At Google Marketing Live 2025, Google doubled down on its AI-powered vision of the future, announcing a number of updates that will change how brands show up across Search, YouTube, and the web.
Whether you run eCommerce campaigns, manage local service ads, or help brands scale through Performance Max, here’s what marketers need to know, and how to adapt your strategy.
1. AI Max campaigns: keywordless search is here
Google introduced AI Max, a new campaign type that works alongside Performance Max and Demand Gen under the newly named “Power Pair.”
AI Max campaigns use your website, ad assets, and business goals to reach high-intent customers, even without keywords.
Why it matters:
This represents a shift from traditional keyword targeting to AI-led intent modeling, offering a smarter way to target customers who are in the market, even if they don’t type in your exact terms.
Tip for marketers: Review your landing pages and product feeds. These assets will now play a bigger role in how Google understands your business for AI Max.
2. Smart bidding gets smarter (and more transparent)
For the first time in 10+ years, Google overhauled its Smart Bidding algorithm with a new "Exploration" mode. This feature tests into less obvious, long-tail queries that might have strong conversion potential but limited volume.
What’s new:
Access to search term insights even in Performance Max
Ability to add account-level negative keywords
Impact for advertisers: Expect to see more performance lift from long-tail discovery and better control over irrelevant traffic.
3. Your ads can now show in AI overviews
If you’ve seen AI Overviews in Google Search (formerly SGE), you know they push traditional ads way down the page. But now, Google is launching ad placements directly inside AI-generated answers.
Who benefits:
Brands with strong content, solid landing pages, and relevant offers. Early results show CTR and engagement can spike when users see your brand baked into an answer, and not just listed in the ad rail.
For eCommerce: Use structured data, Merchant Center feeds, and high-quality visuals to improve your chances of showing up in AI-driven placements.
4. Create ads with VEO & Imagen (AI-powered creative tools)
Google is integrating two of its most powerful creative tools into Google Ads:
- Veo (AI video generation)
- Imagen (AI image generation)
With these tools, you can generate product videos, lifestyle imagery, and performance-focused assets in minutes.
Why it’s huge:
Creative is the biggest driver of paid ad performance. And now, anyone, no matter your design team’s size, can produce polished, high-converting assets.
Hot tip: A/B test AI-generated creatives in your Demand Gen and YouTube campaigns.
5. Performance Max gets more control (finally)
Google announced several long-requested updates to Performance Max:
- Search term reporting (again!)
- Negative keywords at the account and campaign level
- Better audience insights and customer intent signals
For agencies and marketers: This puts Performance Max back on the table for more use cases, especially if you were previously concerned about its "black box" feel.
Hot tip: Revisit underperforming PMax campaigns. With these controls, they may be worth optimizing, instead of pausing.
6. Agentic AI is your new marketing assistant
Google teased its vision for “agentic AI, ”essentially an AI co-pilot that helps set up and optimize campaigns in real time.
This assistant can:
- Build new campaigns based on goals
- Write ad copy
- Choose audience segments
- Suggest budget allocation
While still early days, this tool has the potential to democratize high-performance strategy, especially for small teams and in-house marketers.
What to do now: Keep your account organized. These AI assistants rely on high-quality inputs, like conversion tracking, structured feeds, and clean account structures.
How to stay ahead in an AI-first Google Ads world
Google’s 2025 updates are clear. AI is now the default, not a bonus feature. To stay competitive, brands and marketing agencies need to:
- Prioritize conversion-driven landing pages
- Feed Google high-quality data (feeds, images, content)
- Embrace campaign types that lean on intent vs. keywords
Want the full picture? Watch the official Google Marketing Live 2025 keynote here.
At Digital Hot Sauce, we’re starting to test these updates for our e-commerce and service-based clients.
Not sure if your current campaigns are keeping up with the latest changes?
Let’s chat about it. Contact us today for a free consult!
