"Google search is alive"

m&k reporter Beat Hürlimann met Yves Mäder at Google's offices on Europallee. The 15-minute annual discussion is less a review than an indication of the direction: 2026 will be even more strongly characterized by an AI-driven transformation than the year before - with a search that increasingly works via intention and context, with advertising tools that consistently build AI into the core, and with five trends that Google is setting as a strategic framework for the coming year.

The lever for marketers remains simple but challenging: experimentation. Actively use new AI-optimized products, test them openly, learn - and accept failures as part of the process. Data quality remains the foundation: AI is only as strong as the data it receives.

And: Google's relevance as a search environment remains massive. There are over 5,000 billion search queries per year (more than 160,000 per second), 15 percent of which are new and have never been seen before. The most active generation in search: Generation Z.

When search lives: Intention instead of keyword

The importance of individual keywords decreases in the search. The decisive factor is the entire context - and the actual Intention of the user. This is exactly where Google comes in with its new AI functionalities: Advertising should become more relevant, even if the specific keyword is missing from the query.

The latest product in this environment, AI Max for Search (now available globally), takes this development into account. Example: Anyone looking for a complex flight connection from Zurich to London - including the question of whether dogs can be taken along - can find advertising from a producer of Dog bags are played out as relevant.

AI in the advertising core: performance products and more transparency

In the performance area, Mäder names Performance Max (PMax) and Demand Gen as key products. These AI-based campaign types are designed to use every advertising franc as efficiently as possible.

At the same time, Google is responding to customer feedback: PMax and Demand Gen should become more transparent because the products were sometimes perceived as a "black box". The claim: AI power yes - but more comprehensible, more controllable and therefore easier to use in practice.

"Explosive creativity": tools that make creation more accessible

Mäder sees AI as an opportunity to promote "explosive creativity" because ideas can be visualized very quickly. AI acts as a democratization of creativity - especially for smaller companies.

• Asset Studio (in Google Ads) enables creative elements to be edited, supplemented or voiceovers to be added. Particularly relevant: automated, multilingual advertising media production - a clear efficiency gain for multilingual countries such as Switzerland.

• The experimental tool Pomelli (Google Labs) is primarily aimed at SMEs: it analyzes a URL, classifies the business area and provides initial campaign suggestions - faster, more creatively, more efficiently and across all Google media.

• A concrete example: A European furniture retailer from Switzerland was able to use AI to produce a commercial for a range of dinosaur furniture for children - without AI, this would have been almost impossible to realize due to the effort and complexity involved.

Yallo: Activating latent demand - measurably more efficient

Mäder cites the Yallo case as an example of an application for AI-driven campaigns.

Yallo, a mobile and internet provider in the Sunrise environment, relied heavily on demand gen in the summer of 2025. In the competitive telco market, the challenge was to drive qualified traffic to the website. Demand Gen was used to activate "dormant demand" in the top funnel - before consumers actively searched for the brand.

The results: CTR +59%, add-to-cart rate +333%, with a simultaneous -39% cost per add-to-cart. The case confirms that Demand Gen can drive qualified traffic and conversions more efficiently in a highly competitive environment.

Five trends for 2026: Strategy under permanent acceleration

Google experts - including Phil Wilson (VP of Ads Marketing EMEA) - identify five overarching marketing trends for 2026:

1. Well-being first: Consumers prioritize immediate rewards and stability. Brands should deliver immediate added value and divide journeys into smaller, rewarding intermediate goals (e.g. British Airways / Avios).

2. AI is changing consumption and search: New search experiences become dialogic (text, image, audio). Marketers need Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)A library of high-quality assets so that AI-supported dialog searches "think" the brand.

3. Young target groups are actively remixing: "Digital native creators" want to participate. Brand relevance is created when a world is built in which communities help to shape it (e.g. "EPIC: The Musical" with over 50,000 uploads). Tools like Veo 3 help to mass-produce visually complex assets.

4. Nostalgic remix: Nostalgia as an economic factor; nostalgic campaigns can increase brand popularity by up to 20%. The lever is creative reinterpretation (e.g. Nintendo / Paul Rudd).

5. Sustainability as a tangible benefit: Away from vague promises, towards measurable product benefits (longevity, efficiency) - credible, without moralizing (e.g. Vinted).

Outlook: Test more openly - and apply brain power consistently

Mäder ends the conversation with a clear wish for advertising clients and agencies: continue to experiment, use and measure data, be open to AI - and talk about failures and successes. Google wants to further develop AI-based solutions so that campaigns can be placed faster, more creatively and more efficiently via YouTube, Search and other Google environments.