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This article is a transcript of the opening keynote by Philipp Schindler, Google’s SVP and chief business officer, at Google Marketing Live (GML) on May 20, 2026. It has been lightly edited for length.
It’s such an exciting time for our industry. History used to be a reliable guide for the future, but not anymore. In this moment of rapid technological advancement, we have to start looking at the rate of change to see what’s coming.
And the current rate is simply mind-blowing. I’m not exaggerating when I say we’ve made a decade’s worth of innovation in the last year alone. Remember how a year ago generating images or video was hit or miss? Today, our generative media models, like Veo, Nano Banana, and Genie, are able to create incredibly realistic images, videos, and interactive simulations — while maintaining state consistency when required.
As a fun example, let’s take another look at this year’s intro video.
Google SVP and chief business officer Philipp Schindler shows off the capabilities of Google’s generative AI suite of creative tools.
Compare it to last year’s video and the leap is mindblowing. If any skate brands are watching, I am available for sponsorships! And the best part is, no Philipps were harmed in the making of this video.
Look, it would not have been possible to create this even a few weeks ago, because it was made with Gemini Omni, which we announced at I/O just yesterday. Omni combines Gemini’s reasoning with the best of our generative media models. We are starting with video, but over time, Omni will be able to generate any output from any input.
One of the big questions researchers have had is whether or not these models could really understand physics. Are they just pattern matching or are they capable of comprehending the physical world and generating outputs that reflect reality? With Omni, we are starting to see this might actually be possible.
Look at this.
Gemini Omni shows the possibility of AI models to comprehend the physical world.
The physics of this are extraordinarily difficult to simulate. Gemini Omni Flash is available today in Gemini app, Google Flow, and YouTube Shorts, and will come to Ads this summer.
It’s clear these models are going to change the game for advertising. Not only in terms of creative generation but also in terms of getting things done. A year ago, agents started becoming a huge buzzword. But truthfully, they weren’t actually all that useful yet. What a difference a year makes!
AI has moved from “chat to act.” It is an active partner that can plan, execute, and optimize complex workflows under your supervision.
The agentic Gemini era
We are now firmly in our agentic Gemini era. All of this is driven by the first model in our newest model series, Gemini 3.5 Flash. This is a very capable model at the frontier and comparable to the best models, but it’s still very, very fast. When looking at output tokens per second, it is 4X faster than other frontier models.
The magic happens when you pair this model with Google Antigravity. This is our AI-powered, agent-first development platform. It unlocks agentic coding at scale. Antigravity has radically transformed our own engineering velocity. It’s accelerating major ad product rollouts from quarters to mere months. And we’re deploying autonomous agents to turn your real-time feedback into code updates.
Developers have been operating in this world for a while. But we want to bring agents to everyone. We’re rolling out Gemini Spark, right in the Gemini app. This is the first experience you are seeing made possible by 3.5 Flash models and Antigravity. Spark is a 24/7 personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life. It takes action on your behalf, under your direction.
Gemini Spark connects the dots across your digital world to check off tasks in your everyday life and at work. Small businesses can teach Spark custom skills using plain language. For example, you can train it to monitor Gmail for high-priority customer inquiries and have the agent take the next step for you.
Our latest AI models bring us one step closer to true real-time, outcome-based marketing.
For enterprise customers, you can use Spark to automate highly complex, multistep workflows. You could have Spark pull and analyze consumer insights from multiple sources, build and deploy creative across all your channels, measure impact and send you reports.
Our latest AI models bring us one step closer to true real-time, outcome-based marketing. You handle the strategy and define your goals; AI handles the optimization. In milliseconds, you get insights that talk to your creative; your creative talks to your media bidding; and your media talks back to your measurement. And measurement can feed the whole system back as it learns.
This was once a distant goal, but you will see how we are making huge strides toward this reality. Today, you’re going to see how you can use agents across our ads platforms to help you with campaign optimization, asset creation, and measurement.
AI is giving Search superpowers
Of all the incredible innovations you will see today, the biggest opportunity for your business is the AI transformation of Search. AI is the best thing that has ever happened to Search. It gives Search superpowers.
Let me ask you a question: Which product is bringing the benefits of gen AI to more people than any other product in the world?1 It’s Google Search. We’ve been on a journey to bring together the best of a search engine with the best of AI. We started this massive transformation when we introduced AI Overviews two years ago. It now has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users.2
And believe it or not, it was just a year ago that we introduced AI Mode, which allowed you to have a back and forth conversation with Search directly. It’s already surpassed more than 1 billion monthly users.3
Google SVP and chief business officer Philipp Schindler kicks off Google Marketing Live with a look at Google’s latest AI innovations.
