Google Ads in AI Overviews: How to Get Your Ads Appearing in AI Search Results

Key Takeaways

Ads in AI Overviews are available in Australia right now, in English on mobile and desktop, confirmed by Google’s own help documentation.
There is no toggle to switch on. Eligibility is determined by how your campaigns are structured, not by a setting you manually enable.
Standard Search campaigns using only exact or phrase match keywords are not eligible for AI Overview placements.
Performance Max, AI Max-enabled Search, and broad match Search campaigns paired with Smart Bidding are the eligible campaign types.
You cannot opt out of AI Overview placements. If your campaigns meet the eligibility criteria, your ads will appear there automatically.
Reporting is currently limited. AI Overview placements are captured under ‘Top Ads’ and are not broken out separately in Google Ads dashboards.
Users arriving from AI Overviews are already informed. Your ad copy and landing pages need to reflect that, not fight against it.

If you have typed a question into Google recently and seen a detailed AI-generated summary appear before the regular search results, you have encountered an AI Overview. What many advertisers have not noticed yet is that paid ads are now appearing inside and alongside those summaries, and the rules for getting there are meaningfully different from traditional Google Search advertising.

This article explains what ads in AI Overviews actually are, which campaign types are eligible, what you need to do to qualify, and what this means for businesses advertising in Perth and across Australia.

Who This Guide Is For

This article is relevant to different people in different ways. The table below helps you find the sections most useful to your situation.

You are…	What you need to know	Where to focus in this guide
A business owner managing your own Google Ads account	Whether your current campaigns are eligible and what to change if not	Eligibility, campaign types, and the practical checklist
A marketing manager overseeing a Google Ads agency or freelancer	What questions to ask your provider and how to assess readiness	Campaign eligibility table, reporting limitations, and FAQ
An experienced Google Ads practitioner	The nuances of placement positions, user mindset, asset requirements, and reporting workarounds	User mindset, landing page section, reporting table, and AI Mode section

If you are unsure whether your campaigns are currently eligible, the campaign eligibility table in the next section is the right starting point.

What Are Ads in AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google Search results pages, synthesising information from across the web to answer complex, multi-part questions. They have been rolling out progressively since 2025 and now appear across a meaningful share of Google searches globally.

Ads appear within or alongside these AI-generated summaries in text and Shopping formats, making them part of the immediate visual experience a user sees before scrolling to organic results or traditional ad positions.

There are currently three positions where ads can appear relative to an AI Overview:

Above the AI Overview: standard search placement, available in all 200+ markets where AI Overviews exist, including Australia
Below the AI Overview: also available across all markets
Within the AI Overview itself: currently live in English in the US on mobile and desktop, with global rollout expected throughout 2026

For Australian businesses, the confirmed and immediately relevant placement is above and below the AI Overview. The within-overview placement is coming but is not yet live in Australia as of April 2026.

How Significant Is This Placement?

The scale of adoption has moved faster than most advertisers expected. Ads alongside AI Overviews rose from appearing in approximately 3% of AI Overview results in early 2025 to around 25.5% by early 2026, according to data tracked across multiple industry sources. Google’s VP of Ads Dan Taylor confirmed in early 2026 that ads within AI Overviews are monetising at the same rate as traditional search ads.

The commercial opportunity is clear, but so is the disruption to existing organic visibility. Multiple studies have found that AI Overviews reduce organic click-through rates, with estimates ranging from 15% to over 60% depending on the query type and industry. The variation in these figures reflects different methodologies and query sets, but the directional shift is consistent: users are getting answers from AI summaries and clicking through to organic results less often.

For Perth businesses that have relied on organic search traffic, this makes paid visibility alongside AI Overviews increasingly relevant. And for businesses already running Google Ads, understanding whether their existing campaigns are eligible for this placement is now a practical priority, not a future consideration.

There Is No Toggle to Switch On

Before getting into how to qualify, it is worth addressing the most common misconception directly.

There is no checkbox in your Google Ads account labelled ‘Show ads in AI Overviews.’ There is no campaign type called ‘AI Overview Ads.’ Eligibility is determined entirely by how your campaigns are structured, which means the question is not how to turn this on. It is how to ensure your campaigns meet the criteria that make you automatically eligible.

If your campaigns meet the eligibility criteria, your ads will appear in AI Overview placements without any additional action on your part. If they do not meet the criteria, they will not appear regardless of how much you spend.

