Every year Google holds an event called Google Marketing Live, where they announce what is changing in Google Ads — their advertising platform used by businesses worldwide to reach buyers through search, YouTube, Gmail and more. This year’s event, held last week, was dominated by one theme: AI is now built into almost everything.
Most of the announcements were aimed at consumer brands and their marketing. But three of the new features stand out as relevant for B2B companies — and I want to explain each one in plain terms, along with how I think you can use them.
1. Your ads can now appear when buyers use Google’s AI search
You may have noticed that Google search results look different than they used to. More and more often, instead of a list of links, Google shows a written answer at the top of the page — generated by AI. This is called AI Mode, and it is powered by Google Gemini, Google’s own AI model. Many people now use it by default, particularly when they are researching something complex.
Until now, this was a blind spot for advertisers. When a potential buyer used AI Mode to research suppliers or solutions, no ads appeared. You simply could not pay to reach them there. Google announced last week that this is changing — ads will now appear inside AI Mode results.
In practice, two things can happen. First, if someone types a specific question – like “heat exchanger solutions for the food processing industry” – Google’s AI generates an answer, and your ad appears as a direct response to that question. Not as a separate banner, but woven into the answer itself, addressing exactly what the person asked.
Second, when Google’s AI generates a list of recommended options – say, the top suppliers for a particular application – your company can now appear on that list as a sponsored result. Think of it as being included in Google’s own recommendation, rather than sitting separately above or below it.
One important note: this is currently only available in the US. It will expand to other markets over time, so if your buyers are primarily in Europe or Asia, this is something to prepare for rather than act on right now.
How to use it: The key is making sure Google has enough good information about your company to match you to the right searches. Review your website and ad copy – are they specific about what you do, which industries you serve and what problems you solve? That specificity is what gets you in front of the right potential buyer.
2. Buyers can get their questions answered directly inside your ad
Here is a situation most B2B companies will recognize. A potential buyer finds your ad, clicks through, lands on your website – and then leaves without getting in touch. Not because they were not interested, but because the answer to their specific question was not easy to find. So they moved on.
Google has introduced a feature that tackles this directly. It is called Business Agent for Leads, and it works like this: instead of clicking through to your website, a buyer can open a chat window directly inside your ad. They type their question – about specifications, compatibility, lead times, certifications, whatever it is – and they get an immediate answer, summarized from your website content.
For B2B companies with long sales cycles, this matters. The buyer meets your sales team already having had their basic questions answered. The first F2F meeting can start at a much more useful point by discussing solutions.
How to use it: The agent uses your website content to answer questions, so the quality of that content is everything. Go through your product and service pages – are the most common buyer questions actually answered there? If not, that is where to start.
3. You can now steer Google’s AI campaigns with plain-language instructions
Google has a campaign type called AI Max, which uses AI to automatically decide which searches to respond to, how to write the ad text and which version to show. It is powerful, but many B2B companies have been reluctant to use it – handing that level of control to an algorithm can feel risky when your messaging needs to be precise.
A new feature called AI Brief is designed to address this. It lets you give AI Max written instructions in plain language: what your ads should always say, what to avoid and which audiences to prioritize. A company selling industrial pumps for offshore use could for example tell the AI to always mention their safety certifications and never appear for searches related to domestic applications. The AI handles everything else – within those boundaries.
How to use it: If you are already running AI Max campaigns, or considering it, AI Brief is the tool that puts you back in control of the message. Write down what your ads should always communicate and what situations to avoid – that is your starting point.
What I take away from all of this
These three developments have something in common. They all address a problem that B2B marketers have struggled with for years: reaching buyers at the right moment, with the right message, before they have already made up their mind.
In B2B, decisions are rarely made in a single moment. By the time a buyer fills in a contact form, they have typically already spent months doing their own research. They have already formed a view of which suppliers seem credible. The companies that were present – and clear, and helpful – during that research phase are the ones that end up on the shortlist.
This connects to something my colleague Ulf Vanselius wrote about in Insight 96: that 92% of B2B purchases are made from companies already on the buyer’s “day one list” – the suppliers they thought of the moment a need arose. Getting onto that list is not about being present at the point of purchase. It is about being remembered long before that.
All three of these Google features make it easier to be present – and memorable – at that earlier stage. And all three reward the same thing: knowing your customers well and communicating clearly what you do for them.
That has always been the foundation of good marketing. Google has just built better tools around it.
Feel free to reach out if you want to talk about what this means for your campaigns.
Joakim Ebstein
Head of Digital Marketing
