Alphabet Q3: Google Search revenue growth slows to 12% as AI Mode ads go global

Google Search revenue grew 12% year over year in Alphabet’s third quarter, down from 17% in the second quarter and 19% in the first, per TechCrunch’s report of the Oct 28 earnings call. Alphabet reported total revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25%; Google Services, which includes Search, brought in $96.3 billion, up 11%.

Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said Google is scaling ads in AI Mode and AI Overviews “to more users and queries,” including taking that footprint global for the first time, and that click-through rates for sponsored product listings in AI Mode are comparable to organic ones. Sundar Pichai said Search queries grew at their fastest year-over-year rate in five years without giving the figure, that AI Mode queries run three times longer than traditional searches, that one in five AI Mode searches globally involves voice, images or documents, and that Google now handles more than 50 billion visual searches a month. The ad expansion itself, with its country list, is covered in the wire’s earlier item on Google’s own announcement.