搜索查询以五年最快的速度增长 Google母字母字母称在上周的收入报告中。 然而，Google的搜索收入增长在第三季度年增长率放缓至12%，从上一季度的大约17%下降到了每年的12%。 与此同时，付费点击率的增长——点击为Google创造收入的广告——从13%减到8%。
Google还没想好如何让AI像搜索引擎一样付费。
Google 称 AI正在推动搜索
但投资人所希望的方向不是今年计划花费大约2000亿美元建设基础设施，由于投资者质疑公司AI野心的成本与回报
“这是Google几十年来其核心业务面临的第一次重大干扰。”
首席商务官菲利普·辛德勒(Philipp Schindler 称)的货币效应是收入增长放缓的最大驱动力，同时也是特定行业广告商支出的变化。 但Google的AI改编也为减速做出了贡献：AI Mode查询增长强劲，但货币化速度低于传统搜索，Schindler 称。 他补充说，Google对它的轨迹感觉很好，并且它的“ad实验已经显示有希望的结果”。
尚不清楚这是否反映了Google 称等广告的有意推出，还是AI搜索广告中更根本的问题。
搜索收入的YOY增长与2026年Q1-3的付费点击
“这是Google几十年来其核心业务面临的第一个重大干扰，” 负责AI和广告的eMarketer主分析师Nate Elliott告诉The Verge。 AI正在改变人们如何寻找信息
Google的核心搜索业务看起来越来越取决于你的要求。 在许多情况下，AI Overviews会为搜索结果添加生成的摘要；选择AI Mode会将搜索变成对话。 但寻找Nikes的人仍然可以得到熟悉的购物上市和文本广告，称 Andy Taylor，数字广告机构Tinuiti的研究副总裁。 他们想要买鞋
Google的论点是AI正在扩大业务。 Schindler 称大多数AI模式的查询都是"递增"的——额外的问题而不是替代现有的搜索。 许多人也是“上层金融”，公司认为这些搜索是一段时间后出售更多广告的机会。
Google目前在AI Overviews和AI Mode中扩展广告，包括国际和跨美国AI Mode多个回合的对话。 表示为AI Mode开发的格式可以延续
问题是，Google，以及OpenAI等竞争对手，仍在想着如何让广告在AI中发挥作用——既为广告商提供结果，又避免利用他们的AI工具疏远人们。
目前，广告商仍在从Google获得结果。 Tinuiti的同店广告商在第三季度每年支付14%的搜索费
“如果人们点击次数减少。 这是他们需要解决的挑战。”
”泰勒·称。
Google的AI广告如何进行，Google不让他们单独瞄准存货或破解其性能，稳定的总体收益可能意味着人工智能上网流量仍然太小，无法明显地影响结果，或者它的运作类似于现有的库存。 泰勒怀疑这主要是前者。
这留下了一个重要问题：AI会给Google的广告业增加多少，额外的查询可以带来新的收入，即使每个查询收入低于传统的查询收入。 其风险在于AI Mode也会吸引人们远离Google货币化的搜索。 Google声称大部分AI Mode查询是额外的
艾略特·称指出，“如果人们点击次数减少
对话广告的许诺是，人们分享的需求比几个关键词要多得多。 但平台仍然需要识别对话的哪些部分很重要，并与正确的广告相匹配。
Elliott 称认为
ChatGPT广告的早期研究表明，10月的一份工作文件发现，ChatGPT广告的美国访问每届零售商的收入比Google搜索广告的访问少64%:0.89美元对2.45美元。 这份工作文件衡量的是零售商的销售量，而不是平台收入，它关于ChatGPT的调查结果并未确定Google自己的AI广告如何运作。
泰勒警告说，这些比较取决于人们在寻找什么。 有人在寻找耐克鞋的Google可能已经准备好购买，而有人在询问一个运行鞋类选择的AI工具时仍在研究。 较高的销售收益可以反映购买意向方面的差别，而不是更有效的广告。
Google的现有业务为它留出了空间，让它花点时间使用AI广告Taylor 称。 他指出其成功转向手机：早期电话流量对广告商来说价值较低，因为手机购物繁琐，但情况有所改变。
艾略特告诫说，寻找有效的广告格式可能需要几年时间。 搜索引擎在采用付费上市前先从横幅广告开始；社交媒体通过自己的实验。 今天的形式也许不是最终奏效的形式。
Google正在增加人工智能，搜索收入仍然以两位数增长，但公司尚未显示其新的搜索方式能够支付多少费用。
Elliott 称说，“没有人想通了。”
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Search queries are growing at their fastest rate in five years, Google parent Alphabet said in its earnings report last week. However, Google’s Search revenue growth slowed to 12 percent year over year in the third quarter, down from roughly 17 percent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, growth in paid clicks — clicks on ads that generate revenue for Google — slowed from 13 percent to 8 percent.
