Every business running Google Ads in 2026 is asking the same question, even if quietly: am I getting less for my money than I was two years ago? 

The honest answer, backed by a growing body of data, is yes. And the reason is not competition. It is an AI. 

🔵 What Is Actually Happening to Google Search? 

Google has placed AI Overviews above traditional search results including paid ads for millions of queries. Google AI Mode, launched broadly in 2025, gives users a full conversational answer before they ever see an ad. 

The data is stark. When a Google AI Overview appears, top-ranking pages lose an average of 34.5 percent of their click-through rate, according to Evergreen Media’s 2026 research. Those lost clicks are not going to ads. They are being absorbed by the AI answer directly. 

SparkToro’s zero-click research found that 69 percent of all Google searches in 2025 ended without a single click. If users are not clicking, ad impressions mean less, and conversion costs go up. 

🔴 The Numbers Advertisers Are Noticing 

Advertisers across industries are reporting the same pattern: CPCs (cost per click) are holding steady or rising, while conversion rates from Google Ads are softening in many categories. 

The mechanism is simple. AI Overviews answer informational and comparison queries directly. That means the buyer who previously clicked an ad to research options is now getting their answer from the AI summary. The clicks that do reach your ads are more transactional, which sounds positive but it also means you are paying to appear further down a buyer journey that has already happened elsewhere. 

For eCommerce brands in the UAE, this is especially visible in product research and comparison categories. Queries like “best protein powder Dubai” or “air purifier for Dubai apartment” are exactly the type of searches where AI Overviews now dominate the top of the page.

What Has Changed	The Impact on Ads
AI Overviews above paid results	Fewer eyes reach the ad section at all
69% of searches end without a click	Impression volume means less than it used to
AI Mode gives conversational answers	Research-phase buyers exit before seeing ads
ChatGPT and Perplexity absorb queries	Total Google search volume is shrinking
CPCs remain high or rise further	Return on ad spend decreases for the same budget

🟡 Does This Mean You Should Stop Running Google Ads? 

Not necessarily. Google Ads still deliver value for high-intent transactional queries, local service searches, and categories where AI Overviews have not yet dominated. If your ads are producing a healthy return, do not abandon what is working. 

But it does mean the days of running ads as your primary traffic strategy and ignoring organic and AI visibility are numbered. The brands that depend entirely on paid clicks to drive revenue are increasingly vulnerable because every year, AI absorbs more of the search journey before a click ever happens. 

🟢 The Light Digital Take 

This is the exact conversation we are having with every client right now. Ads are becoming more expensive to run and reaching fewer buyers at the research stage. AI-driven search is absorbing the clicks that used to flow to paid results. 

The solution is not to stop advertising. It is to build the organic and AI visibility that does not switch off the moment you pause your budget. Every optimised blog post, every AI-cited product page, every structured-data implementation is a click that costs you nothing and compounds over time. 

We are an AI-powered SEO agency helping eCommerce brands in Dubai and across the UAE build exactly that kind of compounding, ad-independent visibility. 

And here’s the twist worth watching: ChatGPT is already building out its own ads infrastructure. OpenAI has confirmed it is testing sponsored placements inside ChatGPT responses. When that goes live at scale, the same problem that is hitting Google Ads today paying more for fewer buyers will arrive on yet another platform. The brands that build genuine AI visibility now will not need to scramble when that happens.  

Want to see how much of your traffic you could generate organically?  

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Read More from Light Digital: 

• How AI Is Changing Product Discovery for Ecommerce Stores 
• Answer Engine Optimization: How to Stay Visible When AI Becomes the Search Engine 
• What Is Google AI Mode & How Does It Work? 
• AI-Powered Search Is Changing SEO: Here’s What You Need to Know 

References: 

Evergreen Media — AI Overviews CTR Impact Study, February 2026: evergreenmedia.at 

SparkToro — Zero-Click Search Study 2025: sparktoro.com 

Gartner — Predicts Search Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026: gartner.com 

 

Varuna Mehta
Founder & CEO, Light Digital
LinkedIn