Just a few days ago, Google held its Google Marketing Live 2026 event, and if you manage campaigns or run a business that relies on online advertising, you’d be well advised to take a moment to look closely at what was announced. This isn’t just another update. It’s a complete overhaul of the Google Ads playbook centred around Gemini, its AI model. The company has summed it up in a phrase it repeats on its own blog: they are rebuilding the marketing stack to make it “AI-native”. And that, in plain English, means that many of the things we’ve been doing in Ads for years are about to change fundamentally.
At Vandelay, we’ve been analysing the official announcements and the initial trials already underway in the US for several weeks. This article summarises what we know for certain, what’s still in beta, and what you should start preparing for now, even though some features may take months to roll out in Spain.
What is Google Marketing Live, and why the 2026 edition matters more than previous ones
Google Marketing Live is the annual event where Google shows advertisers, agencies and developers the direction its advertising platform is taking. Historically, it has been the venue for the launch of Performance Max, Demand Gen campaigns and improvements to Smart Bidding. This year’s edition, however, has taken on a different focus: as reported by Search Engine Land, the event has revolved entirely around “AI-powered agencies”, conversational search, automated creative production and AI-assisted buying.
To put it another way: until now, adverts coexisted with AI. From this edition onwards, adverts exist within AI. And that has very specific implications for how we bid, measure and, above all, create adverts.
Ask Advisor: the tool that brings together Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center and GMP
The announcement that has sparked the most discussion within our team is Ask Advisor. According to Google’s documentation, it is a unified agent built using Gemini that acts as a cross-functional layer across Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Center and the Google Marketing Platform. Until now, each of these tools existed in its own tab, with its own metrics, permissions and interfaces. Ask Advisor aims to bring them together into a continuous conversation.
What does that mean in practice? It means that an advertiser will be able to ask, in natural language, questions such as “Which campaign has the most scope for scaling up next quarter?”, and the agent will cross-reference data from the four platforms to provide an answer. Google describes it as an “always-on strategic partner” that helps optimise, diagnose and build campaigns without having to switch between interfaces. That’s the promise, of course; it remains to be seen to what extent the agent understands complex account contexts. But the direction is clear: fewer clicks on the interface, more decisions made through conversation.
Conversational Discovery Ads: when Gemini writes the advert whilst the user is searching
Another format that has generated a great deal of excitement is Conversational Discovery Ads. Here’s how it works: when someone makes a query in AI Mode (Google’s conversational mode), Gemini instantly generates ad creatives tailored to the exact intent of that search and also writes a separate “explainer” that summarises the context of the product or service.
The example Google gives on its official blog is telling: someone searches for “how to make my home smell like a spa” and the system serves up personalised adverts featuring relevant products and an explanation of why they match that search intent. For an advertiser, this changes two things. Firstly, the creative stops being a fixed asset uploaded to the manager; it becomes a set of components (headlines, descriptions, images, benefits) that Gemini will recombine based on the query. Secondly, traditional copywriting loses ground to the “feed” of information we provide to the system. The more structured information there is, the better the model will be able to explain the results.
Search Engine Land confirms that these formats, along with Highlighted Answers, are already being tested in the US on both mobile and desktop. There is no fixed roll-out date for Spain, but everything suggests it will arrive sometime next year.
Business Agent for Leads: the form is out, brand chat is in
If you run a service-based business, this is probably the change that will affect you the most. Google has announced Business Agent for Leads, a lead generation format in which the traditional static form is replaced by a conversation. A chat window appears within the advert itself, featuring a Gemini agent trained on the information from the advertiser’s website. The user asks questions, the agent replies, and the conversation eventually turns into a qualified lead.
Google has confirmed that the format is in open beta for advertisers in the US. The official example they give is that of a student researching universities: instead of filling in a form, they click on “Chat” and get immediate answers about courses, scholarships and deadlines. What’s interesting is what this implies for the rest of the funnel: if the agent filters out queries before generating the lead, the forms that reach the CRM will be much more qualified. But it also means you need to have a well-structured website and consistent messaging, because the model will pick up on any inconsistencies.
AI-powered Shopping Ads and Highlighted Answers: e-commerce, reimagined
The section on e-commerce updates is also worth noting. AI-powered Shopping Ads use Gemini to generate personalised explanations of why a product matches the user’s search. Google’s example: someone searches for an espresso machine and the system selects the most relevant models and writes a “custom explainer” highlighting why that product might be the right one. It is not a generic sales pitch; it is text generated specifically for that particular search intent.
Added to this is the ‘Highlighted Answers’ format, which highlights direct answers within AI Mode. For online shops, this reinforces the importance of having detailed product listings with all attributes properly filled in on Merchant Center, as this is the data Gemini uses to generate the text that users will see.
What changes for a Spanish SME that invests in Google Ads
This is where we need to get everything sorted. Most of these features will be rolled out in the US first and then in Europe; some will remain in beta for months. But there are decisions that are best made now, as they’ll set the stage for what’s to come.
The first step is to review the quality of the feed and the assets. The richer and better structured the information on products, services and value propositions is, the better the generative creatives will perform. This includes attributes in Merchant Center, long descriptions in Performance Max assets and detailed content on the website itself.
The second is to organise your website with the idea that an agent will be reading it. If Business Agent for Leads trains its chatbot using your site, anything that’s poorly explained or out of date will result in a weak response right in the middle of the advert. This ties in with a concept we discussed a few months ago on the blog: llms.txt files and information prepared for LLMs aren’t just about organic SEO; they now affect your ads too.
The third step is to rethink how we measure things. If Ask Advisor cross-references data from Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center and GMP, it’s important that these systems are properly connected and that the events are clean. Any gaps in GA4, or any duplicate conversions, will skew the agent’s recommendations.
What Google isn't telling us (and what's worth bearing in mind)
There is one aspect of the official narrative that warrants further clarification. Google has been pushing for less control and more automation for years: Performance Max has already reduced control over ad placements; Smart Bidding has done the same with bids; and AI Mode reorganises the SERP. These new formats, with Gemini writing the copy and the agent deciding what is shown, reinforce this trend. For the advertiser, this represents a real trade-off: greater operational efficiency in exchange for less visibility over which specific creative the user saw and why.
It isn’t necessarily bad news, but it does mean we need to redefine the marketing team’s role. The manual task of creating a hundred versions of a headline no longer makes sense. The strategic work of defining messages, unique value propositions and guardrails for the model takes on greater importance. In an agency like ours, this means less time spent in the dashboard and more time refining hypotheses, briefs and attribution models.
How we are approaching it at Vandelay
In the accounts we manage, we’ve started doing three things. We’re auditing Merchant Center feeds to clean up attributes and get the product listings ready for Gemini to use effectively. We are reworking the Performance Max assets to deliver more message variations rather than a hundred versions of the same headline. And we are reviewing each client’s website for inconsistencies or gaps that a Gemini agent could amplify if it ends up being trained on that information.
These changes may not be particularly glamorous, but they are the ones that will make all the difference when these formats eventually arrive in Spain. Agency advertising rewards those who come prepared and penalises those who wing it.
If you’re still unsure how to apply all this to your business, get in touch. We can sit down together to review your Google Ads account and, above all, what lies behind it: your product feed, your website and your analytics. Because that’s where the real game is played from now on.
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