Google Rebuilds Ads and Marketing Stack Around Gemini

Google has rebuilt its marketing stack around Gemini, embedding the AI model across ad creation, ad delivery, shopping, creator partnerships, and campaign measurement.

The company laid out the updates today at Google Marketing Live, its annual event for advertisers. The package spans five pillars: a new generation of ads built for AI Mode in Search; the expansion of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and Universal Cart across more retailers and verticals; new Demand Gen features on YouTube; AI-powered creative production in Asset Studio with the Gemini Omni model; and a new unified cross-product agent called Ask Advisor.

A New Generation of Ads for AI Mode

Google is testing two Gemini-built ad formats inside AI Mode. Conversational Discovery ads return creative tailored to a user's specific search, paired with an independent Gemini-written explainer that synthesises context about the product or service. Highlighted Answers make high-quality ads eligible to appear as a recommendation when AI Mode returns a list-style response, for example a list of language apps. Both formats remain clearly labelled "Sponsored."

The company is also bringing two formats to the wider Search experience in the coming months. AI-powered Shopping ads use Gemini to surface relevant products for a category query, such as espresso machines, and write a custom explainer for each. Business Agent for Leads replaces static lead forms with a Gemini-powered chat agent embedded inside the ad, grounded in the advertiser's website.

Direct Offers, the promotions pilot Google launched in January 2026 with Chewy, Gap, and L'Oreal, is gaining promotion bundling, where Gemini constructs a deal per query using AI Brief for audience targeting; native checkout for UCP merchants; and a travel expansion with Booking and Expedia surfacing offers inside AI-assisted trip planning.

Universal Cart, UCP, and Agentic Commerce

Google is widening Universal Cart, its cross-retailer cart that works across Search, Gemini, and more. Shoppers can check out with Google Pay in a few taps with many brands, or transfer items to the merchant site to complete the purchase. The retailer remains the merchant of record. Launch partners include Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair, and Shopify merchants such as Fenty and Steve Madden. Affirm and Klarna are embedded as buy-now-pay-later options inside Google Pay.

The company is also extending UCP-powered checkout to Shopping ads on YouTube and to Demand Gen Direct Offers campaigns. Google will also roll out UCP in Canada and Australia in the coming months, with the U.K. to follow.

The company is also extending the protocol to new verticals: hotel booking via AI Mode in Search, and local food delivery via Google Maps. Inside Merchant Center, a new AI performance insights tool gives retailers share-of-voice data on AI surfaces against similar brands, rolling out in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand.

U.S. retailers can also use conversational attributes to rewrite product descriptions to match how people search inside AI Mode and Gemini, and Ask Advisor is being built directly into Merchant Center. Google first expanded UCP-powered checkout to main Search results earlier this month.

Demand Gen on YouTube

YouTube Demand Gen is gaining multimodal video creation in Asset Studio, the ability to boost authentic creator partnership videos directly from the asset picker, dynamic product videos based on real-time user interest, Google Maps inventory placements, and checkout links expanded to nine new markets.

Product feeds are also expanding into new surfaces and verticals, including automotive. The platform is also adding one-click Demand Gen campaign creation from Performance Max, Campaign Type Attribution and Uplift Experiments, and privacy-safe third-party integrations including TransUnion.

Asset Studio and Gemini Omni

Google is integrating its Gemini Omni model into Asset Studio for video asset generation, alongside one-click A/B testing and a brief-to-asset workflow that accepts natural language refinement. Asset Studio with the new Gemini-powered features will roll out globally in English this summer.

Ask Advisor and Meridian Inside GA 360

The cross-product layer of the announcement is Ask Advisor, a Gemini-powered unified agent that spans Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Center, and Google Marketing Platform. A request like "find new customers for my hair care products" pulls product data from Merchant Center and sets up a Google Ads campaign; data from both Google Ads and Analytics feed performance insights, recommendations, and next-best actions.

Ask Advisor is now in beta for English-language accounts, with broader rollout later this year. It builds on the in-product agents Google already shipped, including the recently introduced Gemini-powered reporting dashboards in Google Ads.

On the measurement side, Google is bringing Meridian, its open-source Marketing Mix Model, into Google Analytics 360 as a unified command centre that combines first-party and cross-channel data with causal performance signals and predictive scenarios. Qualified Future Conversions, a Gemini-powered signal that links upper-funnel spend to future sales via signals such as brand searches, will eventually integrate with Meridian to refine MMM accuracy.

Strategic Context

The package threads Gemini through every surface where advertisers reach shoppers. Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers move Google directly into the territory ChatGPT has been opening with shopping ads. Universal Cart and UCP position Google as the open-protocol alternative to Amazon's closed checkout, and the Affirm and Klarna integrations bring Google Pay to BNPL parity with Amazon and Walmart.

Ask Advisor lines up against Meta's Advantage+ and Microsoft Advertising's Copilot, but Google's pitch is cross-product orchestration: one agent across ads, analytics, commerce, and measurement. Asset Studio with Gemini Omni puts Google into the AI creative tools market alongside Meta's AI tooling and Adobe Firefly, and Meridian's GA 360 integration responds to the industry-wide MMM resurgence as cookies and signal loss reshape attribution.

Google said at I/O earlier this week that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, which makes Google Marketing Live 2026 the commercial layer the company is bolting onto an already-scaled AI Search surface.