Written by Admin Alex · Fact-Checked by M.Ali · Info Verified September 2026
We review and update this article regularly as new information becomes available.
TL;DR: Google is testing a new ad format inside AI Mode that shows a text description beneath ads, in addition to the sitelinks it already displayed. Spotted September 16, it’s a small change, but it follows a pattern of Google steadily building out AI Mode’s ad inventory: sitelinks, now descriptions, and reportedly tests mixing sponsored ads with organic product results.
SEO consultant Sachin Patel was searching inside AI Mode when he noticed something new sitting under an ad: a short text description, the kind of thing that’s existed in regular Google search ads for two decades, showing up in Google’s AI-generated search experience for what appears to be the first time.
It’s a small addition. Ads inside AI Mode already showed sitelinks, the little sub-links to specific site sections. Adding a description underneath gives users something to actually read about the advertiser before clicking, rather than just a headline and a set of links with no context. As Patel put it, “showing a description alongside the ad is a good addition for the websites ranking there, since it also gives users something to read about the site before clicking on it.”
Why a small format tweak is worth tracking
No single ad format change is going to reshape anyone’s PPC strategy on its own. What’s worth watching is the pattern: Google has been steadily building out AI Mode’s advertising surface piece by piece rather than launching it all at once. Sitelinks came first. Descriptions are showing up now. Related tests reportedly include URL breadcrumbs for sitelinks and mixing sponsored ads directly alongside organic product results, blurring the line between paid placement and organic recommendation inside the AI-generated answer.
Each piece looks minor in isolation. Together, they describe a search experience Google is quietly turning into as complete an advertising environment as classic search results, just wrapped inside a conversational, AI-generated interface instead of a traditional ten blue links page.
What advertisers should actually do with this
If your ad copy was written years ago and never revisited, this is a reasonable prompt to check it. A description field that used to matter only in traditional search results now also shows up in an entirely different surface, one with its own reading context and its own user expectations about what a helpful AI answer looks like versus what a sales pitch looks like. Copy that reads well as a classic search ad might read as jarring sitting underneath an AI-generated summary.
There’s also a bigger structural question worth sitting with: as AI Mode increasingly wraps sponsored content alongside organic answers, the burden on users to tell the difference between the two keeps growing. Google has generally handled that with a small “Sponsored” label, and whether that label stays legible as more ad formats get bolted onto AI Mode is worth watching independent of any single format change.
The “Sponsored” label question isn’t hypothetical. Regulators in the EU have already scrutinized how clearly Google marks paid placements inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, and a format that keeps adding ad elements, sitelinks, descriptions, product mixing, without a corresponding increase in labeling clarity is the kind of thing that draws exactly that scrutiny. Advertisers benefit from richer ad formats. Whether users can still tell they’re looking at an ad is a separate question Google will eventually have to answer more directly than a small gray label.
Bottom Line: This is a minor test today. It’s also the fourth or fifth incremental change to AI Mode’s ad format in recent months, and that pattern matters more than any single tweak. Advertisers who wait for a big splashy AI Mode ads launch to update their strategy are going to find themselves several small updates behind by the time it arrives.
