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Google: Searchers Ask Longer Questions, Still Want the Open Web
In an October 28 Ads Decoded episode, Google's Ginny Marvin and Shivani Mohan said people are asking longer, more exploratory questions in AI Mode while still seeking firsthand detail from forums, podcasts, and videos.
By Roomer Editorial · · 3 min read
What did Google say in the Ads Decoded episode?
Google's Ads Decoded published a new episode on October 28. Guests included Ginny Marvin, who holds the Google Ads Product Liaison role, and Shivani Mohan, Search's Vice President overseeing Data Science and User Experience Research. The two covered how people use AI-powered Search and what it means for advertisers building 2027 strategies.
According to the episode notes, people are asking questions that run roughly three times longer than the average query, going back and forth with follow-ups, and searching by voice and image. That extra room lets them include personal nuance and work through complex decisions as they search.
Does longer search activity mean stronger buying intent?
Not according to what Google has shared. The 3x figure comes from a U.S. AI Mode report Google published in May 2026, cited in its October 28 advertising announcement. That report compares average query length, but it doesn't break down how different users or different types of search tasks affect the number.
Longer questions can tell an advertiser more about what someone needs. They don't, by themselves, prove someone is closer to buying or more likely to convert.
The same report says more than one in six AI Mode searches in the U.S. are multimodal — a narrower claim than the "one in six searches" phrasing in Marvin's post, and one that applies to AI Mode specifically, not to Google Search overall.
What did Mohan say about the open web?
Mohan said users like the clarity of AI summaries but still crave specifics, real experience, and the credibility that comes from the open web. In her LinkedIn post, she wrote that people:
She named forums, podcasts, and videos as the places people go for that kind of firsthand perspective. She also referenced billions of clicks going to the open web, without giving a timeframe or a point of comparison, so there's no way to tell from her comments whether that traffic is growing, shrinking, or how it's spread across sites.
What questions are advertisers still asking?
Two LinkedIn commenters pushed Marvin for specifics the episode didn't cover. Md Jihad asked how small businesses should rewrite ad copy and landing pages for this more exploratory kind of search behavior. Ana Trujillo Martin asked whether Mohan had identified signals retail teams should track as search shifts, including how to read impressions and click-through rate differently.
Neither the episode nor the follow-up posts answered those questions. Google described a behavior change — longer, more exploratory search sessions — without providing benchmarks, settings, or guidance on how it affects specific industries or stages of the buying process.
Roomer Editorial's take
Mohan's comment about "lived experience" is the part worth sitting with if you make travel content. A searcher asking a long, specific AI Mode question about a mid-range Lisbon hotel near Alfama isn't looking for a rewritten version of the property's own description. They're looking for someone who stayed there and can say whether the noise from the street is a problem at 1am.
That's the gap between AI summaries and the open web that Google itself is describing. A summary can tell someone what a hotel has. It can't tell them what it's like.
Google didn't say this translates into more traffic for any specific creator or site, and neither are we. What the source does support is that detailed, specific, experience-based content is the thing AI summaries are structurally unable to replace. A video walkthrough of a hotel room, including the parts that aren't flattering, does something a listing page can't.
If you're building out a Roomer site from your travel videos, this is a reason to keep the specific, unglamorous detail in — the elevator that's slow, the breakfast that's mediocre, the walk to the beach that's longer than it looks in photos. That's the "earned authority" Google's own research VP is describing, and it's also exactly the kind of page that benefits from being bookable rather than just watchable.
One thing this source doesn't give you: a reason to publish more content for its own sake. Google has not shown that volume drives traffic. It has shown that specificity answers a search a generic page can't.
Action: Pick one piece of your own travel content this week and check it against a real, specific search question — not "best hotels in Lisbon," but something closer to what a person stuck on a decision would actually type. If your content doesn't answer the follow-up question, that's the gap to fill next.
Source: Search Engine Journal
