Google is giving automotive shoppers another way to discover vehicles, and dealers with active Vehicle Ads campaigns are already positioned to take advantage of it.

Vehicle Ads can now appear in Google’s AI Mode deep-dive search results, expanding their reach beyond the traditional Vehicle Ads carousel. The change is automatic for dealers already running active Vehicle Ads campaigns. There’s no additional setup or whitelist required.

For dealers, this is another reason to pay attention to how Google is changing the search experience and how vehicle inventory is being surfaced throughout it.

Vehicle Ads Are Moving Into AI-Powered Search

Google’s AI Mode is designed to help shoppers explore a topic through more detailed, conversational searches. Instead of simply returning a list of links, AI Mode can help users compare options, refine their needs, and dig deeper into a purchase decision.

Now, Vehicle Ads can be part of that experience.

If your dealership already has an active PureCars Vehicle Ads campaign, the same campaigns running in the traditional Search carousel are automatically eligible to appear in AI Mode. There is no new campaign to build or additional setup required.

That means your vehicle inventory has another opportunity to reach shoppers as they explore what to buy.

What dealers should know:

• Vehicle Ads can now appear in AI Mode deep-dive search results.
• Existing Vehicle Ads campaigns are automatically eligible.
• A whitelist is no longer required.
• There is currently no separate reporting for AI Mode placements, although Google says more reporting is coming.

The bigger takeaway? Search is becoming less about a single results page and more about being present wherever the shopper’s research happens.

Google Is Also Putting More AI Directly Into Ads and Analytics

Vehicle Ads aren’t the only Google Ads update dealers should be watching.

Google is also expanding its Gemini-powered AI capabilities across Google Ads and Google Analytics, giving marketers more ways to understand performance and turn data into actionable insights.

Analytics Can Now Help Explain What Changed

Google Analytics is introducing AI Overviews on its homepage that summarize important changes since your last login, such as shifts in traffic, seasonal trends, and other performance movements.

Instead of starting with a blank dashboard and trying to figure out what changed, marketers can get an AI-generated starting point and then use Ask Advisor to dig deeper into the insight.

For dealerships managing multiple channels, campaigns, and audiences, this could make it easier to move from “What happened?” to “Why did it happen?”

Ask Advisor Is Becoming More Useful for Campaign Analysis

Google Ads is also getting a redesigned homepage with personalized, AI-powered insight cards.

Dealers and marketers can ask questions in natural language, such as:

“How are competitors affecting my impression share?”

Ask Advisor can then generate insights based on the account data available to it.

Google is also introducing new dashboards that can be created using text prompts, with automatically generated summaries explaining the reasoning behind the performance shown.

That has the potential to make campaign reporting more accessible, especially for dealership teams that don't want to spend hours digging through individual reports to understand what is driving results.

Benchmarking Could Add More Context to Performance

One of the more interesting updates is the ability for Ask Advisor to benchmark campaign performance against anonymized averages from similar businesses in Google Analytics.

For dealers, that could provide another layer of context.

Looking at your dealership's performance over time tells you whether things are improving or declining. Benchmarking against similar businesses can help answer a different question:

“How are we performing compared with others like us?”

That distinction can make performance conversations more meaningful and help teams identify areas where there may be room to improve.

What This Means for Dealers

Google continues to make search more AI-driven, conversational, and personalized. For dealerships, that means the path from a shopper's search to a vehicle purchase is becoming less predictable and less linear.

The opportunity isn't simply to chase every new Google feature. It's to make sure the fundamentals are in place so your dealership can participate as those experiences evolve.

That starts with accurate vehicle data, strong campaign structure, clean customer and inventory data, and a clear understanding of what is actually driving results.

Vehicle Ads are now automatically eligible for AI Mode, so dealers already running them don't need to take any action today. But this is a good time to review your campaigns, inventory, and measurement strategy to make sure you're ready for where search is going next.

The way shoppers search is changing. Your dealership's digital strategy needs to keep up.

Read Google's announcement about the latest Ads and Analytics AI updates

‍