haven't had a lot of creative resources, what are some of the tips for them to get the most out of Asset Studio?

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Josh Moser2:22:48

Yes, this is really cool capability. I think you saw it in some of the visuals on stage, but being able to go from just like an idea, general concept of what you want to show and how you want to kind of convey your business to like having a full slate of all of the headlines, descriptions, images, and all the different aspect ratios and videos is a remarkable capability. I think the first call-out would be try out the tools. See what you can come up with, experiment with a few different creative messages. It gives you feedback on yourself for what's working really well. The other area we're seeing a lot of businesses start to take advantage of these tools is the reality that there's so many different formats, there's so many different surfaces across Google Ads that historically it's been hard to develop a creative set that works well in each different context. You might only have the budget to shoot one video and not necessarily going to have short-form vertical videos and instream and all the other formats you need to show up really well across all of YouTube. That ability to try out a much broader diversity of assets and make sure you're showing consumers an ad that's specific to what they're looking for and specific to the surface they see it on. It's new and will help with driving performance, getting results, and making sure the ads the consumers see are relevant and match what they're looking for.

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Ginny Marvin2:24:05

Absolutely agree with trying it out, testing it out, employing what's there. What's so interesting about it is that you can bring in assets from Canva and other platforms, and also if I'm not mistaken, you can share for creative reviews with the rest of your team, stakeholders, clients.

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Josh Moser2:24:25

Over and over we heard, hey, my creatives in Google Ads are one piece of a larger ecosystem. I need to be able to take the work in products like Adobe and Canva, in my own digital asset management system, and it's quite hard to bring those over into Google Ads and tailor them in the right ways so you're showing up in the different campaigns. A big part of what we've developed is an easier way to bridge those assets over so they just show up in your library, you're able to customize them in a couple of clicks and tailor them so they're set up well for Google Ads. And to that point, you can share the previews of what the updated assets look like with your marketing departments, with legal and other stakeholders to make sure they're comfortable reviewing them before they run. Both that ability to bring things easily into Asset Studio and share them out when you need to, capabilities we're seeing a lot of interest and engagement on.

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Ginny Marvin2:25:18

Giving them more creative resources and creating workflows.

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Josh Moser2:25:23

Exactly.

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Ginny Marvin2:25:25

Also the AB asset experience in Asset Studio is interesting. We heard a lot of excitement about this as well. Can you share more about how it works?

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Josh Moser2:25:33

Yes, I would love to. This is where I like this format because we can go a little bit deeper than what you would see on stage normally, right? I think about two categories of what we're bringing forward to these experiment capabilities. Category one is sort of like a why do you need to run experiments on creatives? You have all this data about the click-through rates and conversion rates and so on of your assets. The reality is that only tells you half the story. If you're looking at historical time series data, that doesn't tell you how the assets incrementally contributed to your performance. So to give an example, you might have a particular image or particular video that has relatively low click-through rate. You might think that must mean it doesn't perform well. It could tend to get shown to users who already had a relatively low click-through rate, and that asset might still be incrementally helping their performance. If you want to understand what message is working best with just customers, you have to run an AB experiment. It's the gold standard for causality and figure out what is driving results. The other half of it is that I can say this as someone who worked on experiment products for years, it's historically been a little bit painful to run splits in Google Ads. So what I'm excited about the new capability we're rolling out, makes it easy to just swap out your creative messages. So when you have an asset you want to test, it's basically one click and all we change is the two assets, and you can take a look and actually get the full read-out, how did that affect your performance, what incremental results did the new asset drive, and you don't have the messiness of your campaigns getting copied and lots of other things out of sync. So makes it much more approachable and easier to use, and ultimately that means you'll be able to see what messages are driving incremental performance based on whatever your business goals are in a way that just wasn't really possible before.