Which Campaign Types Are Eligible?

The table below summarises eligibility across all major campaign types, based on Google’s confirmed documentation and practitioner reporting as of April 2026.

Campaign Type	AI Overview Status	Notes
Performance Max	Eligible	Automatically eligible — uses intent-based matching by design. Best overall option for AI Overview placement.
Search — Broad Match + Smart Bidding	Eligible	Eligible for above/below placement. Broad match is required. Must be paired with Smart Bidding (tCPA or tROAS).
AI Max for Search	Eligible	Eligible and well-positioned. Uses keywordless matching and AI-powered creative — aligns naturally with conversational queries.
Shopping (via Merchant Center)	Eligible	Eligible for Shopping ad placements. Product feed quality in Merchant Center directly affects whether products are surfaced.
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)	Eligible (limited)	Eligible via keywordless matching but expected to be deprecated. Begin testing AI Max as a replacement now.
Search — Exact Match only	Not eligible	Rigid keyword lists cannot capture the complex, conversational queries that trigger AI Overviews. Must add broad match to qualify.
Search — Phrase Match only	Not eligible	Same limitation as exact match. Phrase match alone is too restrictive for the intent-based matching AI Overviews require.
Display campaigns	Not eligible	Display campaigns do not run on Google Search and are not eligible for AI Overview placements.
Sensitive verticals (finance, health, legal, gambling, alcohol, politics)	Excluded	These categories are excluded from AI Overview ad placements regardless of campaign type.

The critical distinction that catches most advertisers out: standard Search campaigns running only exact or phrase match keywords are not eligible. AI Overviews are triggered by complex, conversational, exploratory queries. The kind of questions that rigid keyword lists were never designed to capture. Eligibility requires a more flexible approach to matching that allows Google’s AI to interpret intent, not just match words.

What You Need to Do to Be Eligible

Switch to Broad Match or Enable AI Max

For Search campaigns, the structural change required is adding broad match keywords or enabling AI Max, Google’s keywordless matching feature. AI Overviews are triggered by conversational, intent-driven queries that sound nothing like traditional keyword terms. A user searching ‘what kind of ducted air conditioning works best in a double brick home in Perth’ is not going to match an exact match keyword of ‘ducted air conditioning Perth.’ Broad match allows Google to understand the underlying intent of that complex query and match it to your ad.

AI Max takes this further by removing the keyword dependency entirely and allowing Google’s AI to match ads based on the content of the page, the user’s context, and real-time intent signals. As of early 2026, AI Max is available to all advertisers globally.

Pair Broad Match with Smart Bidding

Running broad match without AI-powered bidding is a significant budget risk. Smart Bidding strategies including Target CPA and Target ROAS allow Google to make real-time decisions about whether a specific conversational query is worth bidding on, based on millions of contextual signals. Without Smart Bidding, broad match can drive high impression volume against irrelevant queries and exhaust your daily budget before reaching the searches that actually matter.

For a Perth service business running broad match for roofing queries, for example, Smart Bidding will suppress bids on queries that show low purchase intent and concentrate spend on queries that match the profile of previous converters. This is what makes the combination viable rather than reckless.

Consider Performance Max

Performance Max is automatically eligible for AI Overview placements because it already operates on intent-based matching rather than keyword lists. For Perth businesses already running Performance Max, the question is not eligibility but readiness: are your asset groups, landing pages, and conversion tracking set up for the different user behaviour this placement attracts?

The common trap with Performance Max in the context of AI Overviews is treating asset groups like traditional display ads, short, punchy, sales-heavy copy. AI Overviews are informational by nature. Ad copy that answers a question and offers a logical next step performs better than copy that pushes urgency or price.

For Retailers: Optimise Your Merchant Center Feed

For e-commerce businesses, Shopping ads in AI Overviews are powered by your Merchant Center product feed. Google selects products that best match the intent of the AI-generated response, not simply the highest bidder. This means feed quality, including specific product titles, complete attribute data, accurate pricing, and current availability, directly determines whether your products appear in these placements.

A Perth retailer selling outdoor furniture, for example, should ensure product titles include specific attributes like material, dimensions, and use case, rather than generic names. ‘Four-piece aluminium outdoor lounge set with sunbrella cushions’ will surface for far more relevant AI Overview queries than ‘Outdoor furniture set.’

