Brendon Kraham, Google's vice president of Search and Commerce for Global Ads Solutions, argued in an October 14 essay on Think with Google that generative AI in Search expands the path to purchase rather than narrowing it, PPC Land reported. He cited Google-commissioned Ipsos research finding that people using AI search visit 12 touchpoints across their buying process, nearly 3x as many as in journeys without AI, and that 3 in 4 people say Google's AI features help them make faster, more confident decisions.
PPC Land's reading of the footnotes: the online survey was fielded in December 2025 across 25 markets, and the touchpoint figure compares 14,305 shoppers who used "AI platforms or features" with 21,881 who did not. The outlet says the group is broader than Google's products, touchpoints are not defined, and the comparison does not show AI caused more visits. The 3 in 4 figure comes from 13,189 users of AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Kraham told marketers to publish specific expert content and to measure "real business goals like leads or sales, not unproven proxy metrics." PPC Land notes that Search Console's generative AI reports count impressions, without click or query data.
PPC Land says the essay does not address clicks. Pew found users clicked links on 8% of searches with an AI summary against 15% without, which Google disputed; Ahrefs found a 58% lower click-through rate for top-ranking pages, and a randomized experiment found a 39.8% drop in outbound organic clicks.