Adthena says 94 percent of Google AI answer ads land on apparel and electronics

A marketing team outside apparel and electronics is sold on Google's AI answers carrying their ads. The data says those ads are almost never shown. Search Engine Journal wrote up Adthena's Holiday AI Paid Search Report on 4 November 2026. The study measured four months of real placements inside Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Two categories took almost everything.

Adthena looked at five US shopping categories from June to September 2026. It counted roughly 175,100 ad placements inside Google's AI Overview and AI Mode panels across those four months. The split: apparel took about 111,000 placements, or about 63 percent of the total. Consumer electronics took about 55,000, or about 31 percent. Travel took about 6,500. Beauty took about 2,100. Toys and games took 685. Those figures are Adthena's own, as published by Search Engine Journal.

What the number means for a buyer

A paid search team cannot sign up for an AI Overview placement on its own. The article is direct: "no separate ad buys for these placement types." A buyer's existing campaigns serve into the AI surfaces on their own. There is no new line item for a buyer to pick. The concentration shows which existing campaigns end up inside an AI answer. It is not a plan a buyer can change by moving budget.

A buyer in apparel or consumer electronics sees most of the AI-answer inventory today. A buyer in travel, beauty or toys sees almost none. All three categories compete in the same Google Ads auctions. The fairest way to use the number is as a ceiling. A travel brand is told to "optimise for AI answers this holiday". That work is sold to them. The ad system is not matching it with placements.

ChatGPT's split is wider, in the same direction

Adthena ran the same count inside ChatGPT ads over the same period. It found 204,489 placements across the five categories. Apparel took 90,517, consumer electronics 56,569, travel 48,134, toys and games 4,694, and beauty 4,575. Travel is a much larger share of the ChatGPT mix than of the Google AI-answer mix. The report flags that gap as the sharpest difference between the two surfaces. Again these are Adthena's figures and its own counting.

Neither Google nor OpenAI has published a breakdown of where ads appear inside their AI answers. That means a buyer has to trust a third-party counter for any category-level view, and this one is Adthena's. A second independent count would be worth having before a 2027 budget is reshuffled on a single data source.

What a marketer can do this week

Three practical checks. First, pull Google Ads' report on which campaigns served into AI Overview or AI Mode. Then see whether your category appears at all. Second, your category may be one of the four small ones. If so, do not reallocate budget from Shopping or Performance Max. The auction is not giving you those AI-answer placements. Third, if your category is apparel or electronics, read the auction insights report for the holiday window. More of your competitors' spend may be ending up in AI answers than the dashboard makes obvious.

Adthena's finding is one period, one counter and five categories. The top-line pattern is clear, which is that AI-answer ad inventory is heavily concentrated. The exact share any given brand sees will come from its own data.

Source

Search Engine Journal: Ads In Google AI Answers Concentrate In Apparel & Electronics, by Matt G Southern.