- Google Marketing Live 2026 will take place on May 20, with AI-powered campaigns, agentic commerce and YouTube performance expected to lead the agenda.
- The event gives advertisers an early look at where Google Ads is heading after a year of rapid automation across bidding, creative, shopping and measurement.
Google Marketing Live 2026 is set for May 20, giving advertisers a first look at the next wave of Google Ads products, AI features and campaign automation.
The global event begins at 8:45 a.m. PT and will be streamed online. Google is positioning this year’s event under the theme “Front row, everywhere,” with the main keynote focused on turning the “Gemini advantage” into a competitive edge for advertisers, according to the official Google Marketing Live 2026 event page.
A separate EMEA broadcast will follow on May 21 at 11:00 a.m. BST, also as a digital event, according to Google’s EMEA event page.
What Google Marketing Live 2026 is about
Google Marketing Live is Google’s annual product event for advertisers. It is where the company usually previews or launches new ad products, campaign controls, measurement updates and automation features that shape how advertisers use Google Ads for the rest of the year.
This year, the focus is clearly on AI.
Google says the product innovation keynote will cover AI-powered campaigns, agentic commerce, a new era of performance on YouTube and new ways to create, capture and convert demand across Google’s expanding ecosystem.
The official agenda
The global event starts with a short pre-show from 8:45 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. PT.
The main Product Innovation Keynote runs from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. PT. This is expected to include the biggest announcements across Google Ads, AI, shopping, commerce and YouTube.
After the keynote, Google will run a short wrap-up segment followed by Ads Decoded Live, a live version of Google’s Ads Decoded format. That session should be useful for advertisers because product leaders are expected to explain the announcements in more practical terms after the keynote.
Who is speaking
Google has confirmed several senior leaders for the global event, including Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM of Ads and Commerce; Philipp Schindler, SVP and Chief Business Officer; Sean Downey, President of Americas and Global Partners; and Selin Song, Global President of Google Customer Solutions.
The broader speaker lineup also includes leaders across Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Ads Measurement, Merchant Shopping, Behavioral Economics and Google Customer Solutions.
For the EMEA edition, confirmed speakers include Debbie Weinstein, Dan Taylor, Stephanie Davis, Shashi Thakur, Melissa Hsieh Nikolic, Harikesh Nair and Max Klymenko, according to Google’s regional event page.
What advertisers should watch
The most important theme will be how far Google pushes AI deeper into campaign management.
Advertisers should watch for announcements around campaign creation, asset generation, bidding, budget pacing, measurement and shopping experiences. Google has already been moving more decisions into automated systems, and GML is usually where those changes become clearer.
Agentic commerce may be one of the more important terms to watch. Google is using the phrase in its event framing, which suggests more AI-driven shopping and buying experiences where consumers, merchants and advertisers interact through automated systems rather than traditional search paths alone.
YouTube is another major area. Google specifically mentions a “new era of performance on YouTube,” which points to more commerce, measurement and direct-response ad products around video.
Why it matters for PPC teams
For PPC specialists, Google Marketing Live is not just a product showcase. It often signals where campaign control is moving next.
Over the past few years, Google Ads has shifted more work into automated bidding, Performance Max, broad matching, AI-generated assets and conversion-based optimization. GML 2026 is likely to continue that direction.
That does not mean advertisers can simply hand everything to Google and stop managing campaigns. It means the job is changing. Clean conversion data, better creative inputs, stronger landing pages, accurate product feeds and clear business goals become more important as Google’s AI systems take over more of the execution.
The Query Post view
The most important question going into GML 2026 is not whether Google will announce more AI. That is almost guaranteed.
The real question is how much practical control advertisers will get alongside the automation.
Marketers want AI tools that reduce manual work, but they also want transparency, useful reporting and enough control to protect budgets. If Google introduces more automated campaign features without clearer diagnostics, some advertisers will remain skeptical.
Still, the direction is obvious. Google Ads is becoming less about manual campaign construction and more about feeding Google’s systems the right data, goals and creative signals.
GML 2026 should show how far Google wants to take that shift this year.
