Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 121 - Google Marketing Live 2026

Disclaimer: Due to the rapid turnaround of this post-GML 2026 episode, this transcript may contain minor errors and/or inaccuracies. 

Welcome inside the room where it happened at Google Marketing Live 2026. I'm coming to you live from Mountain View, California to bring you the latest news, updates about what's coming to Google Ads and what it means for your business. Stay tuned with me for the updates, analysis, and coming later in this episode, an exclusive interview with Google's own Ginny Marvin. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads: Special Episode 121, Google Marketing Live 2026. 

Whether you tuned in live for the keynote or not, you should know that that is only part of the story. There are a ton of updates that are being shared with advertisers today in small group sessions, via PDS, behind closed doors. So, I'm here to bring as much to you as I can. 

If there's one takeaway I can give you from this Google Marketing Live 2026, it's that Google is evolving. And I know we've been talking about AI and the keywordless future for so much time, but the future is now. At least the vision for the future is now. The challenge, of course, is that many of our businesses are not quite ready for that yet. And the Google Ads product itself is not quite ready for that yet. 

What that means for you right now, even if the agentic future is still the future and not the present, is you need to focus on your business fundamentals. And I know I sound like a broken record and I know that's not the sexiest thing to say, but bringing your proprietary business data into Google Ads is still the number one most important thing you can do. 

Now, let's review the key updates you need to know about Search, Lead Generation, commerce, YouTube, creative, and of course, measurement.

Let's start of course with Search. As one of the presenters said on the GML stage, Google Search is now AI Search. And a big part of that is of course AI Mode. Although Google announced last year that ads were coming to AI mode. We now have some specifics. We're not just bringing ads to AI experiences we're reinventing what an ad is. 

What we know about ads in AI Mode so far is that they're going to be conversational formats and product listing formats. So, if you're using AI Max for Search, AI Max for Shopping, or Performance Max, then you'll be eligible to have your ads show up directly in AI Mode conversations or to have your products listed as suggested results to people's AI queries. 

Now, I know AI Max and Performance Max don't necessarily provide the best results for all of us today. And so, one of the features Google announced recently they're launching in response to that is the AI Brief. This is a chance for you to bring what you know to Google's AI so that hopefully these AI powered solutions can drive better results for you. 

Specifically, you can feed your AI brief messaging guidelines, audience guidelines, and query guidelines to try to tell it what you need it to know so it doesn't have to spend a ton of money figuring that all out on its own. 

We're also seeing more AI-powered features come to Shopping ads with a sort of AI overview for the sponsored results. So for things like this to work, not only do you need to be using either PMax or AI Max for Shopping, but of course a really detailed product feed. And that's something you're going to hear again and again coming out of Google.

So, what can you do now? 

It's not like your ads are going to start showing up in AI Mode tomorrow. It's time to start testing or you will get left behind. 

As Google says, “the only way to win in AI is with AI.” 

And I know we may all have feelings about that. We may not be ready for that. But if you don't start preparing now, you are going to get left behind when this becomes the new normal in the next couple of years. If AI Max doesn't work for you, figure out why. Is it a measurement issue? Is it a creative issue? Is it a briefing issue? If Performance Max doesn't work for you, figure out why. Again, the way to get AI to work is to feed the right data and information into the system so that it can give you what you need. If you're not doing that now, you may survive another year or two on Google Ads, but not that far beyond that.

Next, let's talk about Lead Generation. And again, this is a lot of stuff that I only learned going to a Think Lead session after the GML keynote. There are a ton of new pilots and opportunities coming for Lead Gen advertisers, and this is highly unusual for GML. In fact, Ginny Marvin, who will be a guest later in this episode, wrote an article about 42 new Lead Generation Google Ads product launches that have happened recently. So, you can check the episode description for that. 

Key things I want to highlight are first Journey-aware bidding. Google's been talking about this for a while. They actually invited me to be part of the announcement when they shared it a few weeks ago. This is really having the potential to be a game changer for Lead Gen advertisers. 

