Google rolls out AI search ads to Brazil as core revenue slows

Google is taking its AI-powered search advertising global to counter a noticeable slowdown in its core search advertising business. On October 28, 2026, the tech giant announced that it is expanding ads in "AI Mode"—its Gemini-powered conversational search experience—to 10 new countries. As part of this global monetization push, the company plans to roll out these AI-integrated ads to Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom in the fourth quarter of 2026.

For international technology firms, the expansion into Brazil is a strategic priority. The South American nation is one of the world's most highly engaged internet markets, making it a critical testing ground for the next era of digital advertising. The push comes as parent company Alphabet's core search and other advertising revenue growth slowed to 12% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2026, a drop from the 17% growth recorded in the second quarter of 2026.

Google executives acknowledged during their October 2026 earnings call that the rapid user adoption of AI Mode has created a temporary headwind because the conversational format currently has lower monetization compared to traditional desktop and mobile search. To bridge this gap, Google is aggressively scaling its ad products. In an official Google Blog post published on October 28, 2026, the company stated that queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches, giving its algorithms more context to place relevant sponsored products.

According to Google, though the claim has not been independently verified, click-through rates for sponsored product list items are already similar to organic product list items within AI Mode. Google has not released the underlying raw data or detailed performance benchmarks to allow for independent verification of this claim. Independent analysts and publishers continue to monitor these metrics closely to see if conversational search can match the high-margin efficiency of traditional keyword queries.

Market context

Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, is listed on the Nasdaq in New York under the ticker GOOGL.