Sensitive Categories Are Excluded

Not every business is eligible regardless of campaign structure. Finance, healthcare, politics, gambling, alcohol, and similar regulated verticals are excluded from AI Overview ad placements. This is consistent with Google’s existing sensitive category policies and applies globally.

For Perth businesses operating in financial planning, mortgage broking, health services, legal services, or similar regulated industries, AI Overview placements are not currently available. This limitation should inform how you set expectations around AI-driven ad visibility and where you focus optimisation effort instead.

The User Who Sees Your Ad Is Already Informed

Getting your ads to appear in AI Overviews is only part of the challenge. The more important shift is understanding who you are reaching, because it is meaningfully different from a user clicking on a traditional search ad.

By the time someone sees your ad inside or alongside an AI Overview, Google’s AI has already synthesised an answer to their question. The user is no longer asking ‘what is this?’ They are further along the decision journey, asking something closer to ‘what do I do next?’ or ‘which option is right for me?’

What This Means for Your Ad Copy

Most Google Ads are written for users who are starting from zero. They push price, urgency, and immediate action. Inside or below an AI Overview, this approach creates friction. The user has just consumed a neutral, informative summary. An ad that immediately demands a commitment feels jarring by comparison.

High-performing ads in AI Overview contexts act as a bridge, not a pitch. They acknowledge that the user has done their research and offer a clear, logical next step rather than a hard sell. For a Perth financial planning firm excluded from AI Overview placements, this is a useful principle even for traditional Search ads targeting informed researchers. For a Perth air conditioning installer whose ads do appear alongside AI Overviews, copy like ‘Get a free site assessment for your specific home layout’ is more aligned with the user’s mindset than ‘Best prices guaranteed, call now.’

This does not mean softer ads. It means smarter ads that match the user’s mental state rather than fighting against it.

What This Means for Your Landing Pages

Sending AI Overview traffic to a generic homepage or a high-pressure sales page is a mismatch that will show up in your conversion data. Users arriving from AI Overview placements have already been educated by the AI. They do not need to be told what the product or service is. They need to assess whether your specific business is the right fit for their situation.

The most effective landing pages for this type of traffic function as decision-assist pages. They help the user answer one question: ‘Is this the right next step for me?’ That means clearly stating who you serve and who you do not, acknowledging the questions the user is likely still weighing, providing specific examples or ranges rather than vague claims, and placing any contact form or conversion action after enough context has been given to earn it.

For a Perth physio clinic, this might mean a landing page that addresses what types of injuries or conditions you see most often, what the initial consultation involves, whether you bulk bill, and what the waitlist looks like, before asking someone to book. That level of transparency converts the informed, research-mode visitor far more effectively than a page that simply says ‘Book now.’

Reporting Limitations and Practical Workarounds

One of the most significant practical frustrations with AI Overview advertising right now is the reporting gap. Google does not currently provide a way to isolate AI Overview placement performance from the rest of your campaign data. The table below outlines what you cannot see and what you can do about it in the meantime.

What you want to know	Currently available?	Practical workaround
Which queries triggered AI Overview placements?	Not available	Run Search Terms reports on broad match and PMax campaigns to understand what conversational queries are driving clicks.
How many impressions came from AI Overviews specifically?	Not available	Monitor ‘Top Ads’ prominence metric as a proxy. Track overall impression share trends when making campaign changes.
What is my click-through rate from AI Overview placements?	Not available	Segment performance by device, time of day, and query type to look for patterns that may indicate AI Overview traffic behaviour.
Are my ads appearing in AI Overviews right now?	Not in dashboard	Manual spot-checking: run relevant queries in Google Search and observe whether your ads appear alongside AI Overviews. Use incognito mode for clean results.
How much of my budget is going to AI Overview placements?	Not broken out	Review campaign-level spend trends before and after structural changes. Look for changes in average CPC and conversion rate that may indicate new placement types.
Are AI Overview placements converting well?	Not isolated	Compare overall campaign conversion rates before and after adding broad match or AI Max. Set up audience segments to look for behavioural differences in new vs returning users.

The reporting limitations are a known issue that Google is expected to address as the feature matures. Until then, the pragmatic approach is to establish clear performance benchmarks before making structural changes toward AI Overview eligibility, so you have a baseline to compare against once changes are live.

