Google Marketing Live 2026 launched Business Agent for Leads and new AI Mode ad formats. Here is what every service business owner needs to know and do before summer.
Ido Cohen · Published 2026-05-24 · Paid Advertising
Google just made your contact form obsolete — at least inside your Google Ads. On May 20, 2026, the day after Google I/O, Google held its 13th annual Google Marketing Live (GML) event and unveiled a sweeping overhaul of its ad stack built entirely around Gemini. The headliner for service businesses: Business Agent for Leads, a Gemini-powered chat agent that replaces static lead forms directly inside your ads. If you run a plumbing company, dental practice, law firm, HVAC business, or any other service that lives and dies by inbound leads, this changes how your prospects will interact with your advertising — and it's already in open beta in the U.S.
Here is what actually shipped, what it means for your pipeline, and what you should do about it this week.
Google did not just release a new ad format. It reframed what a Google ad is supposed to do.
According to multiple sources covering GML 2026, the two-hour keynote consolidated months of pre-event disclosures into a single message: Google wants advertisers to hand more of the execution layer to Gemini. As Search Engine Land reported, Google announced several new Gemini-powered ad formats designed for AI Mode and conversational search experiences. The event also introduced Ask Advisor — a unified Gemini agent spanning Google Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, and Google Marketing Platform — alongside new AI creative tools in Asset Studio and expanded commerce features.
But the most consequential announcement for service businesses came in the Search advertising section, summarized by Google VP Vidhya Srinivasan with a line that signals a structural shift in paid search: "Now, you can ask Google anything, so the best ads must be answers."
That is not marketing copy. It is a product roadmap. Google is not placing your existing ad unit inside AI Mode. It is generating ad copy dynamically to respond to the specific query and the AI-generated answer above it — and it wants your business to be the answer.
There are four distinct new formats across AI Mode and standard Search. Not all of them apply equally to service businesses, so let's break them down.
1. Conversational Discovery Ads (AI Mode — in testing)
These ads appear as a natural part of the AI Mode response, written to answer the user's query rather than interrupt it. Google uses Gemini to match the ad to both the query and the AI-generated response surrounding it, so the ad feels relevant to the conversation already happening. Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers are currently being tested in the U.S. on mobile and desktop.
2. Highlighted Answers (AI Mode — in testing)
When AI Mode returns a list-style response — say, "best HVAC companies near me" — high-quality ads become eligible to appear as a direct recommendation inside that list. Both Conversational Discovery and Highlighted Answers will be clearly labeled "Sponsored."
3. AI-Powered Shopping Ads (coming later this year)
Less relevant to service businesses, but worth noting: Gemini will pull up products and instantly write a custom explainer for each product in the ad, tailored to the specific search query.
4. Business Agent for Leads (open beta now — this is the big one)
Business Agent for Leads replaces static lead forms with a Gemini-powered chat agent embedded inside the ad, grounded in the advertiser's website. Instead of a prospect filling out a static form, they click "Chat" and immediately get answers drawn from your site content, then submit their information through pre-filled fields. According to Search Engine Land, this format is now in open beta for U.S. advertisers and is initially rolling out in automotive, education, and real estate verticals — with broader expansion expected.
Think about the friction in your current lead funnel. A prospect searches "emergency plumber near me at 10pm," sees your ad, clicks it, lands on a form asking for their name, address, phone, type of service needed, and preferred appointment time — and then leaves without filling it out.
That drop-off is not because they are not interested. It is because they are anxious and they have questions before they commit. What is the price? Are you licensed? Do you work on older pipes? How fast can you come?
As the Google Blog put it, Business Agent for Leads "puts a smart brand agent right inside your ad." Instead of redirecting to your site, a prospect can click "Chat" to get instant answers based on your website, turning a practical interaction into a valuable lead. Google's own blog example describes a student researching universities getting instant answers and then submitting an inquiry — the principle is identical for a homeowner researching roofers, a patient comparing dental practices, or a business owner evaluating attorneys.
Here is what changes in your conversion funnel:
The middle of the old funnel — the part where most leads abandon — gets compressed. According to PPC Hero's review of GML 2026, the format allows searchers to ask a question inside of an ad and then submit an enquiry using pre-filled fields, reducing friction at the exact moment of highest intent.
There is a catch: to be eligible for Business Agent for Leads placement, according to Brainlabs' analysis, advertisers must be running AI Max or Performance Max campaigns. If you are still running standard Search campaigns only, you will not qualify.
The Business Agent for Leads announcement does not exist in a vacuum. It is Google's commercial response to the scale of AI Mode, and those numbers should inform how urgently you act.
According to coverage of GML 2026, Google said at I/O earlier this week that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users — making Google Marketing Live 2026 the commercial layer the company is bolting onto an already-scaled AI Search surface. Separately, Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler noted at GML that the number of searches in AI Mode have been doubling every quarter since it first launched.
