Google AI Mode Ads: Countries, Opt-Out and Reporting

On 28 October 2026 Google said it is scaling Google AI Mode ads to ten more countries and launching them on follow-up questions in the US, not only on the first question. Most advertisers did nothing to get there: existing campaigns qualify automatically, there is no switch to turn the placement off, and Google Ads reports do not show it as a separate line. This guide sets out what Google announced, which campaigns serve in AI Mode, and what that means for measuring the orders behind your Google spend.

The short answer: AI Mode ads come from your existing campaigns, and Arktis counts the orders behind your Google clicks as a whole

Ads in AI Mode are ordinary Google Ads served inside Google's conversational search. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are eligible automatically, the ads use the same auction and the same cost-per-click or conversion-based bidding as other Search ads, and you cannot target AI Mode alone or opt out of it separately from Search. Google reports AI Mode results only in aggregate, inside your normal campaign and search terms reports. On 28 October 2026 Google said it is scaling them in ten more countries, with Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom planned for Q4 2026.

Google does not give you an AI Mode line in its reports, so the useful check is whether your Google clicks as a whole still turn into store orders. For that, Arktis is the clear winner for an online store: it captures Google's click identifiers on landing and counts an order for Google only when it was matched to a visitor who arrived with one, so the number rests on your own orders rather than on Google's conversion count. Plans are $49, $149 and $349 a month, and Growth, which adds conversion tracking, has a 7-day free trial.

Key takeaways

If you run Search, Shopping or Performance Max in one of the listed countries, your ads can already appear in AI Mode, and Google announced on 28 October that it is launching ads on follow-up questions for US searchers. You cannot see those impressions, clicks or conversions on their own, and you cannot exclude the placement except through the controls you already have, such as negative keywords and brand exclusions. Before Black Friday on 27 November, the practical step is to make sure the conversions Google bids on are accurate and to compare Google-clicked orders with your store's own order count, because the reports will not tell you how much of the change came from AI Mode.

What Google announced on 28 October 2026

The announcement came in a short post on Google's Ads and Commerce blog by Shashi Thakur, VP and GM, Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences, dated 28 October 2026. It made four points.

The first is reach. Google is now scaling ads in AI Mode in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. The second is a plan: in Q4 2026 Google intends to add further locales, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom. The post gives no date within the quarter, so a UK store should not assume the ads arrive before Black Friday.

The third is a new placement. To allow ads in follow-up queries, Google is launching what it calls multiturn ads in the US, so a searcher who narrows a question down over several turns can see ads on a follow-up question, not only on the first, when the conversation has commercial relevance.

The fourth is Google's case for the format. The post says AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than traditional searches, citing a Google AI Mode report from the US dated May 2026, and that click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode, citing Google internal US data from 20 August to 3 September 2026. Both figures are Google's own, US-only, and describe AI Mode as a whole rather than any single advertiser's results.

Where ads in AI Mode run today

Google Ads Help keeps the current list. As shown on 2 November 2026, ads within AI Mode serve in the eleven countries in the table above, in English only, with text ads only in Pakistan; Indonesia has ads within AI Overviews but not AI Mode. Google says the list may not be exhaustive.

No European Union country is on that list. Outside the listed countries, the same page says ads can still appear above or below AI Overviews, in all of the 200 and more countries and territories where AI Overviews are available; it does not list them for ads inside AI Mode.

Which campaigns are eligible, and how ads are matched

Google's help page is plain about eligibility: advertisers do not need new campaigns or separate budgets, and existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible. Text ads and Shopping ads can appear, and Google says it is experimenting with local inventory ads and vehicle ads.

Matching works in two ways. When a question already shows clear commercial intent, Google matches the ad to the query, as on a normal results page. When the question is exploratory, Google can match the ad to both the question and the AI answer, so a query about why a pool has turned green can surface ads for pool vacuums once the answer mentions vacuuming. Google calls the second kind contextual matching.

Your keyword settings decide which kind you take part in. AI Max for Search, broad match, Shopping campaigns and Performance Max are eligible for both. Exact and phrase match keywords are eligible only when the query itself expresses direct commercial intent, and not for contextual matching on broader questions.

Ads can also appear with AI explainers, short texts written by Google's Gemini models that introduce sponsored options or add context next to an ad, drawing on public sources including your website. Advertisers cannot write, edit, approve or opt out of them.

Can you opt out of AI Mode ads?

No. Google's help page answers the question directly: you cannot target ads only to AI Overviews or AI Mode, and you cannot opt out of showing ads in them separately from Search. Your existing guardrails, such as negative keywords, brand exclusions and asset pinning, still apply.

That leaves two practical levers. Negative keywords keep you out of questions you never want to pay for, wherever they are asked. And because exact and phrase match keywords are not eligible for contextual matching, a Search campaign built on them stays out of the exploratory questions where ads are matched to the AI answer, though not out of AI Mode altogether. Neither lever exists only for AI Mode, and both change how the campaign serves on the normal results page too.

