GoKawiil
Tech News
Google is facing difficulty generating advertising revenue from its AI Mode search feature, according to a report. The shift toward conversational, AI-generated answers appears to be complicating the company's traditional ad-based business model.
Google has launched Gemini 4 Carbon, a frontier AI model it says tops rival systems from OpenAI and Anthropic on the AA Index v5.0 benchmark and leads in categories like agentic coding, computer use and science. The company highlighted particularly strong results in cybersecurity, claiming the model is better at finding, prioritizing and patching vulnerabilities at the root cause, and twice as likely to generate secure code as its predecessor, Gemini 4 Argon. Carbon will initially be restricted to select cybersecurity defense firms for testing before wider release through Google's Fairwind Program.
Google is rolling out sponsored listings in AI Mode search results to India, Australia, Canada, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore, with Brazil, Mexico and the UK slated to follow later in Q4 2026. The company says ads will carry a 'Sponsored' label to separate them from AI-generated answers, and in the US it is also testing ads that appear during follow-up questions within the same AI Mode conversation.
Alphabet's shares dropped more than 10% in after-hours trading after earnings of $2.12 per share missed estimates of $3.01, even as quarterly revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion. Executives said Google's AI Search mode generates less ad revenue per query than classic search, and capital expenditure more than doubled year over year to $51.4 billion, pushing free cash flow negative.
Google announced during Alphabet's Q3 earnings call that it is rolling out ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode to international markets, alongside new multi-turn ad formats in the U.S. Alphabet reported $127.6 billion in revenue, up 25% year over year, but Search ad growth slowed to 12% from 17% in Q2 and 19% in Q1, and Alphabet shares fell 8% after the results. Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said click-through rates on sponsored listings in AI Mode now match those of organic listings.
Google's AI Mode in Search gives a direct answer confirming Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election when queried from outside the United States, but avoids stating that fact plainly for users located in the US. Google has acknowledged the inconsistency and says it is working on a fix.
Testing by Ars Technica found Google's AI Mode responded to queries about who won certain presidential elections, including 2020, 2024 and 2012, by directing users to outside sources like the FEC rather than stating a winner directly. The same tool answered questions about other elections, including those from 2000 through 2016, with direct, correct responses. Different staffers at the outlet got inconsistent results depending on which election years they asked about.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said China's AI capabilities have advanced to within roughly six months of the United States, compared with a two-year gap he previously estimated. Schmidt, who also advises the Pentagon and leads Relativity Space, voiced concern that open-source AI models pose a growing security risk.
Google introduced a new AI world model capable of simulating environments by generating not only video but also accompanying human voices. The company described the system as part of its broader effort toward understanding and simulating the world, which it frames as a key step toward artificial general intelligence.
Google DeepMind released Genie 4 in research preview, a world model that generates photorealistic, interactive environments with real-time audio including music, ambient sound, and dialogue. The new model allows mid-simulation prompt edits like changing weather or camera angle, maintains consistent scenes for up to two minutes, and offers improved physics and more lifelike characters compared to last year's Genie 3. It's currently available to select testers, with broader access planned for Google AI Ultra subscribers.
Google announced Genie 4, a new AI world model that generates interactive experiences lasting up to two minutes, doubling the length possible with its predecessor Genie 3. The update adds real-time editing via natural language prompts, audio generation, and runs on Gemini 3.8 Flash, though Google warns object permanence can degrade over longer simulations.
Students who paid to upgrade from free Google AI Plus student plans to discounted AI Pro subscriptions are reporting that Google unexpectedly canceled the upgrades and issued refunds they didn't request. Rather than reverting to their original free AI Plus plan, affected accounts dropped to the free tier, losing prior benefits including expanded Google One storage. One UK student said the cancellation left their storage full, forcing them to pay again to restore capacity.