Google's Gemini-powered AI Overview will now slap you with ads. Yikes

Google has arrived with a lot of updates for its Search functionality. And now, in a recent product update, the tech giant says that it’s slapping more ads into the Gemini-powered AI Overview feature on Search.

The company says that ads on AI Overview were first shared at Google Marketing Live. They have been carefully tested and received positive feedback, and it’s now ready to launch on the feature so folks can connect with relevant businesses, products, and services.

For example, if you’re in the market for stain removal and looking for such a product on Google, ads for relevant shopping options for products like stain removers will show up in AI Overview.

The AI Overview feature was somewhat controversial at launch, with people reporting misleading results and having issues with nonsensical and satirical queries. Google then defended the error, saying that some of them are fake, and pulled AI Overview for quite some time before re-launching it.

While it may not be too pushy for now, honestly, Google isn’t exactly the company with a good track record when it comes to advertising and data sharing.

There are still a lot of other nice updates for Google Search, though. It now lets you search using video & voice (via Google Lens) where you can even record a video and talk through it, then perform a search. Then, an AI Overview result will show up.

Bing, Google’s number-one competitor, also launched a somewhat similar feature to AI Overview. Microsoft has just expanded the Bing generative search, now using AI to deliver deeper, more relevant results with a cohesive layout.