Google Marketing Live 2025: Is AI redefining digital advertising?

On May 21, 2025 in Dublin, Google unveiled a new generation of AI-powered advertising tools during Google Marketing Live 2025. While the promises are numerous, it is important to understand what this means for advertisers: more automation, new formats, and an advertising strategy that is increasingly driven by product data.

AI-Augmented Google Search: AI Overviews and AI Mode

Unsurprisingly, Google is using generative AI to transform the search experience. From now on, sponsored ads may appear directly within AI Overviews in Google search results. First deployed on desktop in the United States, these ads in AI-generated responses allow brands to position themselves much earlier in the customer journey. The first tests are encouraging: Google observes +10% commercial requests when AI previews are displayed, a sign of better user engagement with these rich results. Clearly, AI offers new opportunities to capture demand from the initial stages of discovery.

Google is also introducing a AI mode conversational integrating advertising in a native way. Concretely, AI can manage complex questions in several steps, while inserting ads in AI mode directly in the flow of the conversation For example, during a chatbot-type interaction on Google, a request from the user can lead to a detailed response enriched with an announcement relevant to the context. These conversational formats pave the way for more subtle and personalized advertising interactions, where the advertiser becomes part of the dialogue. For marketing professionals, this means adapting strategies SEA in order to integrate these new locations generated by AI. Position yourself in the AI Overviews And the AI mode will require revising keywords, ad content, and optimizing product flows to match the complex intentions of users.

Optimizing Google Ads 2025 campaigns using AI: AI Max, Smart Bidding, and Performance Max

The 2025 edition of Google Marketing Live confirms the advent of AI advertising campaigns, where intelligent automation drives a large part of operations. On Google Ads, new optimization features take advantage of Machine learning to go beyond traditional approaches. The tool AI Max is a striking example: this new method of distribution without a specific keyword succeeds in identifying relevant queries and audiences that traditional targeting would have missed. Google revealed that a campaign using AI Max can surpass the performance of an exact match campaign by 27% on some key indicators. In other words, the algorithm is able to detect hidden purchase intentions and reach potential customers more effectively than with predefined keywords. Additionally, AI Max provides marketers with detailed insights into which ad titles, queries, and landing pages are converting best, in order to continuously refine the strategy.

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However, Google has not forgotten the need for advertisers to control their campaigns. During Google Marketing Live 2025, the firm announced new options for finely managing these AI-driven campaigns: exclusion of brand keywords, precise geographic targeting, final URL extension, etc., are now supported in AI Max. At the same time, the Smart Bidding feature is evolving with the biggest update to automated bidding in a decade. This novelty, presented as theExploring smart auctions, aims to identify less obvious but potentially high-performing search queries, allowing ads to appear at more relevant moments in the user journey — including on queries that you didn't specifically target by keyword. In practice, this means that your Google Ads 2025 campaigns will be able to capture incremental demand without additional manual effort, while still meeting your goals (for example, by dynamically adjusting bids to reach a certain target ROAS).

Another notable announcement: Google plans to unify some of its flagship offerings into a common strategy. The Power Pack (formerly referred to as PowerAir) will combine the forces of the campaigns Search, Performance Max and Demand Gen in a single integrated solution. This unified approach promises simplified management of multi-lever campaigns, where the same AI-driven strategy could broadcast your ads on the search network, the YouTube Discovery display, and other channels simultaneously. For advertisers, such convergence means fewer silos between advertising formats and an overall optimization of delivery based on results. In short, the platform Google Ads 2025 is moving towards ever more intelligent automation, offering marketers a double advantage: more hidden opportunities are exploited by the algorithm, while humans keep control of key strategic parameters. The challenge will be to learn to co-pilot with AI — trust it for micro-optimization, while clearly setting up the safeguards (budget, excluded audiences, brand messages) in order to maintain control over the overall orientation of campaigns.

AI-powered ad creation: Asset Studio and new creative tools

On the creative side, Google Marketing Live 2025 formalized the transition to the era of AI-generated advertising. The production of visuals and advertising texts, which has traditionally been time-consuming, is in the process of being revolutionized by Google's generative models. The big news announced is the launch of Asset Studio, a centralized platform that allows brands to generate and test high quality visuals while ensuring professional brand consistency — and without requiring a dedicated production team. In other words, even an advertiser with a small marketing team will be able to create professional-looking images and banners, in a few clicks, thanks to AI.

Google is not stopping there and is expanding its arsenal of creative tools powered by AI:

• Veo & Outpainting — The integration of the video model Veo and the technique ofOutpainting allows you to transform simple static product images into dynamic and captivating videos, thus expanding the possibilities of visual storytelling.
• Automatic asset generation — Google Ads will now be able to automatically offer all the elements of an ad: titles, descriptions, calls to action and visuals, all generated by AI from the content of your site or feed. This integral generation of advertising resources aims to accelerate the creation of campaigns while multiplying the variants to be tested.
• Enhanced Product Studio — The existing tool Product Studio Win campaign suggestions”Generated for you”. The AI will analyze your catalog and highlight your flagship products by suggesting ideas for tailor-made promotions, ready to be exploited in campaigns. A real time-saver when it comes to creating relevant marketing offers.
• Video Asset Manager — On the content management side, the video manager evolves in Merchant Center in order to centralize all video resources of the brand and even make recommendations to optimize their performance (for example, adapt the duration or format of a video according to the results).