What Is Coming Next: AI Mode Ads

AI Mode is a separate, fully conversational search interface, similar to ChatGPT, where users can ask multi-step questions and receive detailed, interactive responses across multiple turns. It is distinct from AI Overviews, which appear within standard Google Search results pages.

Google began testing ads in AI Mode in the US in 2025 and confirmed in early 2026 that shopping ads in AI Mode are also being tested. The commercial logic is clear: as users shift from single queries to multi-turn conversations, the number of touchpoints between user and advertiser increases. Every follow-up question in a conversation is a potential moment to surface a relevant ad.

AI Mode ads are not yet available in Australia, but advertisers who build Performance Max and AI Max Search campaigns now, with strong assets and clean conversion tracking, will be best positioned when these placements expand globally. The campaign structure required for AI Mode eligibility is the same as for AI Overview eligibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to create new campaigns to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Your existing text and Shopping ads from Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns are automatically eligible if they meet Google’s relevance and quality thresholds. The changes required are structural — moving away from exact or phrase match-only campaigns and pairing broad match with Smart Bidding — rather than creating entirely new campaign types.

Can I opt out of AI Overview ad placements?

Not directly. There is currently no opt-out mechanism for AI Overview placements. However, your negative keyword lists are respected within these placements, and Brand Exclusion lists in AI Max and Performance Max campaigns can prevent your ads from appearing against competitor terms or your own brand if that is not your strategy.

Will switching to broad match blow out my budget?

It can, if implemented without the right controls. The recommended approach is to pair broad match with Smart Bidding, ensure your negative keyword list is thorough before expanding match types, and start with a pilot campaign rather than changing your entire account at once. Monitor search term reports closely in the first 30 days and add negatives for any irrelevant query categories that appear.

Are ads in AI Overviews available in Australia right now?

Yes. Google’s own help documentation confirms Australia is one of the markets where ads in AI Overviews are currently available in English on both mobile and desktop, for placements above and below the AI Overview. The within-overview placement is currently US-only and expected to expand globally during 2026.

How do I know if my ads are actually appearing in AI Overviews?

The most practical method is manual spot-checking. Run relevant queries in Google Search using incognito mode and observe whether your ads appear alongside AI Overviews. Your Google Ads dashboard captures AI Overview placements under the ‘Top Ads’ prominence metric but does not break them out separately. There is currently no dedicated report for this placement.

My business is in financial services. Can I advertise in AI Overviews?

Not currently. Finance, healthcare, politics, gambling, alcohol, and similar regulated verticals are excluded from AI Overview ad placements regardless of campaign type or budget. This aligns with Google’s existing sensitive category policies. Monitor Google’s advertising policy updates for any changes to this exclusion.

What is the difference between AI Overviews and AI Mode?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear within standard Google Search results pages. AI Mode is a separate, fully conversational search interface where users can ask multi-turn questions and receive interactive responses. Both are powered by Google’s Gemini AI. Ads are currently available in AI Overviews globally. Ads in AI Mode are being tested in the US and are not yet available in Australia.

Conclusion: Structure Your Campaigns for Where Search Is Going

Ads in AI Overviews are not a separate product to subscribe to. They are a placement your campaigns become eligible for when they are structured in line with how Google’s AI actually works. The fundamental requirement is straightforward: move away from rigid keyword lists and toward intent-based matching that allows Google’s system to understand the conversational queries that trigger AI Overviews.

For Perth businesses already running Performance Max or broad match Search campaigns with Smart Bidding, you may already be appearing in AI Overview results without realising it. The priority for those accounts is ensuring your ad copy and landing pages are appropriate for an audience that arrives already informed, not one that needs to be educated from scratch.

For businesses running tightly controlled exact-match campaigns, the path to eligibility involves a deliberate, structured transition. Test broad match in a pilot campaign. Pair it with Smart Bidding. Monitor search terms closely. Build from there.

The broader shift is not slowing down. Google search is becoming more conversational, more AI-mediated, and more oriented around intent than keyword. The advertisers who adapt their campaign structure and creative approach to this environment now will be better positioned as it continues to evolve.

Are your Google Ads campaigns structured for AI Overview eligibility?
A Google Ads account review from a Perth-based specialist will identify exactly where your campaign structure, match types, and assets need updating to qualify for AI Overview placements. Whether you are starting from scratch or adapting existing campaigns, a structured review gives you a clear, prioritised action plan. Get in touch today to start the conversation.