And we are seeing phenomenal growth. Searches in AI Mode have been doubling every quarter since launch.4 It’s our most powerful AI Search, bringing in our most advanced Gemini models and, as of yesterday, we upgraded it on Gemini 3.5. By the way, it’s pretty cool to ship our latest model and launch it in our biggest product the same day!
To reflect the new reality of how people are searching today, we’re making the biggest update to the iconic Search box in 25 years. It now expands so you can fully describe what you need, and it gives you easy access to all the modalities, so you can search with text, images, and videos. We are also bringing AI Overviews and AI Mode into one seamless AI Search experience, so you can flow effortlessly from your question to your response to the follow-ups.
Search is also getting more personalized. Earlier this year we introduced personal intelligence in AI Mode. You can now opt in to securely connect your Google apps like Gmail, Photos, and, soon, Calendar. It’s much easier to find things to do during a layover when it knows where you are, how much time you have, and what you like to do.
And finally, Search doesn’t just help you find information. It gets things done for you. It’s already helping you make reservations and buy tickets. And coming soon: personalized information agents, working for you 24/7 to find you exactly what you need, at exactly the right moment, and to help you take action.
After decades of searching in fragments or simple keywords, suddenly, we can ask anything.
For example, if you are apartment hunting, just do a brain dump of what you want, and Search will continuously scan the web for you. Or say you want to know when your favorite athlete announces new sneaker drops. Search will monitor everything for you, from blogs to our Shopping Graph, so you don’t miss it.
All these innovations are completely changing the way people search and discover. After decades of searching in fragments or simple keywords, suddenly, we can ask anything — in our natural language, in a conversation, and increasingly, through voice, photos, or even live video. As people have learned how much more Search can do, they’ve started bringing more questions. So much so that last quarter, we saw Search queries reach an all-time high.5
Look at this Search.
Last quarter, Search queries in AI Mode reached an all-time high.
A year ago, you wouldn’t have dreamed of attempting a search like this. Now, it’s becoming habit. How many searches would this have taken before? Ten? Twenty? And maybe after all that, you still might not have found what you need. Now it’s one supersearch — or a conversation. That’s why AI Mode searches are on average 3X as long as traditional searches.6
And people are using Search earlier in their discovery journey. Searches with terms like “ideas for,” “where should I,” and “which” — in the sense of “which something should I buy” — are growing. Brainstorming searches are growing 30% faster than AI Mode searches overall.7 So it’s time to acknowledge a fact. Google Search is AI Search, through and through.
You can’t think in terms of simple keywords anymore. And why would you? Just let the best AI do it for you.
So what does this mean for you as a marketer? First, longer and more conversational searches mean richer signals of intent for us to better match what you offer with what people are looking for. And more personalized and agentic Search means a quicker path for your customers from discovery to decision. This means you can’t think in terms of simple keywords anymore. And you definitely can’t manually choose them. Why would you? Just let the best AI do it for you.
We designed AI Max for Search for exactly this reason. It helps you show up in these specific, nuanced queries and take advantage of the new ads formats you will see today. We introduced AI Max at GML last year, and now it’s out of beta and available globally.
Those of you who are already using it know it’s working hard, driving 27% more conversions compared to manual campaigns.8 Search is already the leader in driving ROI for your business. You know we love numbers at Google. On average, at scale, for every $1 you spend on Google Search globally, you get an incremental $6 back.9 Not bad, right?
YouTube builds brands and drives business results across the entire journey
What’s the best thing to pair with Google Search to get even better returns? It’s YouTube of course! Now, I don’t need to tell you what a powerhouse YouTube is in terms of reach and relevance.
YouTube now reaches more than 90% of US adults.10 This didn’t happen by accident. For more than two decades, we’ve focused on staying one step ahead of how the world watches. Years ago we predicted that people would want to watch YouTube on the biggest screen in their home, so we invested in the TV watching experience.
Today, YouTube is No. 1 in streaming watch time and has been for three years, beating out Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and all of Disney.11 Surprisingly, viewers come to the biggest screen in their home for the shortest format of all. Over 2 billion Shorts are watched in the living room each month.12
No need to go to Hollywood to meet the stars.
YouTube is the only platform where people can be part of the biggest cultural moments, from the Artemis II launch to Coachella to sporting events like the MLB, NBA, and the World Cup. And, of course, our very own GML! Working on it.
