Google Marketing Live 2026 was boring.

Except for one thing.

For the first time I can remember, Google explicitly addressed its direct competitors. Meta and TikTok. Mostly Meta.

Philipp Schindler warned advertisers not to believe what competitors say about their ad effectiveness. Instead, he told us to “check the data” and trust him.

YouTube is the place where most of purchase decisions start, not on social media feeds, despite what Meta or TikTok claim.

Not sure exactly how we’re supposed to check the data other than just listening to him. But hey, I trust him. 🙂

What I heard is that Google is feeling the heat.

Meta made $55B from advertising in Q1 2026, up 33% YoY.
Google made $77B from advertising, up “only” 15% YoY.
Meta is creeping in dangerously.

According to eMarketer, Meta is even expected to surpass Google in advertising revenue in 2026.

That matters because ads still make up roughly 73% of Alphabet’s revenue.

The concern is real.

Meta may be behind Google in consumer-facing AI.
But under the hood, it is clearly very advanced.

As a marketer, I’ve seen Meta and TikTok ad performance improve massively over the past year or so.

A big part of that comes from AI-driven campaign types like Advantage+ and Smart+.

Google’s Performance Max and AI Max are also very powerful.

Clearly, the AI race is not about chatbots.
It is about who can use AI for better advertising effectiveness and monetisation.

Btw, OpenAI also plans to make billions from ads.

Now you see where all that AI capex is going 😅.

Chart courtesy of ChatGPT.

Source: Q1 2021 - Q2 2026 Alphabet and Meta earnings report.