A customer calls to book a furnace tune-up and mentions, almost in passing, that they found you "in the Google AI answer." You thank them, hang up, and open your Google Ads account to see how often that happens. There is no line for it. No campaign, no column, no filter, nothing called AI Overviews anywhere in the reports.
That is not a gap in your setup. It is how Google built the placement. Since late 2024, Google has been putting Search and Shopping ads inside AI Overviews, the AI-written answers that now sit at the top of a large share of searches. In the US those ads can appear above the answer, below it, or inside it. And on its own help page about the feature, Google answers the three questions every advertiser asks first with the same word.
Here is the short version, and then we will go through each piece. You cannot aim your ads at an AI Overview. You cannot keep your ads out of one. You will not see the placement broken out in a report. What you can still control is which searches your campaign is allowed to match, what your ad offers when it does show up there, and how you read the evidence that it is happening.
Google's Help Page Says No to Targeting, No to Opting Out and No to a Report
Start with what the placement actually is, because "ads in AI" gets used loosely.
There are two different spots. The first is above or below the AI Overview. That is ordinary search inventory with a new neighbor, and any text, Shopping, local or app ad from your existing campaigns can show there in every market where AI Overviews run. The second spot is inside the AI Overview itself, in a labeled "Sponsored" unit within the answer. That is the new part, and it has narrower rules. Per Google's help page, ads inside AI Overviews are available in English, on mobile and desktop, in twelve countries including the US. Text ads and Shopping ads from Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are the ones eligible to appear there.
Then come the three questions. Google's FAQ on the page asks them directly, and answers them just as directly:
- Can I target ads only to serve within the AI Overviews? No, you can't directly target ad placements in the AI Overviews.
- Can I opt out of serving ads in AI Overviews? No.
- Will I get segmented reporting when my ads serve within AI Overviews? Google Ads "currently doesn't offer segmented reporting" for it.
One more answer on that page matters more than it looks. Ads inside AI Overviews are reported as "Top ads." So when one of your ads shows inside the answer, the impression is folded into the same bucket as an ordinary ad at the top of the page. It is not missing from your account. It is mixed in with everything else and cannot be pulled back out.
Google Matches the Ad to the Answer, Not Just the Search
An ordinary search ad is matched to what someone typed. An ad inside an AI Overview is matched to two things: what they typed, and what Google's AI wrote back to them. Google's help page says both the query and the content of the AI Overview are considered, and that an ad has to be relevant to the answer to show inside it.
That changes which searches can carry an ad at all. AI Overviews tend to appear on questions with no single right answer, the kind where someone is trying to understand a problem before they decide what to do about it. Many of those questions do not look commercial. Google's system is built to find the commercial intent anyway, by reading where the answer leads.
Picture a homeowner who types "why is my AC blowing warm air." Nobody bids on that phrase on purpose. It is a question, not a request for a technician. But the AI Overview that comes back walks through the likely causes: a dirty filter, a tripped breaker, low refrigerant, a failing capacitor. Two of those four end with a professional. That is the moment Google reads as commercial, and an HVAC repair ad becomes relevant to the answer even though it was never relevant to the words.
The volume behind this is large, and Google wants you to know it. At Google Marketing Live in May 2026, Google's chief business officer said AI Overviews have more than 2.5 billion monthly users, AI Mode has passed a billion, and searches in AI Mode run about three times as long as traditional searches. Those are Google's own figures, presented by the company that sells the ads, and they should be read that way. The direction they point is not in dispute, though. People are typing longer questions, and those questions rarely match a short keyword list.
One distinction keeps this from getting muddled. Being named in the AI answer itself, as one of the sources it cites, is a separate and unpaid game, won with your website and your reviews rather than your ad budget. We covered how that side works. This piece is about the paid side: the labeled ad that sits in or around the answer.
Exact Match Keeps Your Ads Out of AI Overviews. On a Small Budget, That Protects You.
This is the one real lever, and Google's own best-practices section names it. Because AI Overviews trigger on long, complex questions that "advertisers are less likely to be targeting," Google says it requires AI-powered matching to place an ad inside one: broad match on Search, or the keywordless matching in AI Max for Search, Performance Max, Shopping campaigns or Dynamic Search Ads.
