Google Ads Isn’t Dying, It’s Just Getting Smarter

Google’s recent announcements at Marketing Live 2025 didn’t just confirm what insiders already suspected, but made it impossible to ignore: Paid search is entering a new era, and Google isn’t flinching. In fact, it’s steering the wheel.

While marketers wring their hands over the death of the SERP and the rise of AI-driven Overviews, Google’s already laid out a plan, and it includes them.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a shift in ad strategy. It’s a total restructuring of how people find and interact with information—and, by extension, how they discover your brand.

So What Changed?

Two things, mainly: the interface and the intent.

At Google Marketing Live, execs showed how AI Overviews now replace the top of the search engine results page with natural-language responses generated by AI. The old list of links is getting pushed further down. On top of that, Google Ads is moving away from traditional keyword matching and toward predictive, intent-driven advertising with their new campaign type: AI Max.

In a live demo, someone searched “how to bring small dogs on flights.” Instead of seeing a blog or forum link first, they saw a natural-language AI Overview…followed immediately by sponsored ads for TSA-approved dog carriers. That, in a nutshell, is the future of search: conversational, predictive, commercial. And it’s already here.

The AI Max Campaign: Google Takes the Wheel

The AI Max campaign type is designed around what Google calls “keywordless search.” Translation: advertisers don’t get to choose the queries their ads show up for in the old-fashioned way. Instead, Google pulls signals from the advertiser’s site, user behavior, and the broader context to determine relevance.

That might feel like a loss of control. But it’s actually a smarter system, and one built around how people are actually searching these days. Google’s data shows that users engaging with AI Overviews perform 10% more searches than those who don’t. Instead of giving up on search, they’re asking more questions, in more natural language, across more steps in the funnel.

Zero-Click Searches Are Up. Panic Isn’t Necessary.

Zero-click searches are when someone hops on Google (or whatever their preferred search console is…which is probably Google, unless you head straight to ChatGPT these days) and finds the answer they were looking for, without opening a single link from the search results. And, of course, these zero-click searches are on the rise. People are getting answers directly in the AI Overview, potentially skipping links altogether. But that doesn’t mean they’re skipping decisions. A person might get a quick answer about pet travel rules but, if they’re actually planning a trip, they’ll still need to book a flight, buy a carrier, find a hotel, and attend to all the other nuances that require attention for a happy pup on the move.

This is why ad placement within AI Overviews matters. When users start with research-level questions, Google now has the tools to surface relevant, product-based ads without the user ever typing in “buy X.”

That’s a huge deal. It means that intent is being captured earlier, even before people “realize” they’re suddenly in a buying mindset. Old-school keyword ads could miss that moment entirely, basing strategy on SEO checklists rather than the new-fangled context clues AI is combing for. First the mad rush for snippets, now this. Progress knows no limits.

No, Google Isn’t Going the Way of the Dinosaur

There’s a doomsday narrative floating around, mostly from headlines designed to spark panic. Stories from WIRED and Vox love to suggest that AI is the beginning of the end for Google, pointing to the rise of zero-click searches and tools like ChatGPT and Claude changing the way people engage with search.

But that ignores one crucial fact: Google made over $66.9 billion in ad revenue in Q1 2025—up nearly 9% from the previous year. More than half of Alphabet’s total revenue still comes from Google Ads.

Google isn’t falling behind in the AI race. It’s driving it and, unsurprisingly, figuring out how to monetize every step of the way. That includes rolling ads into AI Overviews and shifting the entire campaign structure toward something that makes sense in a conversation-driven world.

Why Marketers Need to Get Comfortable Letting Go

The change requires something highly uncomfortable for many advertisers: giving up control. AI Max will build the copy. It will choose the auctions. It will decide what matches what. For brands and agencies used to tightly managed keyword lists and hand-crafted ad variations, this can feel like jumping off a cliff without a parachute. Or you have a parachute, but the only indication you have that your parachute works is that ChatGPT told you so (which could always turn out to be an AI hallucination). 

But here’s the thing: fighting automation simply delays success. It doesn’t stop the shift, it just means you’ll be late to the game. That’s not big news, since we’ve all witnessed the ever-accelerating shifts to AI models integrating into every facet of reality. 

The earliest adopters of AI Max are already seeing benefits. More efficient matches. Better alignment with user needs. Higher funnel placement without having to manually anticipate every possible phrasing of a query. That’s the power of predictive search. It works because it isn’t limited to a narrow list of keywords, but instead relies on the human experience to initiate innate sales funnels. You’re being converted into a consumer before you even know it’s happening. 

Ads in AI Spaces: It's Already Normal

The idea that AI-based interfaces will somehow remain ad-free is wishful thinking, to phrase it gently. Ads have infiltrated every other digital media space, and why should AI be any different? 

The difference is how and where they appear. Right now, AI Overviews are still experimenting with how to include ads without overwhelming the user. Google has started inserting Sponsored Product Listings under certain queries. In the future, we’ll likely see integrated formats that look less like banners and more like recommendations.

This raises real questions about transparency. When do “recommendations” cross the line into  paid suggestions? How clearly will that be disclosed in Google Gemini or ChatGPT-style assistants? Can the highest bidders bribe our AI to convince us we need certain products or purchases? 

But if history is any guide, users will accept the tradeoff. Just like they do with YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify—if the product is good and free, people put up with ads. Especially if those ads are helpful. We now embrace the creepily personalized marketing during our doom scrolling sessions. Sure, we still find it a little too eerie when you get targeted ads for the exact lawnmower your cousin’s friend’s mom mentioned in your vicinity an hour ago. But we’re used to it.

The New Strategy: Less Keywords, More Context

So, you get it. It’s here, one more fallen icon of digital marketing in the war of eventual AI dominance. Here’s what smart advertisers should be doing right now to embrace (or, at least, tolerate) the inevitable:

• Refocus on intent over keywords. Think about the customer journey—not the exact phrase they might type. Reddit is a great resource for this type of thinking.
  

• Make your website AI-readable. Google’s tools will scan your site to determine relevance, so make sure your content is clear, structured, and actually representative of what you sell.
  

• Loosen your grip on copy. Google is going to write your headlines and descriptions dynamically. Spend less time perfecting ad variations and more time perfecting your landing pages. Like AI, put your focus on the experience.
  

• Invest in creative that makes sense at every stage of the funnel. Don’t just chase conversions—be present at the curiosity stage, the comparison stage, and the decision stage.

The Bottom Line: This Isn’t the End. It’s a Rewrite.

Google Ads isn’t disappearing from the face of the earth, not by a long shot. But it’s going to be a new beast entirely. It’s evolving, keyword-based search is fading, and search behavior itself is expanding. People want answers, suggestions, and products delivered the way they naturally ask for them. Moreover, how they expect it now. 

Google’s betting that it can meet that demand and still keep advertisers in the loop, at least for the immediate future. AI Max is the beginning of a new kind of paid search, one where context beats keywords, and where automation does most of the heavy lifting. 

Some marketers will hesitate. Some will adapt. But AI is already reshaping how search works—whether we like it or not. The better move isn’t to fight it. It’s to learn how to work with it, before your competitors do.