The way Journey-aware bidding works is instead of only optimizing for a lead or a form fill or only optimizing for an end customer, you give Google data about all the different stages of your user journey, lead, qualified lead, converted customer, etc. And then you can feed all of this into your bidding so it can use all of that as signals, not just either the end result or the first stage without all that intel in the middle. I have a full video that breaks down everything you need to know about Journey-aware bidding. 

This is something that is eligible in Search campaigns for Target CPA and purpose built for Lead Gen advertisers with low volume to get better results. 

While Journey-aware bidding is rolling out, here are some upcoming pilots Lead Gen advertisers will want to keep an eye on. 

The leads in Google Ads pilot. This is like a lightweight CRM built into Google Ads to handle submissions from your lead form assets. 

How cool is that? 

A Text Messages Assets pilot. I swear everything old is new again. But what's different now? It's not just going to be about how someone can text you from an ad. There's going to be an AI agent that can help respond to those leads, qualify them, bring them down the funnel if needed, etc. 

A Business Agent for Leads pilot to help you capture leads from your ads in AI Mode and then a probabilistic lead scoring mechanism. 

This blew my mind, but what the product leader said on this is that Google can predict with 90% certainty whether a lead is going to convert from just those early stage signals. And so these predictive lead scoring mechanisms are going to be coming into your ads for you. 

Google says that the funnel is collapsing and that AI agents and these new product launches are going to help you close leads faster. We'll see if that actually pans out or not like many things today. I'm totally on board with the vision. I think we'll get there. I don't think it's happening this year. But things you can do to prepare right now are to ensure that you are feeding as much business data as possible into Google Ads, connect your Offline Conversion Tracking, use Data Manager API and feed in your customer list. The more data and signals you can give Google, the better all this AI will be able to work for you. 

Speaking of which, of course, we need to talk about measurement. We know that this is one of the trickiest parts of running ads, but also the most important and it's only becoming more important in the agentic AI-powered era. (Only insert mild sarcasm there.) 

As Google says, “measurement is your competitive edge.” 

This is nothing new. It is still true. If you haven't gotten on board yet, please start adding your data into Google Ads. 

Have I mentioned that yet in this episode? 

Okay, some new things and not so new things. Attributed Branded Searches. Google talked about these last year. A wide rollout hasn't happened. Now they should be rolling out to your account. As a reminder, Attributed Branded Searches is a way to see if people who view your YouTube ads then go search for you later. So, while of course a branded search is not the same thing as a conversion, it's a really helpful way for you to see if your YouTube ads are driving people to take action.

Something new, however, is Qualified Future Conversions (QFC’s). This is a way to measure the expected long-term impact of your Demand Gen campaigns basically by predicting who Google thinks is going to convert. The way Google explains this is that Attributed Branded Searches are about short-term action as a result of Demand Gen. Whereas, Qualified Future Conversions are about expected long-term action as a result of Demand Gen. 

I know, I know this stuff is all a little wishy-washy and kind of feels like at odds with what I just finished saying about how important it is to bring your first-party data into Google Ads. The key here is that you need both. You need a strong data foundation, what Google literally now calls data strength, to let Google know what valuable actions are happening for your business as a result of your ads. And then based on that, Google will be able to layer in these earlier tools like ABS and QFC's to feed the algorithm the data it needs to predict what's going to happen to your business in the end. The ROI you're looking for from ads. 

While the vision sounds great, will the product live up to it? 

Maybe not in 2026. Maybe not even in 2027. But it's definitely the path we're on for better or for worse. 

So, what can you do right now to upgrade your measurement? 

It may not surprise you to hear it's incorporating your first-party data into Google Ads. 

And where does YouTube fit into all of this? As you might imagine, part of Google's vision for this AI-powered era is that you can't just wait for people to start searching for you or asking AI about you. You need to create demand and then capture demand. And of course, YouTube is the place to do that, according to Google, with Demand Gen campaigns.

What stood out to me really starkly this year is that there were no Performance Max product announcements at all. 

Can you believe it? 

