Google AI Mode now runs ads on follow-up questions, including the third and fourth turns of a conversation. Host Paris Childress also covers Graphite's 76 billion monthly AI sessions, a France AI Overviews click drop, Bing AI Mode ads, and Cloudflare's agent paper.
Google's AI Mode now runs ads on follow-up questions, not just the first answer, which means brands will compete with sponsored placements at every turn of an AI conversation. Paris Childress argues that this is how Google plans to monetize AI Mode as it moves toward replacing the classic results page, and that the numbers from Graphite show why: AI usage is exploding while referral traffic stays tiny.
The same episode covers a France before-and-after on AI Overviews clicks, Bing AI Mode ads, the UK click data deadline for Google, Cloudflare's paper on AI agents, and a lightning round.
Google AI Mode now shows ads on follow-up questions, including the third and fourth turns of a conversation. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz tested AI Mode on Friday, November 6th and saw ads on the first query, the follow-up, and the third and fourth prompts. Google told him the ads are labeled sponsored and that it will keep testing new formats. Google announced multi-turn ads for the US on October 28th, alongside AI Mode ads expanding into ten markets.
It's not just sticking ads on the first result or the first answer, but it's going to continue to show ads through multiple turns as that conversation goes on and on and back and forth between the user and AI Mode.
Paris's read is that commercial intent sharpens the further someone goes down a conversation, so ads in follow-up turns will compete with the organic citations brands are trying to earn in the same answers. Bing AI Mode, which used to be called Copilot Search, is doing the same: search and shopping ads at the top of answers, and now on follow-up queries too.
Graphite's State of Gen AI report says six AI assistants drew 76 billion sessions a month worldwide in September, up 37% year over year and 45% in the US. AI is still under 1% of the average website's traffic. In a Q2 US chart, organic search sent 49 times as much traffic as AI.
Graphite dropped its earlier comparison of AI with search because it can no longer separate the two reliably. Its main takeaway, as Paris frames it, is that brands should plan to influence answers rather than expect AI to replace their traffic.
Glenn Gabe published Search Console data from sites affected when Google launched AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on July 22nd. One site fell from 750 clicks a day to 400, and its click-through rate dropped from 2% to 1.1% overnight. Two of his five examples saw no meaningful change. Paris calls it a rare, clear-cut before-and-after view of clicks and CTR.
Digiday reports that publishers are torn over the Search Console control that removes their content from Google's AI features, because it covers all of them or none. Under UK competition regulator CMA rules, Google must give UK publishers AI click data by December 3rd, and it has not confirmed whether it will share that data in other countries. Paris calls it a game of chicken.
Cloudflare published a position paper listing 14 problems AI agents create for websites and concludes that sites bear the main cost in nearly all of them. It proposes standards for agent identity and permissions and a coalition called Trusted Agent Delegation. The proposals include an intermediation principle, a four-level scale for how well a user is identified, Web Bot Auth for agent identity, OAuth for accounts, and machine-readable agent permissions. Paris's point: how agents prove who they are will decide which assistants can browse and buy on your site and on what terms.
Paris closes with a lightning round: Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2, GA4's new Data Manager, Google Ads MCP Server 0.6, and unconfirmed Google ranking volatility on November 8th and 9th.
Paris: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to The GEO Show, brought to you by GEOforge, full self-driving for AI visibility. Today is November 10th. I'm your host, Paris Childress, coming to you with the top stories in AI search and GEO. Let's start with the first story. Google's AI Mode ads now appear on follow-up questions.
Paris: This is pretty big. Google's multi-turn ads, announced in late October, are now live in AI Mode. Search Engine Roundtable saw ads on a first query and then on follow-up questions, including the third and fourth turns. Google told Search Engine Roundtable that these ads appear as people go back and forth with AI Mode, and they're labeled as sponsored.
Paris: So let's dive into the details here. Barry Schwartz tested AI Mode on Friday, November 6th. He saw ads on the first query, the follow-up query, and the third and fourth prompts. His screenshot shows two sponsored ads at the bottom of a follow-up answer. Google's statement to Search Engine Roundtable is that multi-turn ads appear on responses to follow-up queries. They're labeled sponsored, and Google will keep testing new ad formats. Google announced multi-turn ads for the US on October 28th, alongside AI Mode ads expanding into ten markets.
Paris: So this is very, very interesting. I think this is the first indicator of how Google is going to monetize AI Mode so that it can be ready to take over entirely from the classic Google experience. It's not just sticking ads on the first result or the first answer, but it's going to continue to show ads through multiple turns as that conversation goes on and on and back and forth between the user and AI Mode.
Paris: And that is giving Google access to, I think, the vast amount of inventory that they have, because Google has said for a long time now that searches are much higher than they were before. Searches in Google are at an all-time high. But I think what is being counted in that number are all the turns within AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that is what they need to figure out how to monetize. So as I've said before, commercial intent gets sharper the further someone goes down a conversation in follow-up turns. So ads in those follow-up turns are going to compete with the organic citations that brands are trying to earn in those same answers.
Paris: Next up, research from Graphite. AI assistants hit 76 billion monthly sessions but are still under 1% of site traffic. Graphite's updated State of Gen AI report uses similar web estimates. It says six AI assistants drew 76 billion sessions a month worldwide in September, up 37% year over year. It also says AI is still under 1% of the average website's traffic. Graphite has dropped its earlier comparison of AI with search engines because it says it can no longer compare them reliably.
Paris: Some more details here. The six assistants are ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Grok. Sessions grew 37% year over year worldwide and 45% in the US. Share of AI referral traffic worldwide in July had ChatGPT at 60%, Gemini at 14%, and Claude at 10%. In the US, those numbers were ChatGPT 66%, Claude 11%, Gemini 10%. So clearly, of the small slice of referral traffic, the majority, about two-thirds in the US, is coming from ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the most generous at sending referral traffic, or perhaps it's just the nature of that platform, because it's probably more consumer-based and consumers are more prone to click through.
