Google is expanding ads in its AI-powered Search experiences into international markets, a first for the monetization of AI Mode. The announcement came during Alphabet‘s third-quarter earnings call, where the company reported $127.6 billion in revenue, up 25% year over year. The timing reflects pressure: Search advertising revenue grew 12% year over year, down from 17% in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter, and Alphabet shares fell 8% after the results.

Philipp Schindler, Google‘s chief business officer, said the company is scaling high-quality ads within AI overviews in AI mode to more users and queries, and taking its monetization footprint global for the first time. The expansion includes multi-turn ads and AI mode in the U.S. Google said early results are encouraging: click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode are comparable to organic listings, and user research indicates people find the ads relevant. The move builds on Google‘s May announcement of new Gemini-powered ad formats, including conversational discovery ads and sponsored recommendations integrated into AI-generated answers.

Usage data cited on the call points to changing search behavior. CEO Sundar Pichai said Search queries grew at their fastest year-over-year rate in five years, though he did not give an exact figure. He attributed the growth to AI features that lead to longer, more complex queries: AI Mode queries average three times longer than traditional searches, and one in five AI Mode searches globally uses voice, images, or documents. Google also said it now surpasses 50 billion visual searches per month. Pichai noted that Search is bringing AI benefits to more people than any other product, with queries that are longer, personalized, and multimodal.

Alphabet‘s Google Services division, which includes Search, generated $96.3 billion in revenue, up 11% year over year. Google Cloud revenue grew 103% to $30.7 billion. The quarter also included the release of Gemini 4 Argon, the Gemini app reaching one billion monthly users, and the launch of the Pixel 11 lineup.