Google Embeds Gemini Across Its Full Advertising Stack; From Search to Streaming to Creator Partnerships

DV360: Agentic campaign management

DV360 is making its Ads Advisor agentic offering generally available to assist across elements of campaign management, and will roll out a Campaign Builder offering that allows advertisers to input media plans to an AI tool that will recommend campaign setups. Ads Advisor can now also diagnose rejected ad creative using generative AI and surface performance insights across budget allocation and line-item optimisation.

This marks a significant milestone: Gemini-powered agentic tooling is no longer experimental within Google's enterprise-grade programmatic stack. Campaign setup, creative troubleshooting and reporting are all now handled through AI-assisted workflows available to every DV360 partner globally.

YouTube Creator Partnerships: Gemini-powered discovery

YouTube is expanding its Creator Partnerships Hub to include a new Gemini-powered AI search function, allowing advertisers to find creators that already produce content relevant to their brands using natural language prompts related to tone, subject matter and aesthetic. The tool addresses a long-standing inefficiency in influencer marketing: manual creator discovery that misses smaller, high-quality partners.

The broader Gemini stack in Google Ads

The DV360 and YouTube announcements layer on top of Gemini's already extensive integration into Google Ads' core campaign types. In Google Ads, Gemini models now power AI Max for Search (with text guidelines for brand governance expanded globally in early March), Performance Max creative generation (including the recently introduced AI voice-over feature for video assets), and Smart Bidding Exploration for automated query expansion. Google's Meridian Scenario Planner, which launched its no-code interface in February, uses Gemini to make marketing mix modelling accessible to non-technical users.

Strategic implications

The combined effect is that Gemini now touches every stage of the advertising workflow within Google's ecosystem: audience planning (Confidential Publisher Match, commerce data), creative production (Asset Studio, AI Max text guidelines, AI voice-over, creator discovery), campaign execution (Ads Advisor, Campaign Builder, Smart Bidding) and measurement (Meridian, SKU-level attribution). As Google's Bill Reardon put it at the NewFront: "Gemini with DV360 and YouTube will be core to the success of the future of advertising."

The timing is notable. Google's NewFront push lands in the same week that The Trade Desk faces its most significant agency trust crisis, with Publicis ceasing recommendations and Omnicom launching its own audit. Google is positioning DV360 as the scaled, AI-native alternative, with deeper CTV access (96% of US ad-supported CTV households), live sports inventory and now agentic workflow tooling that no independent DSP can currently match.

For agencies and advertisers, the practical question is whether Gemini's embedded intelligence delivers measurable performance advantages, or whether the deepening integration further concentrates the buy-side stack within Google's walled infrastructure at the expense of independent alternatives.