Google Ads has added an optional image upload to its AI image generation feature, letting advertisers submit a reference photo of products, people, backgrounds, or a preferred visual style to guide what the AI produces, alongside a text description. The feature appeared in the “Generated” section of the ad platform’s image tools under a new “Add images (optional)” prompt, according to a screenshot posted by Arpan Banerjee on X and reported by Search Engine Roundtable.
The upload option addresses a specific gap. Text-only prompts tend to produce imagery with no connection to a brand’s established look, which is the practical reason many advertisers have avoided generated creative altogether. A reference image lets the output carry a brand’s existing visual language instead of a generic synthetic aesthetic.
Google Ads introduced AI-generated images in 2024 and added support for people and faces a year later. Ads Editor added a User Attestation field last week requiring advertisers to disclose generated images, meaning Google is making the images easier to produce and mandatory to declare in the same stretch.
Barry Schwartz reported this for Search Engine Roundtable on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
