5 key insights from Google Marketing Live 2025

5 key insights from Google Marketing Live 2025

  • Google Marketing Live was on Wednesday May 21, 2025

    Every year, Google Marketing Live gives us a glimpse into where the platform—and digital advertising more broadly—is headed. This year’s event made one thing clear: the AI era is no longer on the horizon, it’s here. From generative search to smarter campaign types and more accessible measurement tools, the updates Google announced in 2025 reflect a deeper shift in how intent is captured and how performance is measured.

    For growth leaders at consumer brands, the message is loud and strong: the playbook is changing. We’ve pulled out five updates that we think matter most for fast growing consumer brands. The first two relates to how AI is transforming search - on the front-end thanks to AI overview & and AI Mode and on the backend thanks to AI Max. The third is AI-related but on the creative side: Gen AI for creative is not yet there but making strides. The last two relate to data: Google is making Performance Max reporting more transparent and also making lift tests more accessible which will help with incrementality measurement. 
     

  • 1. Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode bring officially search ads in the AI era 

    Google is officially bringing ads into its AI-powered search experiences - both in AI Overviews (those snapshot answers at the top of Search) and in the new AI Mode chat flow. This is a fundamentally new way to think about capturing intent because the traditional model - where users type a query, scan links, and click through - is being replaced by a conversational flow where answers are generated in real time and ads are woven directly into that exchange. 

    Access to ads for this user AI interface is also expected to rely on the AI tools for advertisers, specifically Performance Max and AI Max in Search that leverage indirect expressions of intent to identify impression opportunities. 

  • 2. More transparency inside Performance Max 

    For years, Performance Max has felt like a black box compared to the previous generations of ad products from Google. After starting to give more visibility to advertisers in private Alphas and Betas, Google is rolling out channel-level reporting more broadly so that all advertisers can see how much of their spend is going to Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, and more. 

    This will enable further analysis of the incrementality of each placement that is part of Performance Max and generally drive higher confidence in the channel’s results. 
     

  • 3. AI Max for Search as a tool to capture more indirect intent signals 

    This type of campaign is not made to replace Search campaigns but to extend its footprint by somewhere in the 15-25% range by using AI to find relevant queries using “keywordless technology”. Now that Google is capturing signals of intent in many new ways beyond simply looking at search queries, this new type of campaign is expected to drive more conversions at similar CPA/ROAS targets. 

  • 4. More accessible lift tests will help with incrementality measurement 

    Google lowering the minimum budget for lift tests from $100k to $5k is one of the most quietly important updates from this year’s GML. It means statistically sound incrementality testing is no longer reserved for the biggest advertisers. For earlier stage brands, that’s a big unlock: you can now more easily prove whether your media is truly driving new revenue or just picking up sales that would’ve happened anyway. 

  • 5. Gen AI for creative: fast improvements but still looking 

    The Asset Studio demonstration was impressive but the experience we have had in the past is that the actual tools leveraging GenAI for creative production have not yet been delivering high enough quality to be usable for brands mindful of brand consistency across channels. 

    The move to bundle Imagen and Veo to spin fresh image and video variants on demand will be something we will experiment with but outside of our client deliverables for now. 

  • Written by: Pierre Hollier-Larousse, Vincent Bourzeix and Zan Bongiovi


     

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