For the past year the rule was simple. If you wanted your ads near Google’s AI Mode, you handed control to an automated campaign type. Tight, deliberate keyword targeting kept you out. On Friday that rule changed, and Google confirmed it only after an advertiser noticed.
Search and local
Exact and phrase match keywords are now serving in AI Mode
Anthony Higman spotted ordinary Search campaigns with restrictive match types appearing inside AI Mode and said he had confirmed it across multiple accounts. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, called it a small experiment that recently kicked off. She then added the detail that actually matters. Exact and phrase match keywords are eligible to serve text ads in AI Mode, but only where there is explicit and direct user intent.
That is a reversal, not a tweak. Until now the only route onto that surface ran through AI Max, Performance Max for Search, or broad match paired with smart bidding. Plenty of advertisers chose tight match types precisely to stay off surfaces they could not measure. Those advertisers are now on one.
Why this matters for your business: You did not opt in and you cannot currently opt out. Open your search terms report and look at the queries triggering your exact and phrase match keywords. If you start seeing longer, more conversational queries you did not expect, that is the AI Mode traffic arriving. Watch your cost per conversion on those campaigns for the next fortnight before you change any bids. A shift in performance right now is far more likely to be this experiment than anything you did.
Google is testing a photo as a fifth way to verify your business
Ben Fisher spotted a new option appearing in Google Business Profile verification. Alongside phone or text, email, live video call and a postcard in the post, some businesses now see “Submit a business photo”. The published requirements are specific. Your business name must appear printed on a permanent fixture such as a signboard, and your entire storefront must fit inside a single frame.
Google has not updated its help documentation, so treat this as a test rather than a settled feature. It is still worth knowing, because the existing options are the slowest part of getting a new location live.
Why this matters for your business: Postcard verification is painful in South Africa and video calls need scheduling around someone who can walk the premises. A single photo removes both problems. Go and look at your signage. If your business name sits on a vinyl banner, a chalkboard or a window sticker rather than a permanent board, you would fail this check today. That is cheap to fix before you need it.
Social
TikTok turned the comment section into three new formats
TikTok added three ways to respond to a video. Voice comments let viewers record audio replies of up to 60 seconds, displayed with a translated text version underneath, rolling out globally over the next month to users aged 18 and over. Comment polls are available to all creators now, with up to five options, and only the creator can add one. Photo comments are live globally, and photo carousel comments of up to nine images are rolling out over the coming month.
Why this matters for your business: The poll is the one to use first, because it costs you nothing and it is available today. Post your video, then drop a poll in the comments asking the question your sales team hears most. You get free audience research and TikTok gets the engagement signal it rewards. On voice comments, decide now who moderates them. An audio reply is harder to skim than text, and if nobody is listening you will miss a complaint in your own comment section.
Content and creator marketing
YouTube will label undisclosed branded content for you
YouTube is rolling out automated detection of undisclosed branded content. In its own words, if its systems detect that a newly uploaded video includes branded content you did not disclose, it may automatically apply the disclosure label on your behalf. Viewers will also see a redesigned branded content label with clearer wording.
There is a genuinely useful change alongside it. Creators can now apply age and location restrictions to branded content, so a sponsored video can run only where the sponsorship is legal. YouTube says this should stop creators turning down deals over regional rules.
Why this matters for your business: If you pay creators to feature your product, the disclosure is no longer their decision alone. Write the disclosure requirement into your contract and check the label is on the video before you pay the invoice. A label applied by YouTube after the fact looks worse than one the creator added themselves, and it lands on your brand as much as theirs. The location controls are the useful half. If you have held back from sponsoring a creator with a big audience outside South Africa, that objection has just gone.
Automotive
Waze Ads reached 42 countries and South Africa is not one of them
Google expanded Waze Ads beyond the United States to 42 countries, confirmed through an update to its Performance Max help documentation. The list runs across the Americas, most of Europe, Australia, Malaysia and Israel. It does not include a single African market.
Worth understanding what you are missing. Waze Ads run inside Performance Max for store goals campaigns, bidding on store visits, store sales or local actions directions. Your dealership appears as a branded pin on the route of somebody already driving. No separate setup is needed because Performance Max uses your existing assets.
Why this matters for your dealership: You cannot buy this placement yet, so get ready for the signal it bids on. Local actions directions means a directions request from your Business Profile. That is the same signal driving the Waze pin, and it is the one metric on your profile that has been holding up while calls and clicks have fallen. Check that every rooftop has the correct pin position, the right entrance marked and accurate opening hours, because a directions request that sends someone to a service gate at closing time is a lost test drive. Do that now and you are ready the day the list grows.
What to do this week
- Pull the search terms report for every exact and phrase match campaign and look for conversational queries you did not expect.
- Hold your Google Ads bids steady for two weeks while the AI Mode experiment runs, and record the date you first noticed a change.
- Walk outside and photograph your own shopfront. If the business name is not on permanent signage, quote a proper board.
- Add a poll to the comments of your next TikTok video and ask the question your sales team answers most often.
- Check that your creator contracts require the paid partnership label, and verify it before you settle the invoice.
- Audit the pin position, entrance and opening hours on every Business Profile location you manage.
If you want to know what these changes mean for your own accounts, get in touch with us. We do this every day.
Sources
- Search Engine Roundtable on restrictive match types serving in AI Mode
- Search Engine Roundtable on business photo verification
- Social Media Today on TikTok voice comments, polls and photo carousels
- Social Media Today on YouTube branded content disclosures
- Search Engine Roundtable on Waze Ads expanding to 42 countries
- Google Ads help on Performance Max for store goals