Google updates Search and Discover with collapsible ads, AI features, and more (techcrunch.com)

Google is rolling out several updates to Search and Discover that combine new AI-driven summaries with a redesigned ad experience. Users will get a “Hide sponsored results” button that collapses ad blocks at the top of results, while a persistent “Sponsored results” header remains visible as you scroll (it can appear above or below Google’s AI Overviews). Text ads are grouped under that header, limited to four visible ads per group, and the “Sponsored” label will appear elsewhere too (e.g., “Sponsored Products” in Shopping). The ad collapse works across desktop and mobile, but sponsored content isn’t removed—it’s de-emphasized visually while still prominent. Google is also expanding AI features: short AI-written “Overviews” at the top of results persist, a new “What’s New” button for sports queries will surface trending updates (U.S. rollout soon), and the Discover mobile feed will show AI-powered short previews with expandable links to explore (rolling out to U.S., South Korea, and India). For the AI/ML community this signals deeper integration of generative summarization and ranking into user-facing products—impacting traffic flows to publishers, relevance and hallucination risk management, and ad-viewability metrics. Practically, expect changes to SERP attribution, evaluation of AI summary quality, and experimentation with UX that balances user control and ad revenue.