GML 2026：押注前端流量拦截？AI推荐后，六成用户仍回谷歌生态“寻求背书”

This article summarizes key insights from the 2026 Google Marketing Live China summit, covering new shifts in consumer shopping behavior in the AI era and Google’s new generation of AI-powered marketing tools. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core changes in consumer behavior: Currently, less than one-sixth of consumers shop directly via AI. The probability that users turn to Google Search for purchase decisions is 2.3 times higher than for conversational AI tools like ChatGPT. AI integration has increased the average number of touchpoints per shopping journey from 4.2 to 12.1, and 60% of users will jump to Google Search or YouTube to find authentic content validation after receiving AI recommendations. Consumers’ search queries are three times longer than before, and search volume on AI-powered modes is doubling every quarter.

2. Core industry conclusion: AI has not replaced search. Instead, it amplifies brand value, requiring companies to upgrade AI from an efficiency-improving tool to a strategic growth engine. Google has also launched a range of new AI marketing tools to help businesses adapt to these new shifts.

This summit reveals new trends in the global consumer market and new directions for brand marketing in the AI era, providing valuable reference for brands planning their cross-border marketing strategies. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Consumer trends and user changes: AI has restructured consumers’ decision-making paths rather than replacing search, and has instead lengthened the entire shopping journey. As many as 60% of users will return to the Google ecosystem to seek authentic validation after receiving AI recommendations. Users’ pre-purchase search queries are now longer, so their needs and concerns are exposed earlier, creating extensive traffic interception opportunities at the front end of the conversion funnel.

2. Core takeaways for brand marketing: AI will not weaken brand value, but rather amplify it. Building a highly recognizable brand that AI can trust and recommend is therefore the core priority of brand marketing in the AI era.

3. AI marketing tools available: Google has launched a new generation of AI advertising tools including AI Brief and PVA, which help brands naturally integrate their messaging into AI interaction scenarios and adjust ad delivery strategies based on their own profit targets to adapt to the new AI marketing environment.

This article reveals new changes and opportunities for cross-border marketing in the AI era, while also providing risk warnings and available tools, offering high reference value for cross-border sellers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New changes and new opportunities: AI has restructured consumers’ decision-making paths, with 60% of users returning to Google Search to verify recommendations after receiving them. Decision clues ultimately still flow to Google Search, so intercepting user intent early at the front end of the conversion process is the key to winning cross-border marketing today. The earlier exposure of user intent signals at the front end of conversion represents a new growth opportunity for sellers.

2. Risk warnings: Do not mistakenly assume that AI will replace search, or underestimate consumers’ low level of trust in AI recommendations. Sellers with weak brand power will see their disadvantages amplified in the AI era, so they need to start brand building early.

3. Available tools and strategic directions: Google has launched a series of new tools including AI Max, AI Brief and PVA, which simplify ad configuration and align with sellers’ profit targets. Sellers can use these tools to complete a systematic upgrade of their marketing and capture growth opportunities.

The new AI marketing changes revealed at this summit provide multiple insights for export-focused factories advancing digital transformation and building e-commerce businesses. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New directions for product design and manufacturing: In the AI era, average consumer shopping touchpoints have surged from 4.2 to 12.1, lengthening decision paths and exposing users’ specific needs and real concerns earlier before purchase. Factories can capture these front-end demand signals to optimize product design and manufacturing, better align with real user needs, and build more market-fit products.

2. Insights for digital transformation: Factories should not only treat AI as a tool to improve operational efficiency; they need to shift their mindset and upgrade AI to a strategic engine that drives long-term business growth, systematically upgrading their business models and marketing practices to adapt to the new consumer decision path.

3. New business opportunities: User intent signals at the front end of the conversion funnel represent an entirely new growth opportunity. When factories build their own brands for global markets, they can use Google’s new AI marketing tools to intercept traffic early. Meanwhile, AI amplifies brand value, so building a recognizable brand early will help factories gain greater competitive advantages.

This article reveals industry development trends in the AI marketing era, outlines the core pain points of current brands and sellers, and proposes corresponding solution directions, offering high reference value for marketing and related service providers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industry development trends: AI has restructured the decision-making paths of global consumers, but search remains the core link for users to complete purchase decisions. AI-powered search volume is doubling every quarter, and front-end traffic interception has become the core logic of marketing success in the AI era. AI amplifies brand value, so marketing services must adapt to native AI interaction scenarios to meet client needs.

2. Core client pain points: Most cross-border businesses currently do not know how to adapt to the AI-era shift in decision paths, nor do they know how to mine front-end user intent. Traditional ad configuration processes are complex and cannot optimize delivery performance based on businesses’ own commercial goals, while there is also a lack of tools to accumulate first-party data for continuous optimization.

3. Actionable solution directions: Service providers can connect to Google’s new generation of AI marketing tool matrix, including AI Brief, PVA, Google Code Gateway and Data Manager, to provide clients with end-to-end services that simplify delivery, align with commercial goals and accumulate data, to meet the marketing needs of the AI era.

At this event, Google, as a global marketing platform, revealed the core needs of merchants for AI marketing platforms and shared the platform’s latest practices to adapt to the AI era, providing reference for the operation and development of all types of marketing platforms. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core merchant needs for platforms: In the AI era, merchants need AI marketing tools that can help mine front-end conversion user intent, simplify ad configuration processes, align with merchants’ own commercial profit targets, and support merchants to accumulate their own first-party data. They also need delivery solutions that can naturally integrate brand information into native AI interaction scenarios, as well as platform support to shift AI from an efficiency tool to a growth engine.

2. Google’s latest practice direction: Google has launched a complete AI marketing tool matrix around merchant needs, which simplifies merchant operations, allows merchants to control delivery boundaries and align with business goals, and supports merchants to accumulate first-party data for continuous performance optimization.

3. Development pitfalls to avoid: Platforms should not incorrectly assume that AI will replace search. They must pay attention to demand for front-end traffic brought by changes in user decision paths, iterate products in line with changes in consumer behavior, and meet merchants’ demand for strategic upgrade.

This article reveals the latest developments in the global digital marketing industry in the AI era, proposes new industry changes and new problems, and offers high reference value for researchers in related fields. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industry developments: AI has not replaced search, but instead restructured consumers’ decision-making paths and lengthened their shopping journeys, giving rise to a new winning marketing logic of "front-end traffic interception". Google has launched a brand-new AI marketing product matrix, upgraded the search advertising business model, and deeply integrated AI into the entire advertising and marketing process.

2. New emerging industry problems: Currently, consumer trust in AI recommendations is generally low. More than 90% of global consumers agree that AI is helpful, but only half will follow AI recommendations. Sixty percent of users will jump to third-party platforms to find authentic validation after receiving AI recommendations, which is a new problem to be solved in the AI marketing field.

3. Research implications: AI’s impact on brand value has shifted from uncertain to definitively amplifying it. Global consumers have now evolved into "super consumers" with stronger decision-making power, and enterprises need to upgrade AI from a tool positioning to a strategic growth engine. This provides new directions for research on digital marketing transformation and enterprise digital transformation.