Google Marketing Live 2025: New tools, smarter ads & a fresh take on Search

Dan Taylor, Vice President, Global Ads at Google, spoke to e4m on the evolution of Google Search, the AI innovations rolled out and how they shape the scope of digital advertising

by Shantanu David
Published: Jul 10, 2025 12:33 PM | 5 min read

At this year’s Google Marketing Live (GML) 2025 in India, Google turned the marketing landscape on its head yet again, unveiling a slew of AI-powered tools designed to help brands capture, retain, and delight consumers at every digital touchpoint. The announcements come amid a flurry of AI news, with OpenAI and Perplexity both attempting to steal Google’s thunder by dropping their own updates just hours before GML’s embargo lifted (as covered on exchange4media earlier today).

Speaking exclusively to exchange4media, Dan Taylor, Vice President, Global Ads at Google, explained the shifting dynamics of search and how Google is reimagining responses to align with modern user behavior.

“As the way people search is evolving, Google Search is evolving with it,” Taylor said, while addressing a select media roundtable during GML 2025. “Fifteen per cent of searches we see daily are new. Over the past year, these have become longer, more complex, and increasingly conversational. These aren’t simple one-liner queries anymore, they’re multi-layered questions that demand nuanced, contextual answers.”

Taylor added that these longer, exploratory queries often require what Google calls "AI Overviews" rather than traditional blue links. “This is where AI helps us not just understand what someone is searching for, but also the intent behind it,” he emphasized. “We’re able to present richer, more meaningful responses, and even introduce commercial information earlier in the purchase journey, for example when someone’s deciding which neighborhood to buy a house in rather than just comparing mortgage rates.”

The shift toward AI-enhanced search is not just academic; it’s deeply commercial. One of the biggest reveals from GML was the introduction of Ads in AI Overviews. With this, Search and Shopping ads will now appear directly within AI-generated overviews, positioned contextually and clearly labeled as “Sponsored.” This innovation offers brands a powerful opportunity to surface their offerings right when consumers are most receptive, effectively merging discovery and purchase intent.

Beyond search, Google rolled out a buffet of AI innovations across creative, performance, and brand discovery tools.

Google’s new “Generated for You” feature in Product Studio leverages AI to automatically suggest the best content opportunities across a brand’s product catalog. It can create on-brand images and videos in a single click, a creative dream for resource-strapped marketing teams eager to stay visually fresh and relevant.

Advertisers seeking to woo back lapsed users can now turn to Performance Max Retention Only Mode, which focuses exclusively on re-engaging existing customers across app and web goals. Meanwhile, AI Max for Search Campaigns introduces a new AI-powered campaign-level setting that turbocharges performance by pinpointing the most relevant, high-performing queries and optimizing creative assets accordingly.

The newly unveiled Smart Bidding Exploration feature further sharpens Google’s conversion engine by using flexible ROAS targets to capture new searches and drive incremental conversions. In addition, On Device Measurement (iOS) brings a privacy-first, real-time reporting system that helps advertisers optimize iOS campaigns using integrated app event data.

Another standout is Meridian, Google’s new API for its Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) data platform. Marketers can now access granular data, such as reach and query volume, more easily and plan their media spends dynamically using an interactive scenario planner.

On the discovery front, Google is betting big on interactivity. Shoppable CTV allows viewers to engage with products directly from their connected TVs, merging big-screen inspiration with instant gratification. Similarly, YouTube’s Shoppable Masthead on mobile provides a seamless journey from ad view to product exploration, enabling brands to launch new products or drive website traffic during big moments.

Additionally, the Attributed Brand Searches metric gives advertisers insight into how video ads influence organic search behavior, an invaluable tool for measuring the ripple effect of top-of-the-funnel campaigns.

Google is also doubling down on “agentic” capabilities, think AI-powered assistants that help advertisers set up high-performance campaigns within Google Ads and Analytics. This echoes Google’s broader ambition to make AI a co-pilot in marketing strategy, not just an automated afterthought.

As Taylor succinctly put it to exchange4media, “We’re moving toward a future where understanding and serving intent is more important than ever, and AI is the enabler that makes this possible at scale.”

While competitors might try to rain on Google’s parade, the GML 2025 announcements make it clear: Google isn’t just responding to shifts in marketing, it’s actively defining them.

As one of the early users of the new ads solutions, Arjun Choudhary, VP (Revenue & Growth - Head Food Delivery & Instamart), Swiggy, said, “As a hyperlocal business, we prioritise quality over volume, while focusing on users across cohorts. Google has played a key role in helping us reach and engage them effectively. With Performance Max, we’ve delivered the right ads to the right users, driving new user growth while reducing costs. Testing Retention Mode has also helped cut re-engagement costs by nearly two-thirds, and we’re looking to scale this success across new business lines. Google AI is supporting every stage of our marketing - from accelerating creative production to smarter bidding and more effective measurement. These capabilities have helped us improve results while making our campaigns more efficient.”