SE Ranking’s study of 50,032 commercial keywords shows, in numbers, that Google AI Mode is now an ad surface: 29.45% of commercial queries return text ads, and the rate climbs with a keyword’s commercial value — 24.33% for CPCs under $2, 53.56% above $10. In 71.1% of ad-bearing queries two ads appear side by side; being shown is no longer enough — appearing next to a rival in the same answer is the new normal.
The finding worth underlining isn’t the size of the inventory but the ceiling on purchased visibility: only 11.53% of advertisers are cited as a source in AI Mode’s answer for the keywords they pay for, and at the URL level that drops to 1.95%. Ad placement doesn’t buy being the source the model trusts. This is the other face of the board’s AI ad-label and transparency debates: visibility is bought at auction, authority is not — in AI search the two are increasingly separate currencies.