Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said that search ads with AI Overviews are at a baseline, at the same level as search ads without AI Overviews, in terms of ad revenue per query. He added, and now it is just about going up from there, and with AI, he doesn’t see it to a problem.
This topic came up in an interview by David Friedberg from The All-In Podcast with Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO.
At the 12 minute mark, David Friedberg asked, “And do you have a point of view on ad revenue per AI query?” Well, at the 10:35 mark he asked that question but Sundar only answered the cost per query side, which Google told us already they reduced significantly – the question was:
If I were to think about the unit economics of Google’s business there’s a cost to serve a search query and there’s revenue per search query ad revenue per search query. How is that number changing or how will that change in this kind of evolution in search towards more of an AI interface because I’ve got to assume that to serve an AI driven query is much more expensive than to serve a search query.
Sundar responded to the ad revenue per query question saying they are at baseline, the same level, as ads without AI Overviews on the page. He added, they plan on going up from there. He said:
You know we already with AI overviews, you know, we are at the baseline of, you know it’s the same, as without AI overviews. And so we’ve reached that stage in. So but from there we can improve right and I think, I’ve always felt, you know the reason ads have worked well in search is because commercial information is also information, people in when they have that intent are looking for that most relevant information. So I don’t see any reason why AI you know just from a first principal standpoint, why won’t AI do a better job there as well, right.
And so I think you know I think we’re comfortable that we can work the transition through some of it may take time but all indicators are that we’ll be able to do it well over time. But you know it’s already you know already AI overviews when we show ads we’ve kind of reached the baseline.
Here is the embed at the 10:30 mark, but you can skip to 12 minutes to listen to just the ad revenue per query topic:
It is an hour-long interview, with some really good Q&A but I pulled only this part out of you.
To be clear, we have yet to really see ads show up within AI Overviews yet (well, rarely) but there are plenty of ads on top, the side and below AI Overviews.
Forum discussion at X.
Update: This was also mentioned in the last earnings call by Google’s CBO, Philipp Schindler who said, “Last year we launched ads within AI Overviews on mobile in the US, which built upon ads above and below the AIO which rolled out previously. We see monetization at the same rate… Overall, we are happy with what we’re seeing.”
Yet again, another interesting comment about ads *within* AI Overviews. The problem? THERE ARE NO ADS WITHIN AIOS. Literally nobody can find them. 🙂
During the Q1 earnings call, Google’s CBO, Philipp Schindler explained: “Last year we launched ads within AI Overviews on mobile… pic.twitter.com/qqkmilOief
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 25, 2025