Debbie Weinstein is president of Google for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). She works with business leaders and governments to utilise AI to drive growth and engages with policymakers to ensure EMEA remains at the forefront of innovation.
I’ve been working at Google for more than a decade. In all my time at the company, one thing hasn’t changed: people's curiosity. We are always searching for answers and meaning.
People want to learn new things. We want to understand the world around us. We want to make connections. And, sometimes, we want to make a purchase.
Today, people move seamlessly and simultaneously across four key online behaviours as we satisfy this curiosity: streaming, scrolling, shopping, and searching.
And, now, AI is revolutionising how people search for answers.
This is unlocking new possibilities for advertisers to better understand consumers’ intent. In the past 12 months, businesses that are AI leaders have achieved powerful results: they report 60% higher revenue growth than their peers and adapt to consumer trends twice as fast.1
The future of Search isn't coming — it's here. And it’s delivering tangible ROI for marketers.
Beyond the text box: Search is reshaping consumer behaviours
The capabilities of Google Search have moved way beyond text in a box. AI is changing the types of questions people ask and how Google answers them. We now search with photos, videos, and our voice — even circling what’s on our screen.
Visual Search is one of the fastest growing query types. We launched Google Lens years ago, and since then the tool has become a lot more advanced. Today, 1 in 4 visual searches using Lens has commercial intent.2
For example: I love cooking but have recently been struggling with an old blender, leaving my soups grainy. When I was at a friend’s for dinner, she served the most delicious soup, blended to perfection. So I snuck a quick photo of the blender on her counter using Google Lens and made a few clicks to purchase one for myself. Now my soups are perfect too.
Visual search turned my curiosity into a shoppable moment. It gave me instant access to the brand, model, price comparisons from multiple online retailers, and even reviews from fellow foodies.
Search has always been a place we go to explore and make discoveries, and it isn’t just a starting point; it’s an action point.
And this doesn’t just apply to me. Google Search is the one shopping resource that consumers say they’d have the hardest time making shopping decisions without.3
In fact, 80% of Gen Z uses Google for their shopping — including discovering, browsing, getting ideas, researching and/or purchasing.4
AI is evolving Search and how we use it
New innovations are taking AI-powered searching even further, beyond voice search and Google Lens.
Going back to that blender I bought earlier: with Circle to Search I can highlight a specific feature, like the “nutrient extraction” button on the display. Instantly, AI Overviews will generate a summary of what that setting does and recipes that utilise it.
These AI features turn a simple visual cue into a comprehensive overview of related information and options.
Here you can see Circle to Search and AI Overviews in action (and you can see how the kitchen can be a catalyst for search queries well beyond blenders):
And this is just the start. We’re currently trialling AI Mode for Search in the U.S., which expands the capabilities of AI Overviews. With more advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities, it can even answer complex, multi-step questions.
These evolutions help satisfy that boundless curiosity I mentioned earlier as, incredibly, 15% of the searches we see each day are new.5 And by evolving the capabilities of Google Search with AI, we’re not just keeping up — we’re shaping the very fundamentals of how people search.
How marketers can drive ROI in this new era
The world has become increasingly complex for marketers. On average, consumers interact with over 130 mobile online touchpoints a day.6 People are predictably unpredictable, and manual campaigns and traditional media planning cannot possibly keep pace.
But, as I mentioned at the start, those who embrace AI are seeing stronger growth. Advertisers that don’t tap into this are missing the opportunity to reach their most valuable customers.
The good news is that the AI that powers Google’s consumer products — like AI Overviews — also fuels our advertising solutions.
By understanding user intent like never before, Google AI is creating more relevant and seamlessly integrated ads throughout the entire consumer journey to drive ROI for advertisers.
For example, take Volvo Cars. They increased the use of AI in their advertising to stay abreast of growing competition in the electric vehicle market. The automotive brand operates in 22 markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa alone. So a key challenge was setting up a framework that was scalable across all markets, with the aim to increase presence for both brand and generic keyword searches.
Volvo started by implementing broad match to adapt to the new ways consumers search. They used generic keywords, such as “electric suv”, and let the algorithm find over a million additional relevant searches. As a result they saw an increase in leads of up to 47%.
Next, they adopted a value-based bidding (VBB) strategy to get the most value from conversions. After all, someone looking at an online review is not as far down the funnel as someone booking a test drive. They ran an A/B test for three months, comparing VBB to their old approach. Volvo’s commitment to experimentation paid off: they increased their Search ROI by 2X.
Search has always evolved alongside users. For marketers, this next generation of AI-powered Search products means new ways to connect with the next generation of consumers, who are streaming, scrolling, shopping, and searching in completely new ways.
The future of Search is here — and it's delivering real results for those who embrace it.
And this is only the beginning.
We’re excited to showcase our latest ad innovations in Search (and beyond) at Google Marketing Live on Thursday, 22 May 2025. Sign up here.