Paris: The next detail here is that AI referrals grew 92% year over year worldwide, but they're still only under 1% of traffic on average. In a Q2 US chart, organic search sent 49 times as much traffic as AI. So it still puts things into perspective from a traffic standpoint. Per Search Engine Journal, Claude sessions grew 1,900% year over year, and Perplexity was the only one of the six to decline, down 27%. Mobile was 89% of global sessions in Q3. So Perplexity seems to be fading away. I don't think it's even that necessary to include Perplexity anymore in AI visibility charts. And mobile at 89%, wow, that's quite a lot.
Paris: And the March edition of this report from Graphite put AI at 56% of the size of search worldwide. Now, keep in mind, that's compared to something we reported here about a week ago, that OpenAI themselves estimated their search prompts represented about 20% of Google's search universe. But this is reporting that AI overall is at 56% of the size of search. Although I don't really know how you even define search apart from AI now that basically 90% of all Google searches have AI Overviews, which is an AI experience.
Paris: Graphite now says that edition likely undercounted Google's Android app, estimated at 11.8 billion monthly US sessions, and that it has no reliable way to separate search sessions, as I just said. Now 90% of search sessions are AI Overviews. The main takeaway here is this: clearly, AI usage is still exploding. It's growing extremely fast, but referral traffic is still tiny, so brands should plan to influence answers rather than expect AI to replace their traffic.
Paris: Next story. A France rollout. AI Overviews cut one site's clicks by about half. Glenn Gabe published Search Console data from sites affected when Google launched AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on July 22nd. One site fell from 750 clicks a day to 400, and its click-through rate dropped from 2% to 1.1% overnight. Two of his five examples saw no meaningful change. So this is a rare, clear-cut before-and-after look at clicks and click-through rate from Google, before AI Overviews and AI Mode and after. And it looks like clicks and CTR were effectively cut in half immediately.
Paris: The next story comes from Bing. Bing AI Mode now shows ads at the top of answers. Microsoft is showing search and shopping ads at the top of answers in Bing AI Mode, which used to be called Copilot Search. Ads now appear on follow-up queries as well. So following in Google's footsteps, as Bing is very good at doing, we now see ads at the top of AI answers in Bing and even appearing in the follow-up queries themselves. So Bing, just like Google, is looking to monetize as much inventory of the multi-turn conversations as is available.
Paris: Next story, publishers weigh Google's all-or-nothing AI opt-out ahead of click data. Digiday reports that publishers are torn over the Search Console control that removes their content from Google's AI features, because it covers all of the features or none. Under UK competition regulator CMA rules, Google must give UK publishers AI click data by the 3rd of December. It hasn't confirmed whether it will share that data in other countries.
Paris: All right, we're heading into an interesting game of chicken here, because the UK's competition regulator has ordered Google to share AI click data by the 3rd of December within the UK, and Google is now saying that users can opt out of all AI features or have none at all. So Google has hit back pretty hard here, and it will be interesting to see to what extent Google is able to comply with this and what sort of data they're actually going to be showing.
Paris: Next story. Cloudflare says that websites carry the cost of AI agents. Cloudflare published a position paper listing 14 problems AI agents create for websites. It concludes that sites bear the main cost in nearly all of them. It proposes standards for agent identity and permissions, and a coalition called Trusted Agent Delegation to take to standards bodies. The paper was called "AI Agents Aren't Humans, But They Kinda Are." It was published by Bryan Becker on November 5th, and it proposes an intermediation principle, a four-level scale for how well a user is identified, Web Bot Auth for agent identity, OAuth for accounts, and machine-readable agent permissions.
Paris: So it's interesting to see here that how agents prove who they are will decide which assistants can browse and buy on your site and on what terms. Next story. Google tests an AI summary above all sponsored results. On mobile, Brodie Clark spotted Google testing an AI-written summary above a block of sponsored results that names the advertisers. Each ad also gets an AI-written description under its own text. So here is an example where advertisers may lose control over their ad copy, because Google is writing a summary across competing ads.
Paris: And on to the last story of the day. Google may be adding a Book Online button to business profiles automatically. Local SEOs report that Google is adding Book Online buttons to business profiles that never set up a booking partner. Some go to contact forms and some return an error page. The reports come from Joy Hawkins, Syed Amir, and Brandon Schmidt, and from Schwartz's own profile from Search Engine Roundtable. Amir says that adding a contact page as the booking link now triggers the button. That used to require going through Google's booking partners. And Hawkins clicked a Schedule button and got a server error 500 on Google's side. Ouch.
Paris: This really signals what Google is up to now, because they seem to be building the booking layer that agents will use, and that's coming quite quickly with these automated Book Online buttons.
Paris: Okay, now let's wrap up with a lightning round. Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2. Fable 5.2 is available on all platforms. Mythos 5.2 is only available for approved cybersecurity and life sciences users. Next, GA4 adds Data Manager, an admin hub for connecting first-party data and linked products. It's rolling out now. Google Ads MCP Server version 0.6 adds four write tools, but it still can't change budgets or bids, and Google hasn't yet announced it.
Paris: Next, unconfirmed Google ranking volatility on the 8th and 9th of November. Rank tracking tools show spikes and forums are busy, but Google hasn't confirmed an update. And last, The Trade Desk's Q3 revenue was $736 million, down 0.5% year over year. This is the first year-over-year decline in The Trade Desk's revenue since it was listed in 2016, so that is a sign of the times for sure. That's all for today. Thank you all for tuning in, and see you on the next one.
