Google launches AI-powered marketing tools for SE Asia – Newsbytes.PH
Internet titan Google held last July 9 its Google Marketing Live for South East Asia (SEA) event where it exclusively focused its brand new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered marketing tools across Google Search and YouTube.
Sapna Chadha, vice president for Google Search at Google Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier, explained why Google concentrated heavily on AI marketing tools for the region.
“SEA is rapidly transforming into a global AI hub,” Chadha asserted. “We don’t see SEA as a proving ground [for AI tools]. In fact, we see it as a launchpad where the future of marketing is being shaped by trusted YouTube creators, agile brands, and very bold marketers.”
Chadha added the technology company’s latest AI tools will assist marketers in making themselves relevant at every stage of the digital consumer’s journey.
“For years, we’ve been at the forefront of AI-driven advertising. As consumers journeys have become much more complex and resources more limited, we’re equipping marketers with our most advanced models yet. They’re more intelligent, more agentic, and more personalized. That means faster creative, higher reach, sharper insights and better results,” Chadha stated.
Search helps brands meet consumers at the right moment
Chadha started with Google Search’s new tools for marketers. These innovations aim to speed up creative design and boost campaign performance for Google Search Campaigns.
First up is Google’s new Asset Studio, which is set for release in Google Ads soon. Built with Imagen, Google DeepMind’s text to image model, and Veo, DeepMind’s video generation model, this tool empowers marketers to easily produce a hundreds of creatives and personalize their campaigns at scale.
Next is a tool that Google launched to aid businesses in adapting to changing consumer behavior. AI-related features integrated into Search in the last few years, including Google Lens, Circle to Search, and AI Overview, have affected how consumers look for information. People are using voice, images, and video — not just keywords — in their queries.
This was a major shift for advertisers since keywords were the main method for targeting consumers over Search. Google’s new AI Max for Search, though, helps marketers reach these evolving buyers.
AI Max uses Google’s Gemini models to understand a business’s website and ads, then automatically generates tailored headlines from the business’s content based on consumers needs. This AI tool then helps the right ad appear no matter what media the user enters, without marketers wracking their brains to guess keywords.
SEA brands beta-testing AI Max are already seeing measurable results. For instance, e-commerce app Shopee ran a five-week campaign experiment with AI Max in Singapore and Malaysia. The app saw 100% increase in conversions and a 49% higher return on investment (ROI).
Aside from these new tools, Google is expanding ads to its existing AI products like AI Overviews. Google has already rolled out Ads in AI Overview in the United States and found that it assists brands in meeting consumers at the right time. Ads in AI Overview will launch in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia later in 2025.
Lastly, there is Ads in AI Mode. AI Mode is currently only available in the United States and India and this feature enables users to ask longer, conversational queries on Search.
Google reports that queries on AI mode are twice as long as traditional searches. These lengthier entries offer advertisers rich targeting data, which Google aims to maximize by releasing Ads in AI Mode in the US later this year.
YouTube leverages trust in SEA Markets
According to 2025 reports from Kantar and MTM, SEA markets like Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia trust the views and opinions of YouTube creators more than those on other platforms.
YouTube also outperforms other social platforms in terms of results. YouTube delivers 1.5 times the ROI in Indonesia, 1.6 times the ROI in Thailand, and 1.2 times the ROI in Vietnam when compared to TikTok and Meta.
To help brands more easily connect with YouTube’s trusted creators, Google introduced the YouTube Creator Partnerships Hub. This tool’s AI-enabled smart search allows marketers to find creators relevant to their brands by keyword, category, or trend and evaluate their demographics and engagement to ensure the creator is the right fit.
Marketers can then connect to their chosen creators and when a partnership is formed, they can promote the creator’s content as ads and measure which is performing best, all through the Creator Partnerships Hub.
This tool is currently only available in Singapore and Indonesia and will roll out to other SEA markets at a later date.
Agentic AI as the marketers super assistant
Lastly, Chadha revealed that Google is building AI agents into Google Ads and Analytics so that marketers can focus on strategy, while leaning on agents to handle tedious tasks.
Google’s Agentic AI for marketing will learn from brand’s available data, such as landing pages and existing campaigns, then will automatically generate, optimize, and maintain their campaigns.
In Ads specifically, agents will provide real-time keyword suggestions and creative tweaks to campaigns. In Analytics, they will facilitate faster and smarter insights.
“It’s the kind of tool that marketers honestly dream of. More time, less stress, and better outcomes,” declared Chadha. “At Google, we’re really proud to build the future boldly, responsibly, and creatively together with our customers, creators, and partners.”
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