After what GML has been like the last few years, however, we had a ton of YouTube and Demand Gen announcements. I'm focusing here on the ones that'll be most applicable for the most advertisers. Google shares that thanks to Gemini models, what they keep calling the Gemini Advantage, Demand Gen has gotten a lot better over the last year. Now, your Demand Gen campaign can predict what customers will want next based on Search and YouTube and maps signals. And Google says that only a fraction of Demand Gen conversions happen in the first 30 days. Which is why those measurement solutions I just spoke about are so important because that's what I've seen with my clients, especially smaller advertisers, you start running Demand Gen, you let it go for a few weeks, you see no reported conversions and think it's not working. It's possible that it's not working, but it's more likely that you're just creating demand and you need to keep going to actually capture that demand. 

To help with that Demand Gen measurement piece, two things to think about. 

First, is Engaged View Conversions. You may already know that a view or a TrueView view in Google Ads has so many different definitions. So, here's a new one for you. An Engaged View Conversion means they watched at least 5 seconds of your ad before converting. 

And then we have the option for View Through Conversion Optimization in Demand Gen. This is something that's meant to bring Demand Gen measurement in line with social platforms. But don't get confused. Although it is called a View Through Conversion, it's really like an impression through conversion. It just means that someone saw your ad and then converted later, even if they only saw it for a split second. 

Still, I do think for most advertisers that it's a good idea to include all these metrics in your Demand Gen campaign so it gets more signals and has a better chance of learning what works well for your business based on all those intent signals it's getting from across the Google ecosystem. 

There are some other Demand Gen features I'm really looking forward to testing. 

We have dynamically served product-specific videos based on your feed. 

Say that three times fast! 

Essentially, it means that when your Demand Gen campaign has your product feed, it will be able to generate AI videos based on the user.

For example, if one user comes and Google knows they're really outdoorsy, it could show them an outdoorsy kind of ad for a product. Whereas, somebody else comes and they live in a more urban environment, it could create a video that shows the exact same product in an urban setting.These are personalized AI Video ads at scale. Sounds wild. 

Will it launch to everyone this year? Probably not, but it is where the stuff is all going. 

There is also Multimodal Video creation where you'll be able to use text, image, and video to get Asset Studio to create videos for you. But what's really cool about that is when you go to generate an AI video ad and it comes back and you're like, "Oh, that's not what I want." There's an intermediate step here where first the model will come back and give you a storyboard of what it's planning to do. You can then make adjustments before it actually renders the AI video. 

So hopefully that will make your AI videos much more relevant to what you're looking for. 

And then you're going to start seeing Creator Videos in the Asset Picker. So when you're trying to look for assets to add to your Demand Gen campaigns, you have your feed, you have your images, you have your video you can upload, you can grab from social media, and you can take from your website. Now if there are creators who have posted videos on YouTube about your products or services, that'll surface right there for you in your Demand Gen campaign in case you want to boost that with ads. 

So what can you do now to start getting ready for YouTube and Demand Gen? 

Start testing Demand Gen. Okay, I know it's not going to have the same ROI as the Search campaigns you’re used to, at least not right away. But you need to actually create demand in order to capture demand. And if all you do is get started with some basic image ads and some basic audience targeting, it's better than nothing. Start testing Demand Gen now. I personally have seen it drive good results for e-commerce small advertisers as well as for Lead Gen small advertisers with product feed, and without product feed. I'll have a lot more content coming about this in future episodes of the podcast. 

And you know, if you've ever tried to run a Demand Gen campaign before, having the creative to run is often the biggest barrier. And so, of course, Google wants to fix that for us with AI. 

Google says that, “your creative is the number one determinant of ad success.” 

And while I do think measurement is more important, creative comes in a close second. Bidding is automated. Targeting is becoming more and more automated. Creative can be AI assisted, but you are still the strategist. 

The biggest thing you need to know about the changes coming for creative in Google Ads are updates to Asset Studio. Basically, you can now brief the AI by uploading a PDF and brand guidelines, for example. And then it's going multimodal, which means you can feed it text, image, video, and then it can give you outputs in all the different formats as well, customized for your brand. 