But it’s not just about the moment itself. It’s all the creator-led conversations happening around them. Just to give you an example: There were more than 3 billion views of Oscars-related videos in the last year.13 And, by the way, the Oscars are moving to YouTube in 2029. Yes, I can see you liking this. How about GML 2029 in Hollywood? Hanging with the stars? Let me tell you a not-so-secret secret: No need to go to Hollywood to meet the stars.
Because we all know YouTube is the home of creators, and they are the real stars. People rank YouTube the No. 1 platform for creator content.14 That’s because YouTube creators aren’t just making content to capture fleeting moments of interest. They’re building lasting connections and loyalty with communities of fans.
YouTube is also the No. 1 most-trusted platform for creator content about products or services.15 When a YouTube creator talks about your product, viewers are 13X more likely to search for your brand and 5X more likely to buy.16 These are real results, not just engagement metrics.
With YouTube, you can build brands and drive business results across the entire journey. This is the power of YouTube. And we are taking that performance to the next level with Ask YouTube. This will make it an even more powerful engine for discovery and purchase decisions.
Ask YouTube will be an even more powerful engine for discovery and purchase decisions
People search on YouTube billions of times a day.17 And now finding the perfect answer is no longer just a search. It’s a conversation. Let’s say you want to teach your 3-year-old how to ride a pedal bike, and they already know how to ride a balance bike. You can just type that all in, and click Ask YouTube. It surfaces the most relevant videos. And you can follow up with questions.
This is the same profound shift that Search has been going through, and it’s going to have a similar impact on how people use YouTube. By making it easier to find information, people will spend more time searching and discovering on YouTube.
We’re starting to test Ask YouTube now, and it will roll out broadly in the U.S. this summer.
Today, we will show you exactly how to tap into trust, media’s most valuable currency, partner with creators to unlock huge ROI, and leverage the most advanced AI in the world to drive results like never before. We’re going to go deep on Demand Gen. It’s gotten a huge upgrade with our latest Gemini models, taking the strongest signals of intent we have across the entire Google ecosystem to get your brand in front of customers.
So for everyone here who knows they could be doing more with YouTube to boost your performance. Today is for you! We’re gonna show you why YouTube delivers more than double the long-term ROAS of linear TV, paid social, and streaming platforms.
Nothing compares to the performance you get from Google and YouTube, together
So let’s look at the power of these platforms together, across the consumer journey. Google and YouTube are present in 82% of all journeys where products or brands are discovered.18
Some of our competitors will claim that discovery only happens on their social feeds, which is a lovely story for their sales pitch. But, unfortunately for them, we brought the data. In 89% of purchase journeys, people use Google and YouTube before the largest social media platform.19 Or they skip that social platform entirely. So please check the data carefully. Social platforms are often just capturing intent that started on Google and selling it back to you as “discovery.”
We don’t rent our intelligence; we build the entire engine on a secure foundation.
Nothing compares to the performance you get from Google and YouTube together. On this stage, a year ago we told you we drove 21% higher ROAS vs all other media.20 Our latest MMM study with TransUnion shows it has gone up by 40%.21 This is the Gemini advantage — and it is your business advantage.
We are able to move faster than anyone else because we own the full-AI stack. We don’t rent our intelligence; we build the entire engine, from the chips to the research to the models to the ad platform, on a secure foundation. This is what gives us a direct pipeline from our labs to your business results. To drive this even more, we’re making the most ambitious capital investment in our history.
In 2022, we were investing $31 billion in capital expenditure. This year we’re on track to approximately 6X that investment to a stunning $180 to $190 billion dollars. This level of investment is how we stay at the frontier. And it’s also a big reason why we are the best partner for you in this new world.
When technology makes a resource more efficient, we don’t do less. We do exponentially more.
We are quite literally investing in your success. We believe our full-stack approach and our foundation models will drive even stronger results for you. No other advertising platform has anything like it. Not even close.
I want to leave you with a fascinating economic theory you have probably heard about, called Jevons paradox. It goes like this. When technology makes a resource more efficient, we don’t do less. We do vastly, exponentially more.
We’re seeing this at play everywhere. As AI makes it more efficient to find what you want in Google Search, you Search more. When it becomes easier to build high performing creative, you create more. When you can gather insights more effectively, you optimize more. So when marketing delivers more, you “market” more. Reach more customers. Open more markets. Drive more growth.
Today we are going to show you how we’re putting the Gemini Advantage in your hands. Harder-working ads formats. Better insights and measurement. Faster ways to build creative. Stronger AI integration.
One more time, a huge thank you for your trust in us and for your partnership.
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