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Ginny Marvin2:27:14

To close out, I want to recognize that this is an incredibly dynamic time in advertising, and the pace of change can often feel quite overwhelming. I think you also have all spoken about the pace of change for the work that you're doing and how fast things are moving, and that means that advertisers have to also keep pace with this change, and change management is difficult. So in that spirit, what is one action item that marketers can put on their schedule for next week to hit the ground running? Why don't we start with you, Josh.

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Josh Moser2:27:51

The first thing that I'd want people to try is to create. It's really interesting how we're seeing the role of marketers evolve. You help tell the story you want to tell, and AI is enhancing it and makes it show up in the way you want it for all of the different audiences you want to reach across the new surfaces and formats, making sure it's relevant for them, making sure it's engaging, and there's also a connection to goals as well. To your earlier point about bringing in that lower funnel lead data, that's important for creative as well because that helps you understand what are the messages that reach people who don't just fill out a form. They actually go on to become paying customers and drive value for your business as an advertiser. I think there's a synergistic effect here where as you try out some of the new creative messages, if you have the right measurement set up, using the types of automation we talked about, you're quickly going to be able to learn what is resonating and driving those business outcomes that you care about.

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Ginny Marvin2:28:46

Creative can be an optimizer, it finds audiences you wouldn't otherwise think it would find.

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Josh Moser2:28:51

That is such a good point. I love that, because I think this comes up often when people, when we've talked about this in other episodes as well, when you see an asset that is getting maybe a minimal impressions, but it is driving performance, and often that can just mean you're reaching a niche audience that you would not have reached otherwise without that asset being part of that combination.

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Ginny Marvin2:29:17

Great. Alright, Chris, what would you say?

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Chris Monkman2:29:18

I don't really want to give one.

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Ginny Marvin2:29:20

Okay.

C

Chris Monkman2:29:21

We spoke about how in order to like try out the new formats that we're experimenting with in AI Mode, that you need to adopt AI Max with text customization. That's something advertisers can go and do today. But we're also working on a bunch of other things in AI Mode. I'm really excited about direct offers. We've seen some really good early traction. We decided to put a lot more effort behind this experiment, and so the other thing I'd love advertisers to do is try out these new experiments like direct offers and tell us what they think about them so that we can bring that back into the product and keep innovating together.

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Ginny Marvin2:29:55

Great, and Christine?

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Christine Turner2:29:56

Data, data, data. You know, we really see that having a good data setup from both Tags as well as offline data, that becomes the big competitive advantage for marketers. And so if you have not yet established both your updated Google Tag Gateway and bringing in data through Data Manager, that would be the place I would start. But then also don't forget, we have big announcements in Google Analytics about linking a lot of third-party data in impressions and cost data so you can actually start to see the full consumer path. So a lot of different ways to connect data and to bring more collective insight to your decision-making.

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Ginny Marvin2:30:40

So often hear concerns from advertisers with either long sales cycles or they feel like they have low conversion volume for that end conversion, and are hesitant to get started with their data action plan, because they feel like they're already behind. What do you say to those advertisers?

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Christine Turner2:31:03

First and foremost, start with what you have. You don't have to start at the end, the most perfect data set, right. So of course we have some marketers that have gone through the trouble of assigning lifetime value to every person who has converted, and that's powerful data. But if you're not there, that's okay. There's probably a lot of steps in between that actually will really fuel and give insight into all of our AI campaign types that you've heard about today. So I think it's important to start with what you have. We also, as we talked about a little bit earlier, have a lot of partnerships and connectors out there, so explore some of the partnerships with some of your CMS providers, et cetera, so that you're connecting the pieces that can actually, you know, feed back in.

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Ginny Marvin2:31:49

That will do it. A huge thank you to Christine, Chris, and Josh for being here today. It's been so exciting to wrap up our first season of 'Ads Decoded' here at Google Marketing Live. And remember to catch up on everything from today, visit Accelerate with Google, and thanks for tuning in.

Google Marketing Live 2026

About Philipp Schindler