Google says AI search queries have grown three times longer and that one in every six searches is now multimodal. The figures came from Google’s Ads Decoded podcast episode “How AI is changing Google Search behavior and what it means for advertisers,” published October 28, 2026.
What Google Said
Shivani Mohan, Google Search VP of Data Science and User Experience Research, said query length “has increased 3x” and that “one in every six searches is multimodal,” meaning searches that use images, voice or video alongside or instead of text. Google Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin repeated both numbers in her summary of the episode.
As PPC Land pointed out, the podcast didn’t give a market, time period or baseline. When Google first shared the same figures in its May 19, 2026 AI Mode report, they were narrower: the 3x query length applied to AI Mode, and the multimodal share applied to US AI Mode searches. So these are AI Mode figures, not numbers for all of Google Search.
Ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews
Marvin said ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews are matched to both the user’s query and the AI-generated response. She also pointed retailers to six optional conversational product data fields in Merchant Center that help Google match products to longer, more descriptive questions.
The episode did not share performance data for these ads, such as click-through rate, conversion rate or cost.
Other Takeaways From the Episode
- Refinements are a weak signal. Mohan said Google treats manual query refinements as a negative signal in its data science work, since they suggest the first answer missed.
- People want human sources. Mohan said users want authoritative and human sources, though no click-through figures were shared for those sources.
What Longer AI Search Queries Mean for SEO
Longer, conversational queries change how content gets discovered. Instead of short keywords, people describe their full situation, and AI answers pull from pages that cover specific needs well. With AI Overviews now on more than 80% of Google searches, that shift affects almost every site.
Practical steps:
- Answer real questions in full. Cover the specific scenarios and follow-ups your audience asks about, not just head keywords.
- Optimize images and video. With one in six AI Mode searches using multiple formats, descriptive file names, alt text and structured data matter more.
- Fill out product data. Retailers should complete Merchant Center attributes, including the new conversational fields.
- Track multimodal traffic. Use the Search Console multimodal search filter to see how these searches reach your site.
Also see how Google is promoting AI Mode in search results and why AI answer accuracy is under scrutiny.
Key Takeaways
- Google says AI search queries are 3x longer and 1 in 6 searches is multimodal, based on AI Mode data.
- Ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews match both the query and the AI response.
- Retailers have six optional conversational product fields in Merchant Center.
- No ad performance data was shared.
Source: PPC Land, citing Google’s Ads Decoded podcast.