For marketers, these advances in AI advertising creation change the situation. The design of visuals, videos or advertising messages can be accelerated dramatically. It is becoming possible to generate dozens of variants of a banner or advertising text in a few minutes, where it took days of graphic and editorial work. This means more A/B tests possible, so ultimately better optimized ads. Small businesses especially benefit from accessing quality content. practically equivalent to that produced by large agencies, without the usual costs or deadlines. However, this ease of creation also poses a challenge: brand differentiation and consistency. If everyone uses the same AI models to generate ads, how can we make sure we don't fall into uniformity? Marketers will need to be careful to inject a dose of strategy and human creativity into the process: AI provides the raw material and the quantity, but it is up to the human to set the artistic direction, tone and messages that resonate with the target audience. In short, AI generates, the marketer orchestrates.

Agentic AI: a new marketing assistant in Google Ads and Analytics

Google is also taking a giant step towards marketing driven by agentic AI — that is, an AI capable not only of analyzing, but also of acting independently as a real assistant. During Google Marketing Live, the No. 1 search engine announced the arrival ofagentic AI tools within Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). On Google Ads, this will result in intelligent agents that can create, optimize and structure campaigns in real time, while providing advertisers with proactive recommendations to improve performance. On GA4, the AI will help the marketing data analysis : it will automatically highlight important insights, highlight emerging trends, and detect anomalies or problems to facilitate informed decisions. No more dashboards combed through manually — augmented analytics will let teams know what deserves their attention, from an unexplained traffic surge to a stalling conversion.

The most concrete innovation for users will undoubtedly be the Marketing Advisor, a Chrome extension presented as a smart co-pilot for advertisers. This assistant integrates AI directly into the browser, by connecting to your Google Ads and Analytics accounts. It can thus provide personalized advice and step-by-step support on your daily tools, detect technical problems in your campaigns, suggest strategic optimizations, and even automatically apply changes with your validation. All without leaving the usual work interface — the AI comes to you, instead of you having to go looking for it. For example, we can imagine the Marketing Advisor signaling that a campaign budget will be exhausted too soon, offering to adjust the bid or budget in one click, or detecting that a landing page is slow and advising to replace it. For busy professionals or SMES not having a dedicated PPC expert, it is a valuable aid that democratizes access to high-level optimization.

In practice, the arrival of these AI agents in the Google Ads/Analytics suite will transform the role of the digital marketer. Many routine or highly analytical tasks can be delegated to artificial intelligences that act 24 hours a day, do not miss any detail and learn from each result. This means that the marketing teams will be able to focus more on strategy, content creation and coordination overall, while the AI takes care of the fine adjustments. However, be careful not to fall into the opposite excess: an agentic tool is only efficient if it is controlled correctly beforehand. Marketers will need to clearly define goals, constraints and remain vigilant to the recommendations of AI (which, as intelligent as it may be, can propose actions that are contrary to the spirit of the brand or to the long-term vision). In any case, having a “super-assistant” integrated into the usual tools is a leap forward for the productivity and accessibility of digital advertising optimized by AI.

Conclusion and recommendations for marketers

With Google Marketing Live 2025, digital advertising is fully entering the AI era. The ads presented — from AI previews in search to automatically generated campaigns, to AI-generated visual creations — are no longer simple futuristic concepts, but concrete solutions that are coming to the Google Ads ecosystem. As the media Minted points out, beyond the immediate announcement effect, deeper questions are emerging: What will be the impact of these innovations on the organization of marketing teams and the business model of marketers ? Indeed, while AI makes life easier for advertisers, it is also changing the ways in which they work and plan resources.

Here are a few practical recommendations for digital advertising professionals in order to make the most of this new situation:

• Get trained and experience now — Do not wait for these tools to be massively adopted to get started. Test them AI previews in Search Labs (when available in your country), try out the new features of AI Max on your search campaigns, or use the beta versions of Asset Studio. The more experience you gain with these AI tools, the more you'll be ahead of the competition.
• Adapting your internal organization — Free up time for strategic analysis and creativity by automating what can be automated. If AI takes care of 30% of the operational tasks of a campaign, reinvest that time in high-level marketing thinking. It may be useful to form a “AI pole” within the team, responsible for monitoring news (such as those of Google Ads 2025) and for disseminating best practices internally.
• Maintaining control over the strategy — AI excels at tactical optimization, but it's up to the marketer to define the vision. Continue to set clear goals (business KPIs, brand positioning), and use AI tools as allies to achieve them more effectively. For example, if you deploy a unified Performance Max campaign via the Power Pack, be sure to set up the audience signals correctly and to exclude what is irrelevant to avoid any deviation.
• Personalization and human creativity — Take advantage of the capabilities of AI-generated advertising to produce content in volume, but inject your brand DNA into it. Use Asset Studio for the visuals, but feel free to manually adjust the creations to tell your own story. Likewise, the automatically generated texts will need to be reviewed and refined to ensure that they correspond to your tone and message. La differentiation will remain a major asset in a sea of automated advertising.
• Measuring and staying ethical — As always in digital marketing, rely on data. Closely monitor the performance of AI-driven campaigns and generated creations: what variants work or fail? Learn from this feedback to refine your actions. In addition, keep a critical eye on the content produced by AI in order to avoid any slippage (erroneous information, involuntary biases, regulatory non-compliance, etc.). AI opens up great possibilities, but the final responsibility for the communication broadcast still lies with the advertiser.

In summary, Google Ads 2025 and the Google advertising ecosystem are resolutely committed to the path of practical artificial intelligence. Marketers have unprecedented tools to gain efficiency, creativity, and reach. The watchword ishybridization : combining analysis and automatic generation by AI with human supervision, inventiveness and strategic thinking. Professionals who adopt this hybrid approach will be in the best position to take advantage of the innovations unveiled at Google Marketing Live 2025, while maintaining what makes their brand unique. AI is changing the game of digital advertising, but it is up to us, marketers, to write the rest of the story by using it intelligently.

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