Alphabet reported Google advertising revenue of $82.0 billion for the third quarter, and on the same day Google said ads in AI Mode are expanding to 10 more countries, with multiturn ads launching in the United States.
The two announcements arrived within hours of each other on October 28. One is a financial filing and the other is a product post, and a marketing team can use them together to see how much of its search budget is heading toward a new ad surface and how much evidence exists for that move.
What Alphabet reported
Alphabet’s third-quarter results release, filed with the SEC, puts consolidated revenue at $127.6 billion, up 25%. Google advertising rose from $74.2 billion in the third quarter of 2025 to $82.0 billion, which works out to growth of about 10.6%. The release breaks that total into three lines:
- Google Search and other: $63.4 billion, up from $56.6 billion, or about 12.0%.
- YouTube ads: $11.2 billion, up from $10.3 billion, or about 9.2%.
- Google Network: $7.5 billion, up from $7.4 billion, or about 1.4%.
Total traffic acquisition costs were $16.4 billion against $14.9 billion a year earlier, about 10% higher. The release does not give a separate figure for AI Mode, so the filing cannot tell a buyer how much of the Search line comes from it.
Advertising made up about 64% of Alphabet’s revenue in the quarter, against about 72% a year earlier, because other lines grew faster. The release says Google Cloud revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion and that the Gemini app has reached one billion users. For a marketer, the shift in mix matters less than the dollar figure: the advertising line still added $7.8 billion in a year.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, linked the Search line to the AI work. “Our AI investments are driving overall Search query growth, including commercial queries,” he said in the release, which adds that the year-over-year query growth rate is the highest in the last five years.
What Google announced for AI Mode ads
In a post dated October 28, Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences, said Google is scaling ads in AI Mode in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore. In Q4 2026 Google plans to expand to additional locales, including Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Google is also launching multiturn ads in the U.S., which allow ads in follow-up queries within AI Mode. They will be labeled “Sponsored.” Two figures support the announcement. Google says queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than traditional searches, citing its Google AI Mode Report for the US from May 2026. It also says click-through rates are already similar between sponsored and organic product list items within AI Mode, citing Google internal data for the US from August 20 to September 3, 2026.
A comparison point from Microsoft
Microsoft reported the same day. Its first-quarter results release says search and advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 12%, inside a Devices and Consumer segment whose revenue was $15.5 billion, down 3%. The two companies define their lines differently, since Microsoft’s figure excludes traffic acquisition costs and Google’s advertising total does not, so the percentages are a rough comparison.
What it means for the marketing leader
Three details in the primaries shape a budget conversation this quarter.
The first is where the evidence comes from. The click-through comparison covers product list items in the US over about two weeks. The ten new countries are outside that sample as Google describes it, so a team running campaigns in Canada or India has Google’s statement about a different market and no market-level figure of its own yet. The same gap applies to multiturn ads, which launch with no performance figure in the post.
The second is the reporting line. Neither the filing nor the post gives AI Mode ad revenue, and an advertiser can only see its own share through account reports. We covered the same measurement problem for another new ad surface in ChatGPT Ads Measurement Has Two Routes, and One Sale Can Count Twice. The practical request to an account team is a report that separates AI Mode impressions, clicks and conversions from standard Search for each market.
The third is the mix. Search and other grew about 12.0% and Google Network about 1.4%, so Google’s own filing shows revenue concentrating in Search. Teams that buy Google display inventory alongside Search can read the two growth rates when they review how the plan splits between them, and our earlier piece on Google Ads channel priority and budget allocation controls covers the settings that decide where Google spends within a campaign.
In our reading, the next four weeks are a window for a controlled test. Google lists Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom for Q4 and gives no dates, so teams in those markets should plan for it before a date is announced. Hold out a share of branded and non-branded queries from the new placements where the account settings allow it, and compare conversion value per click against standard Search before raising the budget share. Our report on AI Overviews reaching 88% of 400 commercial keywords gives the organic side of the same shift, which is relevant when sponsored and organic results appear in one answer.
What to watch
Two items will show whether the expansion changes results. The first is any market-level click-through or conversion data Google shares for the ten new countries. The second is whether Google reports AI Mode ad revenue as its own line in a later filing. Until one of them appears, the figures above are the full public record.
Source: Google
