Does paid search still hold up as AI changes how people search? That’s a question we get a lot from clients these days, and the short answer is, it does. Two new developments in Search Ads 360 (SA360) are a big part of why we're optimistic about search heading into a busy season.
The first is AI Spotlight, a diagnostic tool that flags account issues and performance changes before you go looking for them. And the second is SA360 Home, a new customizable dashboard that pulls those insights into a single view alongside granular performance insights. We've watched both take shape up close, and they're part of a bigger move to put Google AI to work across your search and shopping campaigns. Let’s take a look at how these two new features can help your campaigns in the age of AI.
Search is no longer a single action. Someone might see a video on YouTube or a post on TikTok, sit with it for a while, and only search later, which means the path to a conversion runs through more touchpoints than it used to.
AI overviews still concentrate on informational queries, while transactional searches closer to a purchase lean on traditional paid search and shopping ads. If you search for a red pair of sneakers, an AI Overview won't always pop up, because Google detects that you know what they are and what you're looking for, which is where ads come into play. Meanwhile, if you’re searching for something more broad, like “best sneakers for running on pavement,” you’ll likely get the AI Overview, and ads play more of a supporting role here.
Agency specialists have largely confirmed that paid search has been mostly sheltered even as organic clicks take a hit. But a recent analysis of 21 million search result pages found overviews increasingly triggering on shorter, high-volume keywords, the kind that drive conversions, with finance and healthcare seeing the fastest growth. And marketers are moving budget to keep up. According to EMARKETER, 91% of US marketers are shifting spend from SEO into GEO/AEO, and 78% are increasing total search investment.
| PRO TIP Not sure how visible your own site is in AI-driven search results yet? Jenny Palmer covers exactly how to measure AI visibility in our blog post on AEO/GEO foundations. |
When the ground under search keeps moving, and moving differently by vertical, week to week, staying on top of performance by hand gets harder and slower. You need to spot when something shifts, understand why, and decide how to respond before it costs you. That's where AI Spotlight and SA360 Home come in.
If you manage complex accounts, you know how much time goes into checking that everything is running the way it should. For an enterprise advertiser with many lines of business, or an agency watching dozens of client accounts, that daily QA work adds up fast.
AI Spotlight is built to take that load off your plate. It automatically scans for account discrepancies, errors, and disapprovals and surfaces them in one place, so you are not searching for a needle in a haystack.
What makes it more useful than a standard rules check is context. AI Spotlight can read the intent of a campaign and flag setups that do not quite line up. If your keywords point one direction and your layered audiences point another, it will call that out. If your ad copy promises one offer while your keywords advertise a different one, it can catch the mismatch before it costs you.
The feature also includes anomaly detection. When your conversion volume drops suddenly and nothing in your account explains it, AI Spotlight surfaces the change and points you toward likely causes, whether that is broken tracking or a Floodlight tag in Campaign Manager 360 (CM360) that has stopped firing correctly. It works in the other direction, too, connecting a recent budget increase to the conversion gains that followed, which gives your team a clear story to bring back to leadership.
One of the most practical parts of AI Spotlight is its ability to connect your performance to what is happening in the world. External Event Findings automatically links significant changes in your search performance to real-world news, trends, and product launches relevant to your vertical. Instead of scrambling to answer why performance moved, you get an early, contextual read on what might be driving it.
If a news event could hurt performance, you can exclude the keywords, contexts, or audiences tied to it while leaving the rest of your account intact. If the moment works in your favor, you can lean in with more budget or expanded targeting. Especially for agency teams juggling a lot of accounts and a constant stream of headlines, this feature can cut down on the amount of manual research you have to do.
The cool thing is that the technology behind AI Spotlight is no longer constrained to one tab. It's now being integrated into additional SA360 features like SA360 Home, a new interface that replaces the old overview tab with something far more useful. Rather than a fixed, generic summary, SA360 Home gives you a customizable dashboard you can build around how your team works.
The layout is tile-based and drag-and-drop. You decide what belongs front and center, whether that is campaign performance, keywords, creatives, or AI Spotlight insights, and you arrange it into a single command center you can monitor and act on without navigating away. You can expand or collapse visuals, jump straight to campaigns, and shape different views for different needs. Because AI Spotlight is wired into it, you can pull in the specific signals that matter to you and keep the rest a click away, which helps cut down on information overload rather than adding to it.
For large, multi-location advertisers, this kind of centralized oversight is a real step forward. Picture an enterprise hotel brand with hundreds of individual locations, each with its own campaigns to watch. A customizable view that surfaces the accounts and anomalies that need attention, all in one place, saves an enormous amount of time.
Once you know what AI Spotlight and SA360 Home can do, the next question is how to get ready to use them well. Here's what we're telling clients to prioritize:
Google is investing heavily in making Search Ads 360 smarter, and features like AI Spotlight and SA360 Home give enterprise teams a real edge, especially as peak season approaches. Timing and availability are still firming up, so keep an eye out as these roll out more widely. If you would like help getting your accounts and search strategy ready for what is next, we would love to talk.