Read the other way around, that is a list of what keeps you out. A Search campaign built on exact match keywords, with no AI Max and no campaign-level broad match, will rarely be matched to "why is my AC blowing warm air," because nothing in it asks to be. You cannot opt out of the placement, but a tightly built campaign mostly never qualifies for it. We noted the same thing in our pest control guide, where an exact match starter campaign sits entirely outside the AI answers.
Before you treat that as a choice you already made, check whether you still have it. During September 2026, Google moved many Search campaigns onto AI Max without anyone on the account clicking yes. If your campaign used automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting, it now runs AI Max search term matching, which is broad match plus keywordless matching, and that makes it eligible for these placements. We walked through how to tell whether yours was switched, and it takes about five minutes.
So the decision in front of a small business is not "do I want ads in AI Overviews." It is "do I loosen my matching enough to compete for them." Four questions settle it:
- How much room is in the budget? Question-style searches are researchers as well as buyers. Every dollar that goes to them is a dollar that did not go to "AC repair near me." On a budget that is already fully spent on hiring searches, there is nothing to move.
- Has the account already recorded steady conversions? Broad match is designed to run with Smart Bidding, and Smart Bidding learns from conversions. An account that has not yet proven what a lead costs gives the system nothing to steer by.
- Will someone read the search terms every week? Looser matching finds good searches and bad ones. The bad ones only get blocked if a person sees them.
- Is the business in a category Google keeps out of AI Overviews altogether? If it is, the first three questions do not matter. More on that next.
If you can answer the first three with a confident yes, testing broad match or AI Max in a separate campaign, alongside the exact match campaign that already works, is a reasonable way to find out what this inventory is worth to you. If you cannot, staying tight is not falling behind. It is keeping your money on the searches that already pay. We made the same case in our piece on why most small businesses should hold off on AI Max, and nothing about AI Overviews changes the math. This is also the call we spend the most time on with owners who hand us their Google Ads account: which searches the budget can afford to explore, and which ones it cannot.
Medical and Financial Ads Don't Show Inside AI Overviews at All
Some businesses do not have this decision to make. Google's help page says it currently does not show ads inside AI Overviews for sensitive verticals, and it lists them: adult, alcohol, gambling, finance, healthcare, politics, "and more."
That last phrase is open-ended, so treat the list as a floor, not a full inventory. But the two named categories that matter most to small businesses are clear. A dental practice, a physical therapy clinic, a chiropractor, a med spa, a financial advisor or a tax preparer should assume their ads will not appear inside the AI answer, however their campaign is built.
The practical consequence is simple. If you are in one of those categories, chasing AI Overview placements is not a reason to loosen your match types or switch on AI Max. Your ads can still run above and below the AI Overview, where the old rules apply. The case for broad match or AI Max in a healthcare or finance account has to stand on its own, without this placement in it.
No Report Shows the Placement. Your Search Terms Show the Questions.
You cannot see the placement. You can see some of what it is likely made of, and that is enough to make a decision.
Open the search terms report for any campaign running broad match, AI Max or Performance Max, and scan for the long ones. The long, sentence-shaped terms, the ones that start with "why," "how," "what," "can I" or "should I," are the kind of searches AI Overviews appear on. They are not proof that your ad showed inside an answer. Some of them showed in the ordinary top slot. But as a group they are the audience this placement serves, and that group has a cost per lead you can measure.
Two cautions keep that read honest. First, the report does not show every search. Google leaves out terms that were not searched often enough, for privacy, and long questions are exactly the searches most likely to fall under that line. What you see is a sample, weighted toward the more common phrasings. Second, the "Top ads" figures are no help in separating the placement out. Google has confirmed ads inside AI Overviews are counted as top ads, so the share of your impressions at the top of the page includes them without telling you how many.
The useful comparison is plain. Put the question-style terms in one pile and the short hiring searches in another, and compare cost per lead across a month or more of data. If the questions bring in leads at a cost you would happily pay, the looser matching is earning its keep. If they bring in clicks and almost nothing else, that is your answer, and the fix is to tighten the matching or add negatives, because the placement itself has no off switch.
