AI Mode has been available to UK searchers since July 2025. Ads inside it have not. On 28 October 2026 Google announced it was scaling ads in AI Mode to ten more countries (Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore) and named the UK, Brazil and Mexico as planned for Q4 2026, as summarised by AIWIZ from Google's announcement. No UK launch date has been given, and the UK isn't yet on Google's help page list of live countries, so this is a plan with a deadline of 31 December rather than a switch that has been flipped.
Pakistan is on the live list, so any Google Ads account running there is already eligible, and that's where I'll see it first.
What happens to your campaigns
Nothing you have to set up. Existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns become eligible to show in AI Mode automatically, with no new campaign type and no separate budget. Reporting is included in the standard campaign and search terms reports; there's no separate AI Mode view.
Which campaigns serve where, per the reporting:
- Exact and phrase match keywords reach AI Mode only on clearly commercial queries.
- Broad match, AI Max with search term matching, Shopping and Performance Max can also show on exploratory, conversational questions.
- At launch, expect text and Shopping ads labelled Sponsored. Local inventory and vehicle ads are being tested; multi-turn ad formats are launching in the US and haven't been confirmed for the UK.
What you can and can't control
You can't opt out of AI Mode separately from Search, and you can't target it on its own. Negative keywords, brand exclusions and asset pinning still apply, with one catch: AI Max's final URL expansion and URL inclusions can stop pinned assets from showing. You can't write, edit or opt out of the short AI-generated explainers that some placements show next to ads.
Google has said click-through rates for sponsored and organic product listings in AI Mode are similar, based on two weeks of US data. It hasn't published conversion figures, so there's no evidence yet on what a lead or a sale from AI Mode costs.
How I'm preparing the accounts I run
Tighten the match types on lead generation. A lead search campaign on exact and phrase match will only reach AI Mode on commercial queries, which is where I want it. Broad match and AI Max search term matching would put it into exploratory questions too. For a high-ticket service, I'd rather be in the commercial queries only until there's conversion data.
Watch the search terms report harder. Because AI Mode traffic lands in the same reports, the first sign of it will be a new kind of query: longer, more conversational. Those get judged on conversions like any other term and cut if they don't produce.
Keep final URL expansion off on lead campaigns. If pinned assets can be overridden and the landing page chosen by Google, a lead campaign can end up sending a commercial query to the wrong page. The AI Max post covers why I hold off until the search journey report is available.
For Shopping and Performance Max, let it run. Ecommerce accounts with clean product feeds and real order values are the campaigns Google says this is built for, and the exploratory queries are where a Performance Max campaign bidding on order value can find new customers. The check, once the traffic appears, is conversion rate on the conversational terms against the rest.
What I'd tell a UK client
Your search campaigns will start appearing in AI Mode at some point before the end of the year without you doing anything. The controls you already have (match types, negatives, brand exclusions) are the controls you'll have. Make sure the conversion tracking is honest, so when the traffic arrives you can see what it's worth rather than guess. I'll update this post when Google confirms the UK date and when there's conversion data from the accounts.
Based on Google's 28 October announcement and the reporting above, checked on 4 November 2026.
I run paid ads on Meta, Google and TikTok across the UK, the Gulf and Pakistan, and build the tracking and pages around them. Get in touch or find me on LinkedIn.