To put that in plain English: the surface where your future leads are searching is growing faster than almost any product in Google's history, and it did not have a real monetization layer for service-business advertisers until last week. That gap is now closing.
One more data point from Real Internet Sales' analysis of the GML announcements: Google says that the average AI Mode search is triple the length of a traditional Search query. Longer queries mean higher intent. Higher intent means the person on the other end is closer to hiring someone — which means your cost per qualified lead should theoretically improve as AI Mode ad inventory matures, assuming your content quality keeps up.
Beyond the new ad formats, GML 2026 also introduced Ask Advisor, a unified Gemini-powered agent that connects Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Center, and Google Marketing Platform. Think of it as a cross-platform campaign assistant that can pull insights across tools to help you move from planning to optimization more quickly.
For a small service business running Google Ads without a dedicated marketing team, this matters. Ask Advisor is positioned against Meta's Advantage+ and Microsoft Advertising's Copilot, but Google's differentiation is cross-product orchestration: one agent across ads, analytics, commerce, and measurement.
What this means in practice: instead of logging into three separate dashboards to understand why your June HVAC campaign underperformed, you ask Ask Advisor in plain language, and it synthesizes the answer from your Ads account, GA4 data, and Merchant Center simultaneously.
It is not magic. You still need clean data flowing into these systems — especially first-party data like CRM leads and offline conversion imports. But for businesses that have their data house in order, Ask Advisor removes a significant amount of manual work from monthly campaign reviews.
You do not need to overhaul your entire Google Ads account based on one event. But there are five specific moves worth making before the Business Agent for Leads format rolls out more broadly.
1. Check your campaign type. Business Agent for Leads requires AI Max or Performance Max. Log into Google Ads and confirm at least one of your lead gen campaigns is running on one of these campaign types. If all your campaigns are standard Search, talk to your agency or set up a Performance Max campaign in the next two weeks.
2. Audit your website content for chat-readiness. The in-ad chat agent pulls answers from your website. Go through your service pages, FAQ sections, and landing pages and ask: if a prospect asked "are you licensed in [state]?" or "what is your service call fee?", would Gemini find the answer? If the answer is not on your site, it will not be in the chat.
3. Build or expand a dedicated FAQ page. According to the analysis from Real Internet Sales, you should build a tight FAQ and proof stack — case studies, review excerpts, guarantees — that a chat-based ad agent can pull from quickly. A structured FAQ page with clear question-and-answer formatting is the fastest win.
4. Set up conversion tracking for chat interactions. Business Agent for Leads introduces a new conversion type: chat-to-lead. Ask your ad manager how they plan to track chat engagement as a leading indicator alongside form submissions. The old click-to-form-submit metric will undercount performance once in-ad chat starts generating leads.
5. Watch for the open beta invitation. Business Agent for Leads is in open beta in the U.S. for automotive, education, and real estate — and expansion to adjacent verticals (legal, medical, home services) is the expected next step. Check your Google Ads notifications or ask your rep to flag when your vertical becomes eligible.
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What is Google Marketing Live 2026?
Google Marketing Live is Google's annual flagship event for advertisers, where the company previews its roadmap for the year ahead and announces new advertising products. The 2026 event took place on May 20, 2026 — one day after Google I/O — and focused on integrating Gemini AI across ads, commerce, creative tools, and measurement.
What is Business Agent for Leads and how does it work?
Business Agent for Leads is a new Google Ads format that replaces a static lead form with a Gemini-powered chat agent embedded directly inside the ad. When a prospect clicks the ad, instead of being taken to a landing page, they can chat with an AI agent trained on the advertiser's website content, get their questions answered in real time, and submit their contact information through pre-filled fields. It is currently in open beta for U.S. advertisers in automotive, education, and real estate.
Do I need a special campaign type to use Business Agent for Leads?
Yes. According to Brainlabs' analysis of GML 2026, advertisers must be running either AI Max or Performance Max campaigns to be eligible for Business Agent for Leads placements. Standard Search campaigns are not eligible for this format.
What is AI Mode and why does it matter for service business ads?
AI Mode is Google's conversational search experience powered by Gemini. Instead of showing a list of links, it synthesizes an AI-generated answer to the user's query. Google confirmed at GML 2026 that AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, and that the number of AI Mode searches has been doubling every quarter since launch. Service business ads can now appear inside these AI-generated answers through Conversational Discovery Ads and Highlighted Answers formats, which are currently in testing.
What is Ask Advisor and is it available now?
Ask Advisor is a new Gemini-powered unified agent introduced at GML 2026 that connects Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Center, and Google Marketing Platform into a single conversational interface. According to Search Engine Land's coverage, it can pull insights across platforms to help marketers move from planning to optimization more quickly. Availability is rolling out — check your Google Ads account for access or contact your Google rep.
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