Google Marketing Live 2026 ran on 20 May, livestreaming from Dublin to more than 100 countries. The event focused on agentic AI, conversational Search, automated creative production, and AI-assisted shopping experiences. Across Search, YouTube, Merchant Center, and Analytics, Google announced tools designed to make campaigns more autonomous, predictive, and interconnected.
What follows is every announcement from the keynote, grouped by area and with availability status for each. A separate analysis piece covering what these announcements mean for e-commerce advertisers is published separately on this site.
Numbers to watch:
- 2.5B: Monthly active users of AI Overviews
- 1B+: Monthly AI Mode users and queries 3× longer than traditional Search
- 60B+: Product listings in Google’s Shopping Graph
Conversational Ad Formats For AI Search
Google announced several new Gemini-powered ad formats designed specifically for AI Mode and conversational Search. These formats embed AI-generated responses and conversational experiences directly into Search journeys rather than placing existing units above or below results. Ad copy is generated dynamically to respond to the specific query and the AI-generated answer it sits alongside. The framing from the keynote: “the best ads must be answers.”
Conversational ad formats in AI Mode
New ad formats designed for AI Mode and conversational Search. Ads appear as contextual additions to the AI-generated response rather than as separate units. Copy is generated to match the specific query and the answer above it. Advertisers must adopt AI Max for Search or Performance Max with text customisation to access these formats.
Status: Rolling out
Direct Offers: Expanded with AI-generated bundles and native checkout
Direct Offers, the promotions pilot launched in January 2026 with Chewy, Gap, and L’Oréal, is expanding with three new capabilities. Promotion bundling: Gemini constructs a deal per query using the advertiser's uploaded promotions, products, and guardrails, assembling contextual bundles, coupons, or discounts based on the shopper's search intent. Native checkout: merchants using Universal Commerce Protocol can complete a purchase inside Search without the user leaving. Travel expansion: Expedia and Booking.com are joining, surfacing offers inside AI-assisted trip planning. “Direct Offers are fundamentally different from Shopping ads because they use the deep context of an AI Mode conversation to serve a tailored deal when someone’s ready to buy.”
Status: Expanding now
AI-powered Shopping ads with Gemini feature summaries
Shopping ads in AI Mode now include Gemini-written product feature summaries that respond to the specific query context rather than displaying generic product copy.
Status: Rolling out
Business Agent for Leads
A prospective customer can ask a question directly inside an ad and receive an answer drawn from the advertiser's website. Currently being tested in education, automotive, and real estate.
Status: Beta — select categories
AI Brief
Advertisers describe their brand, audiences, and guardrails in conversational language. The system interprets that input to generate ad guidelines with previews. Rolls targeting and creative messaging into one input layer. Required to access the new AI Search ad formats.
Status: Available now
September 2026 — DSA migration
Dynamic Search Ads will automatically upgrade to AI Max in September 2026. No opt-in required. Google's stated position on keyword selection: “You can’t choose keywords anymore.” Any DSA campaign that has not been reviewed and prepared for this migration will transition automatically.
Agentic Commerce: Universal Cart and UCP
The commerce section announced the Universal Cart and several expansions to the Universal Commerce Protocol, the open standard Google co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, Walmart, and others. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Stripe have now joined the steering group.
Universal Cart
A cross-merchant shopping cart that allows users to add products from multiple retailers. Tracks price changes and back-in-stock alerts. Users check out on Google or transfer the cart to the merchant site. The retailer remains the merchant of record throughout. Began rolling out in the United States on 19 May 2026. Gemini app integration coming this summer. YouTube and Gmail integrations to follow. UK expansion confirmed in the coming months.
Status: US rollout live from 19 May
UCP expanding to new verticals and markets
UCP is expanding beyond retail into hotel booking via AI Mode, local food delivery via Google Maps, and travel. UK, Canada, and Australia confirmed as the next markets after the US. UCP is also being integrated into Demand Gen campaigns, YouTube Shopping ads, and AI Mode experiences.
Status: UK in the coming months
Merchant Center: AI Performance Insights and Conversational Attributes
Google announced two new Merchant Center features designed to help retailers improve discoverability across AI-powered shopping experiences.
AI Performance Insights
A new reporting feature inside Merchant Center that shows how a brand performs across AI surfaces, Share of Voice data against similar competitors, and visibility into AI-driven discovery performance. Rolling out in Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand. Additional markets to follow.