Google has said better reporting is coming for some of this. On September 23, 2026, it announced a single view in AI Max reporting that shows the search term, the ad assets the person saw and the page they landed on, with details and availability promised "later this year." Whether it will identify AI Overview placements specifically, Google has not said. Plan as if it will not, and be glad if it does.
An Ad Under an AI Overview Has to Offer What the Summary Can't: a Price, a Time, a Phone Call
Think about where the person is when your ad appears inside or beside an AI Overview. They asked a question, and Google already answered it. The homeowner with the warm air coming out of the vents now knows it might be the filter, the breaker, the refrigerant or the capacitor. They have more information than they did ten seconds ago, and no more of a plan.
An ad that repeats the answer is wasted space. An ad that says "Trusted HVAC Experts, Call Now" is worse, because it gives the person no reason to stop reading Google's summary and start talking to you. The ad has to offer the thing the AI Overview cannot give, which is almost always the next step:
- A price or a range. A line like "Capacitor replacement from $189," with your real number in it, settles the question the AI answer raised and left open.
- A time. "Call by 2 PM, technician there this afternoon" tells them how fast their problem goes away.
- A specific, low-effort action. "Free 10-minute phone diagnosis" is a smaller step than booking a full service call, and it fits someone who is still working out what is wrong.
The same goes for the page the ad lands on. Someone arriving from a long question needs the page to pick up where the AI answer left off: confirm the likely cause, say plainly what the fix costs, and put the phone number where a thumb can reach it. A generic homepage makes them start over.
None of this is special to AI Overviews. It is the oldest rule in search advertising, that the ad should answer the search. What has changed is that Google now answers the search first, and your ad is judged against that answer instead of against an empty page.
AI Mode Ads Are Next, and Google Is Already Testing Them
AI Overviews are the answer at the top of a normal search. AI Mode is the full conversation, the separate tab where someone can ask follow-up after follow-up. At Google Marketing Live on May 20, 2026, Google announced new ad formats for AI Mode and for Search, none of them in general use yet:
- Conversational Discovery ads, in testing in AI Mode, where Google's Gemini model builds the ad's creative around the specific question someone asked.
- Highlighted Answers, also in testing in AI Mode, where an ad can appear as one of the items when AI Mode gives a list of recommendations.
- Business Agent for Leads, which Google said would come to Search "in the coming months," and which puts a chat agent inside the ad that answers a prospect's questions from your website instead of handing them a form.
Two details in that announcement deserve an owner's attention. The first is that Google says these formats will include "an independent AI explainer" alongside your ad, in which its own model evaluates your product or service and displays that context next to what you wrote. Part of what a prospect reads next to your ad, you will not have written. The second is the instruction at the end of the announcement: to take advantage of these formats, build on AI Max for Search, AI Max for Shopping and Performance Max. The direction is the same as AI Overviews, only further along.
Expect the same three answers to carry over until Google says otherwise. You will not target the slot, you will not be able to leave it, and the reporting will lag the placement. That is why the decisions above are worth making now, on AI Overviews, where the stakes are still modest. An account that knows what its question-style searches cost, and has a clear rule for when to loosen its matching, is ready for whatever Google tests next. An account that never looked will find out from a customer on the phone.
Your Account Is Already In or Out of AI Overviews. Five Checks Tell You Which.
You do not need to rebuild anything. You need to know which side of the line your account is on and make sure you chose it.
- Check whether your Search campaigns were switched to AI Max in September. If they were, you are already eligible for AI Overview placements, whether you meant to be or not.
- Check your category. Healthcare and finance businesses can set this placement aside and judge broad match and AI Max on other grounds.
- If you run broad match, AI Max or Performance Max, split your search terms into questions and hiring searches and compare cost per lead over at least a month.
- Rewrite at least one ad to offer a next step (a price, a time, a smaller first action) instead of a generic "contact us."
- If you are on exact match and the budget is fully spent on hiring searches, leave it alone. Not competing for a placement you cannot measure, on money you do not have spare, is a sound decision.
AI Overviews are not going to replace the searches that already pay most small businesses' bills. "AC repair near me" still gets typed every day, and it still goes to whoever bids on it well. The new inventory sits beside it, and Google decides more of how it works than you do. Whether your money goes into it should still be your call. If you would like help working out where that line sits for your account, it is a question we answer for small business owners every week.
