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News Decoded

My Google Rep Spoiled What's Coming (It's GEA)

Black ink illustration of a hand quietly passing a sealed envelope marked GEA, symbolizing information leaked early by a Google Ads account manager.

On the Google side, my rep just spoiled what’s coming: GEA. This week he sent me a full pack: a deck on Google Tag Gateway, plus pages on AI Mode and AI Overviews. Officially, it’s about “optimizing my measurement.” Unofficially, he handed me the pieces of the puzzle himself.

The same week, Google Marketing Live 2026 confirmed ads are moving directly inside AI Mode. This isn’t a first: ads have already been living inside AI Overviews since October 3, 2024, expanded to desktop and more countries in 2025. This time, Google is pushing much further: right inside AI Mode itself, not in a summary next to it.

Four formats, one principle: live inside the answer

Google introduced four new Gemini-powered formats, all built to live inside the generated answer rather than beside it:

  • Conversational Discovery Ads: the ad answers your question directly, inside the response itself
  • Highlighted Answers: your product shows up in a generated recommendation list, if it genuinely fits the request
  • AI-Powered Shopping Ads: a product pitch generated on the fly for each query
  • Business Agent for Leads: users chat with the brand’s AI agent right inside the ad, no form required

The number that explains the timing

A Semrush study covering 69 million sessions gives the reason for the calendar: 92 to 94% of AI Mode sessions end without a click to an external site, against 83% for a query that triggers an AI Overview, and 60% for a standard search. Nobody leaves the chat anymore. The ad has no choice but to live inside it.

The second move

Fifteen days before Google Marketing Live, on July 1st, Google Ads’ terms of service changed with no login prompt required: Google now defaults to generating and formatting ads and targets on the advertiser’s behalf.

Two moves, fifteen days apart, one direction. Google Ads is laying the groundwork for GEA, Generative Engine Ads.

What it means for your account

The test is still US-only, English-only, live on PMax, AI Max, Shopping, and broad match. Nothing to switch on in Europe yet.

But the account structure that will be “AI Mode ready” on day one is the same one that’s already ready for PMax and AI Max today: clean product feeds, solid first-party signals, varied creative assets. Anyone still running plain Search on exact-match keywords will start a lap behind.