Google will roll out new AI tools for advertisers, marketers

Google is rolling out new artificial intelligence tools to help marketers create advertisements, seeking to expand its use of AI in products and capitalize on the growing demand from business for the emerging technology.

The company said advertisers would soon be able to run ads on its popular search engine that are created using generative AI, software that can spin up text and images from a simple prompt. Marketers also will be able to draw on text from their product landing pages to create ads, and use Google's tools to automatically generate slogans and product descriptions that are more relevant to customer search queries, the company said.

Advertisers will also be able to use AI-powered chat products for text and images as they create their ads. On the newly introduced Product Studio, Google merchants can find product images with the help of generative AI "without the added cost of new photo shoots," the Alphabet Inc. company said Tuesday in a blog post. Merchants will be able to improve the quality of low-resolution images, remove unwanted backgrounds, or add elements into a product image, like tropical plants in the background.

"Because of the pace of change in AI we think this is very much the ground floor of something really exciting," Jerry Dischler, a Google vice president who supervises advertising products, said in an interview.

As tech giants such as Google and Microsoft Corp. race to weave generative AI into their products, some experts have expressed concern that the tools will be used to supercharge the torrent of misinformation circulating online. Google's policies bar advertisers from misrepresenting the products and services they provide, and the company said the AI tools contain guardrails to prevent abuse.

Ads created using generative AI will be subject to the company's existing controls, but will not receive extra scrutiny, the company said.