Google held its flagship event for Ads and Commerce, Google Marketing Live in Saudi Arabia today in Riyadh and announced a range of new AI-powered solutions to benefit advertisers and shared new insights about consumers in the Kingdom. 

The annual event showcased Google’s latest ad product innovations and new features on Search and Maps, bringing together global and regional executives from Google and leaders from the Middle East and North Africa’s business and marketing community to discuss the future of business with artificial intelligence (AI). 

Google also announced the availability of a range of AI-powered features and products in the Kingdom, including an enhanced experience with PerformanceMax using AI, automatically created assets, and Merchant Centre Next. Automatically Created Assets will help advertisers to generate and adapt ads in real-time so advertisements are more relevant to customers using landing pages and query context.  Likewise, AI is coming to Performance Max, a goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to access their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. Performance Max will now use generative media and large language learning models (LLMs) to generate professional-grade creatives across YouTube, Display, and Search with minimal information.

Google also announced the availability of  Merchant Center Next in the Kingdom- a new onboarding experience for merchants of all sizes that makes it easier to manage online and offline products and business information. The updates include simplified onboarding, product upload and management, seamless ad integration, and holistic reporting.

Commenting on the event, Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa said “We’re excited to host Google Marketing Live in Riyadh for the first time. Google’s presence here today is a testament to our commitment to supporting businesses in the Kingdom and their digital growth. AI has long been the cornerstone of Google’s products and services and we’re excited to announce new AI-powered features such as AI in PerformanceMax and Automatically Created Assets for businesses in Saudi Arabia to help drive better performance and reach more customers” 

Google Marketing Live is an annual event that showcases Google’s latest ads products innovation. The event was held in Riyadh for the first time this year, in addition to Mountain View, Google’s global headquarters and Dublin, Google’s Europe Middle East and Africa headquarters.