The news: Google used AI to block a record 8.3 billion ads globally in 2025, a 63% increase from 2024, according to its 2025 Ads Safety Report. This included taking down 99% of policy-violating ads before they were ever served to consumers.

The search and tech giant also removed far fewer ad accounts—it blocked or took down 24.9 million accounts, down 36% from 39.2 million in 2024.

• Adding advertiser verifications and using AI to enforce ad content policies at a more granular level helped reduce incorrect advertiser suspensions by 80% in 2025, said Keerat Sharma, Google’s vice president and general manager of ads privacy and safety.
• “This accuracy allows us to focus on two things in tandem: Prioritizing the removal of harmful content while helping honest businesses keep their ads running,” Sharma added.

Google said Gemini-powered AI tools are being used to analyze signals like account age, behavior, and campaign patterns to understand intent and stop scammers. Sharma said its models can spot malicious and policy-violating content—even if it’s designed to avoid detection—and block it before users ever see it.

Why it matters: For advertisers, this means tighter enforcement with fewer false positives, making it less likely that legitimate campaigns are flagged, accounts are wrongly suspended, or ads appear alongside spammy or fraudulent content. This could also boost trust in Google’s ad systems compared with platforms like Meta’s.

At the same time, this proactive detection means advertisers will need to be more precise with compliance from the start, since AI systems are catching violations earlier and at scale. That raises the bar for creative, targeting, and account behavior, even as it creates a safer, more trusted ad environment overall.

Recommendations for marketers: Stronger verification and AI-driven moderation could reduce fraud and improve ad inventory quality, but it also further concentrates power within Google’s ecosystem.

Changes to Google’s policies could have ripple effects across the digital ad market, as even small adjustments to enforcement standards could quickly affect millions of advertisers. Marketers need to stay closely aligned with Google’s evolving guidelines to maintain consistent campaign delivery and avoid sudden disruptions.

This content is part of EMARKETER’s subscription Briefings, where we pair daily updates with data and analysis from forecasts and research reports. Our Briefings prepare you to start your day informed, to provide critical insights in an important meeting, and to understand the context of what’s happening in your industry. Non-clients can click here to get a demo of our full platform and coverage.