Google has begun serving text ads from regular Search campaigns using exact and phrase match inside AI Mode, Google’s conversational search experience. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, told Search Engine Roundtable, “This is a small experiment that recently kicked off,” and said eligibility is limited to queries with explicit and direct user intent.
The account-structure implication is specific. Exact and phrase match are the two most restrictive keyword-matching settings advertisers can choose, and they hand Google’s automation comparatively little discretion over which searches trigger an ad. Marvin described the eligible set in narrower terms still, writing on LinkedIn that exact and phrase match keywords can serve “where there is explicit and direct user intent,” a bar distinct from the conversational, multi-step queries AI Mode was built to handle.
That distinction is what makes the change notable against the prior access route. Marvin’s own comment framed AI Max and PMax for Search as the tools “designed to capture complex conversational intent and access our latest ad formats (like Highlighted Answers).” Those campaign types lean on broad match and automated bidding, giving Google’s systems wide latitude to decide which queries, keywords, and creative combinations qualify. Advertisers who wanted AI Mode placements without ceding that control previously had no path in; PPC consultant Anthony Higman, who first flagged the behavior on LinkedIn, put it plainly when he wrote that before this change, the only way to show in those placements was through AI Max, PMax, or broad match with smart bidding.
Higman said he confirmed the pattern “through multiple campaigns and tests” on his own accounts before posting. Marvin’s reply, framing the rollout as a small, limited experiment rather than disputing that it was happening at all, is the only public detail Google has offered. The company has not published a rollout percentage, a list of qualifying query categories beyond “explicit and direct intent,” or a timeline for expanding eligibility to more accounts.
What advertisers cannot yet determine is whether AI Mode impressions are already landing inside their existing exact and phrase match campaigns, because Google has not said whether AI Mode traffic will appear as a distinct placement line in reporting or get folded into standard Search metrics. Without a placement-level breakout, a jump in impressions or a shift in click-through rate on tightly matched keywords could reflect AI Mode exposure, ordinary Search volatility, or query expansion inside exact match itself, and there is currently no reporting field that separates the three.
Several questions remain open beyond eligibility scope. Google has not said whether ad formats available to AI Max and PMax, including Highlighted Answers, will ever extend to exact and phrase match campaigns, or whether the two access routes will stay functionally separate. It also has not addressed how bidding will be evaluated for restrictive match types inside a conversational surface built around automated, intent-driven ranking, which is the same automation exact and phrase match campaigns are typically chosen to avoid.
Advertisers running exact and phrase match campaigns should segment impression and click data by placement over the next few weeks and watch for volume changes on their tightest keyword sets, since a quiet appearance in AI Mode traffic is currently the only signal available until Google publishes formal reporting support or expands the test.
Search Engine Roundtable reported Google’s confirmation of the AI Mode match-type test on September 4, 2026.
