Until this month a text ad could reach AI Mode by three routes, and every one of them ran through an automation product: AI Max, Performance Max for Search, or broad match paired with Smart Bidding. Exact and phrase match were the opposite choice, and advertisers had been using them specifically to keep spend out of AI surfaces they had not opted into. Google did not announce the change. Advertiser Anthony Higman of AdSquire read the behavior out of his own live campaigns and verified it across several of them. On September 4, 2026, Google's Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed it on the record: a standard Search campaign using exact or phrase match keywords can now serve text ads inside AI Mode when Google detects "explicit and direct user intent" in the query, which she described as "a small experiment that recently kicked off." Search Engine Land reported it on September 7 and Search Engine Roundtable on September 8, both citing her statement. As of September 9, 2026, Google has published no way to opt out.
Credibility: HIGH — Google's own Ads Liaison confirmed the behavior on the record, two independent trade outlets (Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable) corroborated the sighting, and an advertiser verified it across live campaigns. No material bias risk here: the source is the platform itself, describing its own change.
Facts:
- Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, confirmed the test publicly on September 4, 2026, calling it "a small experiment that recently kicked off."
- Eligibility needs two conditions at once: exact or phrase match keywords, and Google detecting "explicit and direct user intent" in the AI Mode query.
- Before the test, three routes reached AI Mode ad placements: AI Max, Performance Max for Search, and broad match with Smart Bidding. Exact and phrase match were not among them.
- Anthony Higman of AdSquire confirmed the behavior across multiple live campaigns; Search Engine Land (September 7, 2026) and Search Engine Roundtable (September 8, 2026) reported it citing Marvin's statement.
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For whoever owns AI visibility rather than the ad account, the useful property of the old arrangement was that it was legible. Whether a brand's paid budget could appear inside AI Mode was decided by a setting someone on the media team had chosen, and you could go and read the setting. Every route in ran through an automation product; if you had not bought the automation, you were not in there. This test removes that. What takes its place is Google's own judgment about whether a query carries "explicit and direct user intent", and that judgment happens somewhere you cannot see or configure. In most companies AI Mode visibility has an organic owner and a paid owner, and until now the paid owner could say exactly which surfaces the spend was allowed to reach. Inside this test they cannot.
Then read the scale honestly. Marvin's own word for it is small, and nothing public contradicts her: exposure today is limited, and Google has given no sign that being in the test is something an advertiser opts into. So the honest line for a client call this week is that you cannot rule the account out of it, which is a smaller claim than saying it is already everywhere.
This week:
- Pull AI Mode impressions and spend for the exact and phrase match campaigns, if the placement report separates them at all. The point is to fix the exposure number while the test is still small, so the next reading has something to move against.
- Tell any client running exact and phrase match as a deliberate AI Mode exclusion that the exclusion no longer holds. That belongs in the next paid-media review.
- Write down the rationale if a client decides to let the AI Mode spend run. Google has published no opt-out as of September 9, 2026, so the reasoning is the only record that a choice was made at all.
Search Engine Land: "Google tests traditional Search campaigns in AI Mode," Search Engine Land, Sept 7, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/google-tests-traditional-search-campaigns-in-ai-mode-487199
Search Engine Roundtable: "Google Ads Testing Serving Restrictive Match Types In AI Mode," Search Engine Roundtable, Sept 8, 2026, https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-serving-restrictive-match-types-ai-mode-42024.html
PPC Land: "Exact and phrase match keywords gain AI Mode ads in Google test," PPC Land, Sept 2026, https://ppc.land/exact-and-phrase-match-keywords-gain-ai-mode-ads-in-google-test/