The paid search market is entering a holiday season in which advertisers must account for more than conventional search engine results pages. Adthena’s latest Holiday AI Paid Search Report tracked 204,489 ChatGPT ad placements between June and September 2026, while also documenting the expansion of paid advertising within Google’s AI-generated search experiences.
The report examines three environments: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and traditional Google Search. Its findings point to a more fragmented search advertising landscape, where brands must understand how consumers encounter sponsored content across both keyword-led search and conversational AI experiences.
ChatGPT advertising adoption accelerated during the period studied. Adthena says the advertiser base grew nearly sixfold in two months, with apparel, consumer electronics, and travel accounting for approximately 95% of tracked placements. Toys and games emerged as the fastest-growing category.
The report also suggests that ChatGPT ads are reaching consumers earlier in the purchase journey. Ads appeared alongside research-oriented queries in 83% of tracked beauty advertising, 69% of travel advertising, and 67% of toys and games advertising. These findings suggest that conversational advertising may have a role in product discovery and consideration, rather than serving only shoppers with immediate purchase intent.
That distinction could influence how brands allocate budgets and assess performance. Traditional paid search strategies often prioritize queries that signal a clear commercial requirement. Conversational environments can capture broader questions, comparisons, and exploratory research, potentially creating opportunities to influence decisions before shoppers settle on a product or brand.
Google’s AI search experiences are also becoming a larger part of the advertising environment. Adthena reported year-over-year growth in AI Overview appearances of 536% in Australia, 160% across the UK and EU, and 89% in the United States. It identified 175,100 paid placements within US AI Overviews and AI Mode, concentrated in apparel and consumer electronics.
The figures highlight two different developments. ChatGPT is establishing a paid advertising environment within a conversational interface, while Google is incorporating advertising into AI-generated answers alongside its established search business. Advertisers therefore face different placement contexts and consumer behaviors, even when the underlying commercial objective remains similar.
The shift is also creating a need for broader competitive intelligence. Adthena’s Whole Market View monitors paid and AI-powered search activity across Google and ChatGPT, giving brands a way to track where competitors appear and how advertising activity changes across these environments. Such monitoring may become more important as marketers compare visibility, category competition, and the role of AI-driven discovery in their search strategies.
The company has made several predictions for the holiday peak. It expects ChatGPT advertising to become a standard part of search budgets by 2027 and predicts that Google’s AI answer area could carry more retail ad volume than the traditional results below it within 18 months. These are Adthena forecasts, not established market outcomes.
The report also argues that creative execution will matter beyond securing placement. As advertising appears within AI-generated answers, the relevance and presentation of the ad, including its imagery and usefulness to the shopper, could influence engagement.
For advertisers and agencies, the immediate challenge is to test these emerging placements while maintaining visibility across established search campaigns. Adthena recommends checking brand presence against priority category terms, monitoring competitors in Google’s AI answers, and evaluating results regularly.
The broader implication is that paid search planning is expanding beyond keyword coverage and bid management. As conversational AI and AI-generated search results become advertising surfaces, brands will need new ways to measure visibility, understand intent, and compare performance across increasingly different discovery environments.
Market Landscape
Paid search is developing across three overlapping environments:
- Traditional Google Search: Established keyword-led advertising, where query intent and bidding remain central.
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: AI-generated search experiences where sponsored placements can appear alongside synthesized answers.
- ChatGPT: A conversational advertising environment that can expose brands during research, comparison, and product discovery.
OpenAI has expanded its advertising infrastructure with Ads Manager, additional buying options, and measurement capabilities. OpenAI Google’s AI search advertising activity, meanwhile, is being tracked by Adthena as part of its broader competitive intelligence coverage.
The key market shift is not simply the addition of more ad inventory. It is the emergence of different consumer discovery environments, each with distinct placement formats and intent signals.
Strategic Outlook
For advertisers, the report reinforces the need to evaluate AI search as a distinct media environment rather than assuming that conventional keyword strategies will translate directly.
Adthena’s findings suggest that conversational ads may be relevant earlier in the buying journey. That could affect how brands plan budgets between awareness, consideration, and conversion campaigns.
However, placement counts alone do not establish advertising effectiveness. Advertisers will need performance evidence covering engagement, traffic quality, conversions, incremental reach, and cost efficiency before making major budget reallocations.
The next competitive advantage may belong to brands that can combine traditional search intelligence with reliable monitoring of AI-powered discovery surfaces.
Top Insights
- 204,489 ChatGPT placements: Adthena tracked this volume between June and September 2026.
- Category concentration: Apparel, consumer electronics, and travel accounted for around 95% of ChatGPT placements.
- Research-stage exposure: Beauty, travel, and toys and games ads frequently appeared against early-stage queries.
- Google AI growth: AI Overview appearances rose 89% in the US, 160% in the UK/EU, and 536% in Australia year over year.
- New competitive intelligence requirement: Brands increasingly need to monitor advertising across conversational AI and AI-generated search results as well as traditional search.
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