'Trust becomes the product': Marketers grapple with Google's new suite of AI-powered ad agents

Google is rolling out a new suite of agentic advertising tools powered by Gemini. More ads will appear in AI Mode over the coming year, including ads with AI explainers and shopping ads that use AI-generated product explainers. Google also introduced “Ask Advisor,” an agent built with Gemini that works across Google properties. Marketers can prompt it to gather product details, set up campaigns, and surface insights from Google Ads and Google Analytics. The rollout targets ongoing marketer concerns about how much control to give machines, including the need for manual kill switches for issues like hallucinations. Marketers also face client pressure to improve performance as AI systems get better.

"Google plans to roll out more ads in AI Mode in the coming year, including ads with AI explainers and shopping ads with AI-generated product explainers. Google execs also announced "Ask Advisor," an agent built with Gemini that works across Google properties. For example, a marketer looking for new customers can prompt Ask Advisor to pull product details, set up the campaign and surface insights from Google Ads and Google Analytics."

"The features were teased as marketers struggle to decide how much control to hand over to machines. Marketers say they need a manual kill switch to account for things like hallucination. Another part of it is pressure from clients. As AI improves performance, marketers say granular lever insights help guide campaign optimization for even greater performance."

"As Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler addressed marketers during his GML presentation: "You handle the strategy and define your goals. AI handles the optimization." At a time when advertisers are grappling with transparency (or alack thereof) around things like data on ad placements and LLMs' decision making processes, Google is asking advertisers to relinquish more control and put their trust (and ad dollars) into its AI tools."

""The more autonomous these systems become, the more trust becomes the product," said John Geletka, founder and chief experience officer of creative and strategic agency Geletka+, in an email to Digiday. He added, "Marketers increasingly have to trust the machine's recommendations without fully understanding the mechanics underneath them.""

Read at Digiday