I'll admit I still get a little bit of the ick around AI creative. But if you look at where AI video is now compared to where it was just a year ago, it's gotten so much better. And if video still feels a little too uncanny valley for you, get started with some AI imagery. Get started with it in a Demand Gen campaign and see whether or not it can drive good results for your business.  There are also a ton of AI creative features built directly into Google Merchant Center, which can be really helpful for expanding upon your feed. 

Something you can do right now is to go to Asset Studio if you've never been there before in Google Ads and see what's there for you. You should see all the images, headlines, descriptions, videos, everything you've ever uploaded into Google before. And you can play around with the new AI tools to see if it creates something usable for your campaigns. 

And last but not least is e-commerce. Google seemed most excited about Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which is a way for agents and different websites and tools to be able to talk to each other. But the thing that got the biggest applause from the audience, myself included, is the Universal Cart. This is a new capability where you'll be able to have a shopping cart that works across merchants, across Google products, adding items for wherever you see them in search results, in maps, in YouTube, etc. And then you can either buy those items on Google, check out with the merchant, get notified if something comes back in stock or the price drops. I think we're all insanely excited as consumers as well as advertisers for what this potentially offers e-commerce businesses. 

Now, with something like this, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes quite a while for it to become mainstream. But as with quite a few things we saw today, I'm really excited about the vision, even if reality is going to take a bit of time to catch up. 

As promised, I'm here with Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Product Liaison. 

Ginny, how are you feeling? It's the end of Google Marketing Live today.

"I am feeling great. It has been a long, busy, active day, but it's been really great and so fun to chat with so many people, get feedback, and see what everyone's thoughts are."

Some of the thoughts that I shared earlier in the episode highlight the really bold vision that Google has put forward for the future of Search and the future of ads, completely leading with AI. But for some of us, it can be a little challenging to envision how we're going to take ourselves from our current campaign state—maybe using Exact Match and controlled targeting—to this AI-driven future. What advice do you have for marketers who want to get started with embracing more AI, but maybe haven't had good results in the past or are feeling kind of hesitant?

"Yeah, I think for one, we are at an inflection point. To some extent, though, we've kind of been on this path for a really long time. When you look at things like adopting Smart Bidding, Broad Match, and Keywordless setups, we've been on this trajectory for a while. I think looking back with that perspective can make change management easier. It's not like you need to change on a dime. 

One thing that really stood out to me at GML that I think is very important is organic optimization and SEO. Marketers need to think about being discovery-ready and agent-ready for these new AI Search experiences and Conversational Search. That means having deeper, richer content. Conversational attributes are also rolling out in Merchant Center, allowing you to bring in your Q&As and much richer information to give people the answers they need. In these contexts, ads are answers. The exciting thing is that you own your brand, and you get to inform how it is represented in these new experiences. There's always talk about a loss of control, but the strong brands who have really honed in on their brand voice and points of differentiation are going to succeed well when they bring that rich content to their marketing strategies."

Let's dive in on that, because something I have spoken about a lot in this episode is the importance of data strength and your data foundation. We've been saying that for years, but it's more important than ever. You're sharing that dialing in on content and consumer understanding is essentially Marketing 101. It doesn't just sit inside with ads. This is something that your neighborhood plumbers or small e-commerce business owners perhaps haven't had to think deeply about before to get good results. How would someone get started with doing that so they can use features like AI Brief properly?

"It's about focusing on what makes your business great. What do my customers really like about my service or product, and how do I bring that to life in my content? From there, you can look at the AI Brief. Think of it as a creative brief to guide the AI. This builds on text guidelines, and we are bringing in messaging, audience, and text guidelines that will automatically transfer over into AI Brief when it rolls out. Again, think about what makes your business stand out, what problems you are solving, and what customers are really coming to you for."

These are the things that we probably should have been focusing on all along, but now we simply can't get away with ignoring them.

