By Anja Bertoncelj Tugrul, Group Account Director at Stellar Search

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I had the chance to attend Google Marketing Live 2025 in Dublin this week. Aside from enjoying the vibrant Irish culture (the live music was a definite highlight!), it was a fantastic chance to get an early glimpse of what’s next for digital marketing. There were plenty of announcements, but a few updates really stood out to me for their practical impact on brands looking to scale smarter and perform better: 

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🔍 Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode: New Real Estate in Search 

As Google continues to integrate generative AI into Search, ads will now begin appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode. For brands this opens up a new layer of mid-funnel visibility and a chance to serve relevant, commercial messages right when users are gathering information. One to watch closely as adoption rolls out. 

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🛍️ Shoppable Video Ads: Shortening the Path from View to Purchase 

Shoppable ads are closing the gap between discovery and conversion. From interactive product exploration on Shorts to QR codes on connected TVs, these updates offer brands a  major opportunity to turn inspiration into immediate action, reshaping how we view intent and consumer journeys.

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📈 Attributed Brand Searches: Measuring Video’s Impact on Search

A newly introduced metric to track how video campaigns impact branded search queries. This gives us a clearer view of how top-of-funnel activity influences bottom-line intent, including absolute lift numbers. 

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📊 Incrementality Testing: Advanced Measurement at Lower Budgets

Now accessible with budgets as low as £5K, this feature allows for more efficient measurement of campaign impact, making advanced analytics available to a broader range of advertisers. 

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🧠Asset Studio: Streamlined, AI-Powered Creative Production 

With growing adoption of Lens and Circle to Search, rich and engaging creatives are increasingly important. Google’s new workspace brings together AI-driven tools to help advertisers build, adapt and scale creative assets more easily than ever. And it’s not just about efficiency, it’s about unlocking high-quality creative at scale, without the usual production bottlenecks. 

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The message is clear: AI is no longer the future of advertising, but a foundation to how campaigns are built, delivered, and measured. For brands, the opportunity lies in using these tools not just for efficiency, but to create smarter, more connected customer journeys.

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