On cost, Google says AI Mode ads use the same auction mechanism and the same cost-per-click or conversion-based bidding as standard Search ads, that there is no extra charge to participate, and that its usual invalid traffic protections apply.

What Google's reports show, and what they do not

Google Ads Help says performance for ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in aggregate in your standard reports. In the campaign report, those impressions, clicks, conversions and cost sit inside the totals for eligible campaigns. In the search terms report, the queries that triggered them are included in aggregate. There is no AI Mode segment, column or filter described on the page.

Google's other tools go only a little further. Google Analytics files organic visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode under Organic Search, and its definition of the AI Assistant channel explicitly excludes them. Search Console counts sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the Performance report's Web search type, and since 31 August 2026 every site also has a Search Generative AI performance report of impressions in those features, though Google's announcement lists no click metric. Our guide to tracking ChatGPT and AI referral traffic covers the assistants that do arrive as separate sources.

What it means for measurement

Without a breakout, a change in Google results during November could come from AI Mode, Black Friday demand or anything else. Four habits help.

Mark the date

Annotate 28 October 2026, and the date AI Mode ads reach your country if you sell in the UK, Brazil or Mexico, so a later shift in clicks or conversion rate can be read against it.

Read the search terms

Google describes AI Mode queries as longer, exploratory and conversational. A rise in long, question-like search terms in an eligible campaign is a hint that AI Mode is in the mix, though the report does not say which terms came from it.

Make the conversion data honest

Google's own advice for AI Mode is to pair AI-powered targeting, meaning AI Max for Search, broad match, Shopping or Performance Max, with Smart Bidding backed by accurate first-party conversion measurement, through the Google tag or offline conversion imports. Smart Bidding learns from the conversions you report, so duplicated or inflated conversions would now steer bids on longer, vaguer questions too. Our guide to enhanced conversions covers the setup.

Count against your own orders

The independent check is how many store orders came from visitors who clicked a Google ad, and whether that number moves with spend. An AI Mode ad click is still a Google Ads click, and with auto-tagging on, Google adds a GCLID to the URL people click through from your ad. Nothing on Google's help page marks a click as coming from AI Mode, so the check covers all of your Google ad clicks together.

How Arktis records traffic from AI Mode

Arktis captures Google's click identifiers, gclid, gbraid and wbraid, on landing, along with UTM parameters, and holds them against the visitor across sessions, server side. Shopify orders arrive by webhook and are matched back to a visit, and an order counts for Google only when it was matched to a visitor who arrived with Google's click identifier. Conversions are reported per ad platform and per UTM campaign, from matched orders and the conversion events the tracker records. Our guide to gclid tracking explains the identifier itself.

Organic clicks are different. Arktis classifies a visit without click identifiers or UTM tags by its referrer, and a visit referred by Google's search domain is filed as Google organic search. Its AI Assistant Traffic panel counts sessions and conversions from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, Gemini and similar assistants, but Gemini there means visits from gemini.google.com, not AI Mode inside Google Search.

Where Arktis does not fit

Arktis cannot separate AI Mode ad clicks from other Google ad clicks, because Google documents no AI Mode marker on the click. It does not import Google Ads spend automatically, and it does not send conversions back to Google, so it is no substitute for the Google tag or enhanced conversions when you want Smart Bidding to learn.

It also identifies visitors per browser and does not join one person across devices, so a shopper who clicks an AI Mode ad on a phone and buys later on a laptop is not credited to Google. Orders completed inside another app's checkout, such as a Google or Meta checkout, have no store visit to match and usually arrive unmatched; our guides to Shopify agentic storefronts and Google Universal Cart explain when that happens. If what you need is Google's own modelled view of AI Mode performance, only Google can provide it, and today it does not.

Check your Google orders before Black Friday

AI Mode ads already serve in eleven countries, with more planned this quarter. To count Google-clicked orders against your real Shopify orders before the busiest week of the year, start the 7-day Growth trial, or compare plans on the pricing page. The Black Friday tracking checklist covers the rest of the setup, and the Cyber Week 2026 calendar has the dates.

Sources

Google Ads and Commerce blog: Ads in AI Mode expand to new markets, the ten countries, Brazil, Mexico and the UK planned for Q4 2026, multiturn ads in the US, the Sponsored label, query length and click-through claims with their footnotes, published 28 October 2026

Google Ads Help: about ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search, eligible campaigns and formats, matching, AI explainers, no opt-out, billing, aggregate reporting and the country and language list, accessed 2 November 2026

Google Ads Help: about auto-tagging, GCLID added to the URL people click through from an ad, accessed 2 November 2026

Analytics Help: default channel group, Organic Search includes AI Overviews and AI Mode, the AI Assistant channel excludes them, accessed 2 November 2026

Google Search Central: AI features and your website, AI Overviews and AI Mode reported within the Web search type in Search Console, accessed 2 November 2026

Google Search Central blog: Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console, a separate view of impressions in generative AI features, rolled out to all websites by 31 August 2026, accessed 2 November 2026