The Fall of Google Ads and the Rise of ChatGPT Ads

For twenty years, Google Ads has been the go-to way to put your business in front of people actively searching for what you sell. That is starting to change. AI-generated answers now sit at the top of many Google searches, fewer people are clicking on ads, and ChatGPT ads are a brand new advertising channel which has opened.

Here is what the data shows, and what it means for your marketing budget.

Fewer people are clicking on Google ads

Google's AI Overviews, the AI-written summaries that appear above search results, are answering more questions directly on the page. That means fewer people scroll down and click.

• Ad clicks have fallen by over two-thirds on affected searches. Seer Interactive tracked millions of impressions between June 2024 and September 2025. When an AI Overview appeared, the click-through rate on ads fell from 19.7% to 6.34%, a drop of 68%.

• Ads without AI Overviews are losing clicks too. Over the same period, click-through rates on searches without an AI Overview fell from 19.1% to 13.04%, a 32% decline.

• AI Overviews are now widespread. They appear on nearly half of all searches.

• More searches end with no click at all. The share of Google searches that end without anyone visiting a website has passed two-thirds for the first time. Pew Research found people clicked a link 8% of the time when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% when it didn't.

And the clicks that remain cost more

• WordStream/LocaliQ's analysis of more than 16,000 campaigns found the cost per click rose in 87% of industries, with the overall average up almost 13% year on year.

• Over the past ten years, the average price of a click has roughly doubled.

• Fewer clicks also mean fewer conversions, which gives Google's automated bidding less data to learn from and can make campaigns harder to optimise.

Some good news for advertisers

The picture is more mixed than the headlines suggest:

• Cost per lead has dropped. In 2026, the average cost per lead fell for the first time in five years, to $66.69, because conversion rates improved. The people who do click are often closer to buying.

• Buying searches are less affected. AI Overviews hit informational searches hardest. Someone searching "what is Cyber Essentials" is more likely to get their answer on the page than someone searching "IT support for law firms in London".

• Being cited by AI helps your ads. Seer found that brands cited inside AI Overviews got 91% more paid clicks and 35% more organic clicks than brands that were not cited.

Note: most of this data comes from the US. The UK trend is likely to be similar, but less UK-specific data has been published so far.

The rise of ChatGPT ads

While Google ads are under pressure, OpenAI has opened a new advertising channel inside ChatGPT, which had around 900 million weekly users in early 2026.

Where it is available

• Ads launched in the US in February 2026, then expanded to Canada, Australia and New Zealand in March.

• The UK followed in summer 2026 as the first European market, and OpenAI has since expanded to more than 30 further countries.

• Any business can sign up through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager to create campaigns, upload ads in bulk and track results.

Who sees the ads

• Only logged-in adults on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans.

• People on the paid Plus, Pro and business plans see no ads, well at least for now. Who knows what the future will look like.

What the ads look like

• Sponsored placements appear below ChatGPT's answer, clearly labelled and kept separate from it.

• Formats include sponsored answers and shopping carousels, including multi-product carousels, with richer visual formats being tested.

How targeting and buying work

• Ads are matched to the context of the conversation rather than to keywords.

• You can pay per click or per thousand impressions, and conversion-optimised bidding is in beta.

• A tracking Pixel and integrations with tools such as Triple Whale and Hightouch help measure results.

• In the UK and EU, users must give explicit consent before ads can be personalised.

Should B2B businesses move budget to ChatGPT ads?

The case for testing it:

• Few advertisers are using it yet, so competition is low compared with Google or Meta.

• People use ChatGPT to compare options and make decisions, which are high-intent moments.

• Businesses that learn the platform now will have a head start as it matures.

The reasons for caution:

• Many business decision-makers use ChatGPT on paid business plans, which show no ads.

• The early formats and advertisers lean heavily towards retail.

• There are no reliable UK performance benchmarks yet.

What to do now

• Refocus Google Ads on buying-intent keywords, where AI Overviews have less impact, and review spend on informational terms.

• Test ChatGPT ads with a small budget to learn how the platform works for your business.

• Invest in being cited by AI tools. Content that AI tools quote, on your website and on LinkedIn, reaches people on every ChatGPT plan, including the paid business plans that never see ads. It also makes your Google ads perform better.

The way people find suppliers is shifting from a list of links to a single AI-written answer. The businesses that do well over the next few years will be the ones that appear in that answer, whether through paid placements, citations or both.

For more information and advice email me anne-marie@yourmarketing.network or follow me on LinkedIn