Google AI Mode Ads Tracker: Who Advertises in AI Mode

Who is advertising inside Google AI Mode for your keywords?

On 28 October 2026 Google started showing ads inside AI Mode answers in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore, with the UK, Brazil and Mexico planned for Q4 2026. These ads sit inside the AI answer under a "Sponsored" label, they only serve to broad match, AI Max and Performance Max campaigns, and Google Ads gives no separate report for them. So nobody can easily see which competitors already show up there.

Google AI Mode Ads Tracker checks your keywords in AI Mode, country by country, and returns every ad Google placed in the answer:

• Advertiser and display domain
• Headline and description, copied exactly from the ad
• Sitelinks under the ad
• Google's intro line ("You might consider these options:") and where in the answer the ad sat
• New-ad alerts: watch mode remembers every ad, so scheduled runs show when a competitor starts advertising
• Plus the sites the AI answer cited and how many product cards it showed, so you see the whole page your ad competes with

Built for PPC agencies, in-house search marketers and brands who need to know whether AI Mode is worth bidding on, and who is already there.

How to use it

1. Type your keywords, one per line (or pick a dataset, a CSV or a Google Sheet).
2. Pick the countries.
3. Run. Each keyword is checked once per country.
4. To track competitors over time, switch on Watch mode, give the watch list a name (one per client), and schedule the run daily or weekly. Turn on Return only new ads to get just the changes.

Example output

{
  "keyword": "best vpn deal",
  "country": "AU",
  "adShown": true,
  "adCount": 1,
  "advertisers": ["surfshark.com"],
  "ads": [{
    "adNumber": 1,
    "advertiser": "surfshark.com",
    "displayDomain": "surfshark.com",
    "headline": "Cheap VPN - Premium Quality - Affordable VPN price",
    "description": "Get an affordable VPN to protect yourself online, block ads, and connect to servers in 100 countries, all with a 30-day money-back guarantee",
    "sitelinks": [],
    "isNew": true,
    "firstSeenAt": "2026-10-29T18:21:00.000Z"
  }],
  "adIntro": "You might consider these options:",
  "adPositionPercent": 94,
  "citedDomains": ["nordvpn.com", "amazon.com.au", "software.pcworld.com"],
  "shoppingProductCount": 0,
  "status": "ok"
}

Pricing

You pay per result, with no subscription:

• $0.003 per keyword checked (per country)
• $0.02 per ad found
• A keyword where AI Mode gave no answer is free.

The AI Mode answers are fetched by Apify's own Google AI Mode Scraper, which runs on your account as part of this run and charges its own price: $0.005 per answer on paid Apify plans (less on higher tiers) and $0.20 per answer on the Free plan. So on a paid plan, a weekly check of 50 keywords in 2 countries costs about 100 x ($0.003 + $0.005) = $0.80 a week, plus $0.02 for each ad found.

How it works, and what it never does

• Ads are found from the ad links Google lists with the answer, and from the "Sponsored" block in the answer text.
• It never clicks an ad. Ad links are only read, never opened, so advertisers are never charged for a click by this tool.
• The split into advertiser, headline and description is done by a small AI model that may only copy words from the ad. Any part that is not found word for word in the ad is left empty. The full ad text is always in adText.

FAQ

Why do so few keywords show ads? Ads in AI Mode are brand new outside the US and Google is ramping them up. In our first tests on 29-10-2026, about 1 in 16 commercial keywords showed an ad, and ads rotate between runs. That is exactly why tracking over time (watch mode) matters: you see the day a competitor arrives.

Does it show the ad's landing page? No. The landing page is only revealed by clicking the ad, and this tool never clicks ads. You get the display domain when the ad shows one.

Can I use it for the US? Yes, pick United States. The UK, Brazil and Mexico are in the list for when Google switches ads on there.

Can an AI agent call it? Yes, through the Apify API, MCP and x402 payments. Output is plain JSON, one row per keyword and country.

If this showed you a competitor you did not know about, a short review on the Store helps a lot.