Q3 was a hugely important period for media owners. Within the time period we saw an acceleration in the shift from traditional to AI-driven search with new features being released more broadly – from more AI-led ad units to Andromeda.
The tone from media owners has changed too. AI – particularly, the operationalisation of the technology and adoption throughout business – has been at the forefront of discourse since July. More services have been offered, more technology built and sold.
People’s digital behaviours have also begun to change. In the consumer space, the launch of agentic commerce protocols will revolutionise online shopping. In the business space, the discovery phase has quickly been overtaken by AI-led conversations, shortening deal cycles and pre-qualifying prospects for sellers.
Within all this change, we expected to see an incredibly strong set of results from both Google and Meta, whose performance will be seen as an indicative signal as to whether AI is really breaking through to the mainstream.
On the Google side, Q3 was nothing short of historic. Not only did the media giant exceed $100bn in revenue, their advertising business grew double digits to $87bn – with the cost of media increasing overall by 6-7% vs the year ago quarter.
However, despite Search and Youtube growing, traditional web advertising (through display) stayed broadly flat, with an increase in cost offset by fewer impressions available. This is important as it signals a shift from web to search (and by extension, AI interfaces).
If operationalisation was the theme for Q3, the evidence within Google, suggests that the message is landing. Cloud revenue was up 34% vs the previous years quarter, Gemini has more than 650m users and 7bn+ tokens are used every minute, according to Google’s latest 10Q.
This shift isn’t purely limited to Google. Meta reported strong results too, with advertising revenue up from $39bn to $50bn vs the year ago quarter. Meta has invested in using AI to largely improve their ad experience for users – and it’s working. Their platforms see more than 3.5bn daily users, up 14% on the same period last year.
While their 10Q discusses impact visibility (an area we can help unlock) as a revenue growth risk, their focus on evolving user-centric ad formats, like Reels – using AI-powered systems like Andromeda – seems to be paying off (albeit monetising at a lower rate).
For advertisers, the takeaway is clear – AI adoption is the direction of travel and this quarters results feel like clear, positive signalling that advertisers, the market – and people – are beginning to agree.
This analysis is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as financial advice. For more information on how Found can help you address the changing digital landscape, get in touch with our team today.