"I know. But this is what I find really exciting. The role of the marketer is so important. If you watched the keynote today and heard about agents and AI and came away thinking, 'What role is there for me now?'—I strongly believe the role of the marketer is more critical today than ever. Yes, the kinds of things we do will change, but those fundamentals of marketing still matter. How do I reach my audience? How do I use marketing to achieve my business goals? Now we're using tools like AI Brief to help achieve those goals, but you're bringing the insights, the business knowledge, and the data to Google Ads. You feed in the data of what a good customer looks like to you, so that Google can go out and find more of them."

Now, a lot of the announcements from the keynote, the various blog posts, and the articles Google put out—including an article about Lead Gen—announced features that are currently in "pilot." This means it could be a year or two before we actually see them. Meanwhile, other things like Journey-aware bidding and Attributed Branded Searches are finally rolling out. How should we focus when Google announces a hundred new things at once? If we see a cool Lead Gen feature like predictive lead scoring or an AI agent marked as a pilot, how do we prepare? Should we only focus on what is actively rolling out?

"Yes, you want to prioritize. First, if there are features out right now that you have not explored, start there. Look at the opportunities currently existing that you can leverage, experiment with, and test. Then, when looking at things in pilot, try to understand holistically where things are potentially going. See if there are things you can do to prepare generally, rather than focusing on just one specific piece—unless that one piece is going to be a major lever for you. If it is, maybe there are some backend data things you can start working on. Otherwise, take a big picture look at where you can fill in the gaps now, take advantage of current tools, and set the road for what's to come."

I mean, some people have never even used Broad Match, so maybe they should tackle that before trying to tackle ads in AI Mode!

"Exactly. Another piece of this is that experiments are becoming built-in from the start. The A/B testing features for assets in Asset Studio are incredibly interesting. As much as you can, take these things in small chunks that make sense for your business—though obviously not too small, or you won't have enough data to learn from. Speaking of data, it's also a great time to just look at your account structure. If you haven't re-evaluated your account structure in three to five years, start there. There are probably opportunities for you to consolidate your setup around your core business goals."

Let that be the number one driver, as it always has been and will continue to be. Before we head out to watch Maroon 5 perform, I have one last question for you. If you had just one piece of advice for an experienced practitioner to take away from today, and one piece of advice for a newer Google Ads advertiser, what would you say?

"For newer advertisers, I would suggest starting to look closely at your own behavior, your colleagues' behavior, and your customers' behavior. Understand how consumer behavior is evolving on Search and YouTube, and see where your marketing can take advantage of that. So much of this is just a mindset shift; we saw the exact same thing happen with mobile years ago, and we're seeing it now with AI. 

Next, look at what data you have on hand to feed back into Google. You may think your business is too small or that you don't have enough conversion volume, but even if you don't have a high volume of actual sales yet, there are probably points along that customer journey that are excellent indicators of a quality lead. Start there. If you're currently only looking at basic lead submissions, go deeper so you can optimize for quality over volume. 

For more sophisticated, experienced advertisers, this really is a massive mindset shift for the whole industry. We talked a lot today about new metrics we are bringing forth to show more causality. We are making incrementality testing easier and pairing that with causal metrics, alongside bringing Meridian into Google Analytics 360. Truly treating measurement and data as an operational piece of your marketing discipline is going to be essential for driving performance and securing your budgets from the CFO."

Absolutely—something we all care about. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us today. It has been an absolute pleasure to be here with you at GML. I'll wrap us up before we go see Adam Levine and the crew perform.

"Thanks so much for having me. It was great to catch up!"

—

At the end of the day, Google's big message was "you win, we win." 

Google is bringing its Gemini technology to power its ad products and its user experiences, and we're all along for the ride, for better or for worse. But Google's goal is the same as your goal: you want to get great results from your ads, and Google wants you to get great results from your ads so that, of course, you'll keep investing.

I know it's going to take some time to totally digest and adapt to what this new vision of AI Search and Demand Gen entails, and that's okay. We're now on the next step in a journey that's been happening for some time. Consumers are evolving, Search is evolving, and YouTube is evolving. And so, of course, we as advertisers have to continue to evolve.

And as always, I'll be here to guide you every step of that journey.

I’m Jyll Saskin Gales, and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.