Google and ChatGPT integrate ads into AI, what this means for SMEs

Search marketing has changed address, and most Brazilian SMEs have not noticed yet.

In May 2025, Google confirmed that Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns become eligible to be shown inside AI Overviews, the AI-generated answers that appear at the top of the results page before any organic link. This is not a beta test or an early access program, it is the platform’s default behavior. Almost simultaneously, OpenAI opened the ChatGPT Ads Manager to all US companies, with no minimum spend and no managed contract requirement, the first time any advertiser can buy media directly in ChatGPT without an invite.

Two separate changes, but pointing to the same destination, the digital ad inventory is migrating into AI responses.

What AI Overviews are and why they matter now

Google’s AI Overviews are blocks of language-model generated response that appear before traditional results on searches with informational intent. Since their launch in 2024 in the US and gradual expansion to other markets, they have begun to consume clicks that used to go to the first organic result.

The problem for advertisers was simple: the AI block appeared, answered the user’s question and reduced the need to click anything, paid or organic. With the new configuration, relevant ads will be rendered inside or immediately below the AI Overview block, on the same screen, taking advantage of the moment when the user is still in decision mode.

In practice, this means a well-structured Performance Max campaign can appear while Google explains the differences between two products, exactly at the point of highest purchase intent in the funnel.

What changes in campaign setup

You do not need to create a new campaign type. Google enabled this eligibility automatically for existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. What determines the display is the ad’s relevance to the query that generated the AI Overview, which increases pressure on copy quality, product feed structure and semantic alignment between ad and site content.

Campaigns with low Quality Score, generic assets or landing pages misaligned with search intent tend to be excluded. Google’s AI curates the inventory, and it is more demanding than the traditional auction.

ChatGPT Ads Manager, what OpenAI is offering

The ChatGPT Ads Manager, released in 2025 for US businesses, works as a self-service interface where advertisers create, target and monitor campaigns shown within the ChatGPT interface. The initial format is based on contextual ads, shown when the model identifies commercial intent in the conversation, without interrupting the response, but integrated with it.

The difference is not the format itself, it is the context. When a user asks ChatGPT "which CRM is better for a 10-person sales team?", the platform knows the intent, the level of detail in the question and the exact moment in the decision journey. This is information Google inferred for decades from keywords, and ChatGPT captures it directly from the conversation.

The absence of a minimum spend matters for SMEs, because it means the channel can be tested with modest budgets, which was not viable in prior access programs limited to large advertisers with managed contracts.

What we still do not know, and why it matters

The ChatGPT Ads Manager is not yet available outside the US. There is no confirmed date for expansion to Brazil, Italy or other markets. Public performance metrics are scarce, and the attribution model has not been documented transparently by OpenAI. For advertisers outside the US, the moment calls for active observation and building structure, not immediate execution.

What this means for an SME in practice

Taken together, these two changes signal a clear inflection point, traditional SEO based on organic position and click volume loses structural relevance. What matters now is the ability of your content and campaigns to be selected by language models as a relevant response.

This has concrete operational implications:

• Product feeds must be clean, up to date and semantically rich. Google uses these data to decide what to show inside AI Overviews, vague titles and generic descriptions are discarded.
• Website content must answer real questions, not just contain keywords. AI ranking logic favors texts that cover intent, context and specificity, not term density.
• Performance Max campaigns deserve an asset review now. With the new eligibility, a low-quality asset can cost you visibility in Google’s most valuable inventory in 2025.
• Opening an account in ChatGPT Ads Manager (when available in your market) has zero entry cost. The risk of waiting is losing the early learning data that typically benefits first movers in a new channel.

The shift that has already begun

This is not a future trend. Google has already rewritten the contract with advertisers, and it did so without prior notice via a standard policy update. OpenAI has just opened a second front.

For companies that rely on paid and organic traffic to generate leads or sales, the question is no longer "should I prepare for ads in AI?" The question is, is my marketing operation structured to be selected by a language model, or only to be found by a 2015 search algorithm?

The difference between those two answers will determine who appears on the customer’s screen over the next two years.