Google hasn’t figured out how to make AI pay like its search engine
Google says AI is boosting searches, but that activity isn’t translating into faster growth for the business that pays for it.
That’s still substantial growth, but not the direction investors were hoping for from a company planning to spend about $200 billion this year on infrastructure, largely to support AI. Alphabet shares have fallen about 14 percent since it reported earnings last week, as investors question the costs and returns of the company’s AI ambitions.
“This is the first major disruption that Google is facing to its core business in decades.”
Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said currency effects were the biggest driver of the revenue-growth slowdown, alongside changes in spending by advertisers in particular industries. But Google’s AI makeover also contributed to the slowdown: AI Mode queries were growing strongly but monetizing at a lower rate than traditional searches, Schindler says. He added that Google feels good about its trajectory and that its “ad experiments have shown promising results.”
It remains unclear whether that reflects a deliberate rollout of ads, as Google says, or a more fundamental problem with advertising in AI search.
YOY growth for search revenue vs. paid clicks in Q1-3 in 2026
“This is the first major disruption that Google is facing to its core business in decades,” Nate Elliott, an eMarketer principal analyst covering AI and advertising, tells The Verge. AI is changing how people find information — and whether they click on the ads that fund Google’s business.
What Google’s core Search business looks like increasingly depends on what you ask. In many cases, AI Overviews add generated summaries to search results; electing AI Mode turns searching into a conversation. But someone searching for Nikes can still get familiar shopping listings and text ads, says Andy Taylor, vice president of research at digital advertising agency Tinuiti. They’re looking to buy shoes rather than get an AI explanation of them.
Google’s argument is that AI is expanding the business. Schindler says most AI Mode queries are “incremental” — additional questions rather than replacements for existing searches. Many are also “upper-funnel,” meaning people are researching potential purchases before they know what they want. The company sees those searches as opportunities to sell more ads over time.
Google is currently expanding ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode, including internationally and across multiple turns of US AI Mode conversations. It has also floated bringing ads to its standalone Gemini app, saying formats developed for AI Mode could carry over, but hasn’t announced when.
The thing is, Google, as well as competitors like OpenAI, are still figuring out how to make ads work in AI — both delivering results for advertisers and avoiding alienating the people using their AI tools.
For now, advertisers are still getting results from Google. Tinuiti’s same-store advertisers increased their Google paid search spending 14 percent year over year in the third quarter while maintaining their return-on-ad-spend targets.
“If people are clicking through less often. That is a challenge that they need to figure out.”
“We’re still seeing a good return, and we’re not seeing performance take a hit,” Taylor says.
The catch is that advertisers can’t isolate how Google’s AI ads are doing. Google doesn’t let them separately target that inventory or break out its performance, Taylor says. Steady overall returns could mean AI ad traffic is still too small to noticeably affect the results, or that it performs similarly to existing inventory. Taylor suspects it’s mostly the former.
That leaves an important question unanswered: How much will AI add to Google’s advertising business, and how much could it replace? Additional queries could bring in new revenue even if each earns less than a traditional search. The risk is that AI Mode also draws people away from searches that Google monetizes more effectively. Google’s claim that most AI Mode queries are additional doesn’t tell us how much revenue it could lose from the searches AI Mode replaces.
“If people are clicking through less often,” Elliott says, “that is a challenge that they need to figure out.”
The promise of conversational advertising is that people share much more about their needs than they would in a few keywords. But platforms still have to identify which parts of a conversation matter and match them with the right ads.
“It’s not a slam dunk that it’s going to turn into more effective advertising,” Elliott says.
An early study of ChatGPT ads suggests richer conversations don’t automatically translate into more retail sales. An October working paper found that US visits from ChatGPT ads generated 64 percent less revenue for retailers per session than visits from Google Search ads: $0.89 versus $2.45. The working paper measures retailers’ sales rather than platform revenue, and its findings about ChatGPT don’t establish how Google’s own AI ads perform.
Taylor cautions that those comparisons depend on what people are searching for. Someone searching Google for Nike shoes may already be ready to buy, while someone asking an AI tool which running shoes to choose is still researching. A higher sales return could reflect that difference in purchase intent rather than more effective ads.
Google’s existing business has given it room to take its time with AI ads, Taylor says. He points to its successful shift to mobile: Early phone traffic was less valuable to advertisers because shopping on a phone was cumbersome, but that changed.
Elliott cautions that finding effective ad formats can take years. Search engines started with banner ads before adopting paid listings; social media went through its own experimentation. Today’s formats may not be the ones that ultimately work.
But Google’s mounting AI spending raises the stakes. Search revenue is still growing by double digits, but the company has yet to show how well its new way of searching can pay.
“They absolutely do not have it all figured out,” Elliott says. “No one has it all figured out.”
Auto-fetched and translated by AI Atlas. All rights belong to the original author.