Google rolls out AI Max for Search to give Nigerian businesses a clearer view of their Ad spend

A generator seller in Lagos used to wait for a customer to type the word “generator” into Google before an ad had any chance of finding them. These days, that same customer is more likely to ask which small generator can run a freezer and two fans without burning through fuel by the hour. That shift in how people search is exactly what Google says its latest advertising updates, unveiled this week, are built to catch, and Nigerian businesses are among the first outside Google’s home markets expected to feel the difference.

Speaking at DMEXCO in Cologne, one of the world’s biggest digital marketing conferences, Google’s Vice President of Global Ads, Dan Taylor, laid out the case for why search advertising needs to change. People are no longer typing short, clipped queries. They are asking full questions, often by voice or by pointing their phone camera at something, and the results Google shows back have grown to match. 

According to Google, searches carried out in AI Mode now run three times longer than traditional searches, and roughly one in six searches happens through voice or image rather than text.

Meet AI Max for Search, Google’s new AI search Ad tools

Two updates sit at the centre of the announcement. The first is a new reporting feature inside Google Ads that pulls together, on a single screen, what a customer actually searched for, the ad they were shown, and the page of the advertiser’s website they landed on afterwards. Until now, advertisers have had to piece that picture together from separate corners of their Ads account, a process that eats into the time small business owners rarely have to spare. The feature is set to roll out globally later this year, with Nigeria included in that rollout.

The second update expands AI Brief, a tool built on Gemini that lets advertisers steer their AI-generated ads using plain instructions rather than technical settings. A business owner can tell the system what its ads should never mention, such as prices, or where to focus its attention, such as prioritising searches for school uniforms ahead of a new term. It can also be told how to speak to different types of customers, for instance, highlighting free delivery in Lagos to first-time buyers. Before any campaign goes live, AI Brief shows sample ads and the searches they would respond to, giving advertisers a chance to adjust the messaging before spending a single naira.

Both updates sit under AI Max for Search, the product Google introduced last year and described as its fastest-growing Search ads tool, with half a million advertisers already using it. Google says businesses running AI Max are seeing 27% more conversions, covering things like sales and enquiries, at a similar cost to before. Nigerian advertisers also stand to benefit from a separate change: ads now appear above and below AI Overviews, the short AI-generated answers that sit at the top of some Google search results, in more than 200 countries, Nigeria among them, a placement Google says now reaches two billion people worldwide.

Olumide Balogun, Google’s Director for East and West Africa, called the timing around the pressure Nigerian businesses face going into the country’s busiest trading weeks. “We’re excited to give Nigerian businesses a clearer view of what their advertising delivers,” he said. “Every naira matters, especially in the weeks before Black Friday. With the new report, business owners will see on one screen the question a customer asked, the ad she saw and the page she landed on, which makes it far easier to decide where their budget works best.”

With Black Friday falling on 27 November and Detty December close on its heels, Balogun said the window for businesses to act is narrow. “With Black Friday on 27 November and the festive season close behind, now is the time for businesses to set up their peak season campaigns,” he added. “Most of these tools already sit inside the Google Ads accounts Nigerian businesses use today, and we want to help them make the most of them.”

For now, the reporting tool remains a promise rather than something Nigerian advertisers can click into today, since its rollout is still pending later in the year, while AI Max and AI Overviews are already active in the market. AI Brief, meanwhile, is expanding only as a closed beta, meaning most Nigerian businesses will need to wait for wider access before they can test the plain-language controls for themselves.