Status: AU, CA, IN, NZ first
Conversational Attributes
Retailers can add conversational product attributes and updated descriptions directly inside Merchant Center. Google's AI systems then use that structured data to improve product matching for natural, conversational search behaviour across Search, Gemini, and AI Mode. Currently available to US retailers.
Status: US — live now
YouTube: Demand Gen and Creator Partnerships
Google presented YouTube as a performance channel, not a reach channel. Audience context cited: 45% of YouTube Shorts viewers are not on TikTok, and 65% are not on Reels. Google stated that advertisers who add Demand Gen to a mix of Search and Performance Max see a 10% higher ROAS and 12% higher sales. All performance figures cited by Google. Results vary by advertiser.
Demand Gen expands to Google Maps
Demand Gen ads are coming to Google Maps for the first time. Product Feeds expanding to tablets. Pause functionality being added on mobile.
Status: Summer 2026
Creator partnerships in Google Ads setup
Relevant creator partnerships surface directly inside Google Ads campaign setup. Advertisers can convert organic creator videos into paid assets within the campaign workflow. Google cited a 20% average increase in conversion lift when creator assets are added to Demand Gen campaigns — Google's own figure, results vary.
Status: Available now
Campaign-type attribution for Demand Gen
Separates every conversion Demand Gen contributes to. Addresses the recurring advertiser request for a direct apples-to-apples comparison against social platforms. Google noted that only 40% of Demand Gen conversions occur in the first 30 days.
Status: Available now
Creative: Asset Studio gains Gemini Omni
Google is integrating Gemini, Veo, and Nano Banana into Asset Studio, with Gemini Omni, the model combining Gemini reasoning with generative media, arriving this summer. Google cited research indicating creative drives nearly half of all incremental ad sales.
Asset Studio: Gemini Omni integration
Advertisers can use natural language prompts to generate images, video, and copy inside Google Ads. Asset Studio is gaining the ability to pull assets from external tools including Adobe and Canva. The capability is available through an API. Global English rollout planned for summer 2026.
Status: Global English — summer 2026
1-Click Creative Testing
Automatically runs new assets against current top performers. Removes the manual setup required for asset comparison experiments inside Google Ads.
Status: Summer 2026
Measurement: Meridian inside Analytics 360
The measurement section introduced three new capabilities structured around data strength, causality, and a unified cross-channel view.
Meridian integrated into Google Analytics 360
Google’s open-source Marketing Mix Model is now integrated directly into a reimagined Google Analytics 360. Advertisers can analyse performance across Google, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snap in one place, and run scenario planning through an agentic natural-language interface. Moves MMM from a specialist data-science workstream into a standard component of an enterprise analytics platform.
Status: Now available
Attributed Branded Searches
Tracks short-term intent created by an ad, specifically follow-up branded searches that occur after ad exposure. Available in Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform. Provides a causality signal between ad impression and downstream search intent.
Status: Now available
Qualified Future Conversions
A Gemini-powered metric that connects signals such as follow-up branded searches and site visits to predict conversions up to six months in advance. Designed to capture long-term conversion value that falls outside standard 30-day attribution windows.
Status: Beta
Ask Advisor: One Agent Across All Google Platforms
Google consolidated its separate in-product AI assistants into a single agent called Ask Advisor. The tool connects Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Marketing Platform, and Merchant Center into one continuous conversational interface, built on Gemini, with a shared memory layer that retains goals as a user moves between tasks.
Ask Advisor
Consolidates Ads Advisor, Analytics Advisor, and the Merchant Center agent into one cross-product interface. Ask Advisor is being built directly into Merchant Center as well as Google Ads and Analytics. Google says Ask Advisor can pull insights across platforms to help marketers move from planning to optimisation more quickly. Currently in beta, available globally for English-language accounts.
Status: Beta — global English accounts
The Direction Across All Six Areas
Every announcement at GML 2026 moves execution further into automated layers — ad copy generation, deal assembly, creative production, measurement modelling, and campaign management are all becoming inputs-and-guardrails tasks rather than manual configuration tasks. The September DSA migration makes the most immediate operational demand. The rest is a roadmap of where Google's advertising infrastructure is heading.
GML 2026 was the 13th annual edition of Google's flagship advertiser event. The announcements covered six areas of the advertising stack: Search ad formats, commerce infrastructure, Merchant Center tooling, YouTube and Demand Gen, creative production, and measurement. Many features were pre-announced in the weeks before the keynote. The event consolidated them into a single product narrative.
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