Google to incorporate generative AI in ad business

Google is planning to incorporate generative artificial intelligence into its advertising operations in coming months. This move will enable the tech firm to produce innovative advertisements using materials generated by human marketers, as reported by the Financial Times, citing an internal presentation.   

Google already uses AI in its advertising operations to generate brief prompts that urge users to make purchases. With the incorporation of generative AI, the platform will be able to generate highly advanced campaigns.   

Google is set to integrate the latest technology into its Performance Max program, which has been in operation since 2020. As per the report, the technology will utilise an algorithm to determine the most effective ad placement and marketing budget allocation, while also generating simple ad copy.   

Search ads are the primary source of revenue for Google. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, experienced a mere 1% growth in revenue during the last quarter of 2020, as Google's advertising revenue saw a decline of 4%, as per the report.

Major social media platforms, which rely on advertising as their primary source of revenue, are in a race to leverage cutting-edge automation technologies to attract clients.
As per the report, advertisers can provide creative content, including imagery, video, and text, related to a specific campaign. The AI can remix the given content to create advertisements that cater to the intended audience and meet specific objectives, such as sales targets.

However, amidst concerns surrounding the potential impact of AI on issues such as disinformation, phishing attempts, and cybercrime, Google has announced plans to implement guardrails to mitigate these risks upon the release of its new generative AI features, FT reported.

Last month Google released a new tool called Bard, which is designed to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT, a language generation tool supported by Microsoft. ChatGPT has the capability to produce responses that closely resemble human-like language when prompted with questions. In a recent development, Google has integrated generative AI technology into its widely used productivity suite, comprising Google Workspace, Google Docs, and Gmail.   

Last year, Meta introduced something similar to Performance Max, called Advantage+. The company announced its intention to incorporate generative AI into its advertising systems before the year's end.