Google Launches New AI Prospects Targeting Mode and AI Shopping Insights in Merchant Center
Google has taken another step in AI-driven advertising and commerce. With the launch of New Prospects targeting in Google Ads and AI shopping insights inside Merchant Center, the company is pushing performance marketing further toward automation, first-party data, and visibility across AI-powered shopping surfaces.
For advertisers and retailers, this matters because the old playbook is fading fast. Targeting by keyword, optimizing a few audiences, and relying on product feeds alone is no longer enough. Google is building a system where AI helps identify untapped customers, and Merchant Center plays a much larger role in shopping intelligence.
A smarter way to target brand-new customers
The most immediate update is Google’s new New Prospects mode for Customer Acquisition campaigns. In practical terms, it gives advertisers a more aggressive option for finding people who are genuinely unfamiliar with their brand.
What sets this apart is Google’s ability to automatically exclude users who have already shown signs of brand familiarity, such as searching for branded terms, visiting a site or app, or engaging with brand content on Google or YouTube. That lets marketers direct spend toward colder, earlier-stage audiences instead of paying to reacquire people who were already in the funnel.
This is a meaningful shift. Rather than optimizing to “new customers” in a broad sense, advertisers can push harder toward true incremental acquisition. For brands focused on efficient growth, that could mean less wasted spend and better-quality prospecting.
Google has already pointed to success with related acquisition strategies, including earlier new-customer value approaches that reportedly improved ROAS. Results will vary by account, but the direction is clear: Google wants advertisers to rely more on its AI to identify who is actually net new.
Merchant Center is becoming an AI commerce dashboard
At the same time, Google is expanding Merchant Center with AI Performance Insights, a feature designed to help brands understand how visible they are across AI shopping experiences.
That matters because measurement has been one of the biggest blind spots in AI-powered discovery. Brands know consumers are increasingly finding products through AI Overviews, AI Mode, conversational recommendations, and Gemini-powered experiences, but visibility into that path has been limited.
The new insights aim to close that gap by surfacing metrics and signals such as:
- Share of voice against similar brands
- Shopping funnel performance across discovery, evaluation, and purchase stages
- Popular conversational queries related to products
- Missing product attributes that may limit visibility, such as color, material, or style
That’s the bigger story here. Merchant Center is no longer just a feed management tool. It’s turning into a platform for AI commerce optimization.
Why this changes how brands need to operate
These updates reinforce a broader reality: in AI shopping environments, data quality is strategy.
If Google’s systems are increasingly deciding which products to surface in conversational results, then feed completeness, structured data, taxonomy, and descriptive product content become far more valuable. Brands that still treat product feeds as a backend maintenance task are going to fall behind.
Early marketer reaction already points in that direction. Much of the discussion has focused on making sure AI can understand products correctly by improving titles, attributes, category mapping, differences between items, and FAQ-style content. That tracks. AI systems need context, not just inventory.
This is where many retailers will need to adjust fastest. Success in this environment will depend less on manual bid tricks and more on whether your product data is complete enough for AI to match your catalog to real shopper intent.
The bigger trend: AI is becoming the storefront
This launch fits into Google’s broader push around AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, virtual try-on, and more agentic shopping experiences. It also comes as the wider ad industry moves in the same direction, with AI-native discovery and performance models gaining momentum across platforms.
What stands out is how quickly paid media is shifting from a search-first framework to a conversation-first one. In that world, advertisers won’t just compete for keywords. They’ll compete for inclusion in AI-generated recommendations, product comparisons, and dynamic shopping journeys.
That also means new KPIs will matter. Share of voice inside AI surfaces, product attribute coverage, and funnel-stage visibility may soon be just as important as CTR or impression share.
What marketers should do next
For brands and agencies, the practical response is clear:
- Test New Prospects mode early to understand how much true incremental lift it can generate.
- Audit Merchant Center feeds for missing attributes, weak titles, inconsistent categorization, and thin descriptions.
- Strengthen structured data so Google can connect site content, product details, and shopping intent more accurately.
- Monitor AI visibility trends instead of relying only on traditional shopping campaign metrics.
- Treat AI surfaces as primary channels, not experimental extras.
The advertisers that move first will likely have the advantage, especially while benchmarks are still taking shape and competition remains uneven.
FAQ
What is Google’s New Prospects targeting mode?
New Prospects is a Customer Acquisition targeting option in Google Ads designed to help advertisers reach people who are genuinely unfamiliar with their brand. It works by excluding users who already show signs of familiarity, such as branded searches or prior engagement.
What are AI shopping insights in Merchant Center?
AI shopping insights, introduced through AI Performance Insights, give brands more visibility into how their products appear across AI-powered shopping experiences. The feature includes signals like share of voice, funnel performance, conversational queries, and missing product attributes.
Why does product feed quality matter more now?
As AI systems take a larger role in product discovery, complete and well-structured product data becomes essential. Strong titles, attributes, categorization, and descriptions help Google understand products and match them to shopper intent more accurately.
How should marketers respond to these updates?
Marketers should test New Prospects early, improve Merchant Center feed quality, strengthen structured data, and start tracking visibility across AI surfaces alongside traditional campaign metrics.
Conclusion
Google’s rollout of New Prospects targeting and AI shopping insights points to a deeper shift in customer acquisition and product discovery. The brands that win won’t just be the ones with the biggest budgets. They’ll be the ones with the strongest data, the clearest product signals, and the fastest ability to adapt to AI-led commerce. If you want a more disciplined way to connect performance strategy with smarter optimization, consider ROAS Suite as part of that next step.