PPCChat | Sorting Through AI Hype | 2nd December 2025

Posted December 3rd, 2025 by Amita & filed under PPCChat.

AI has become an integral part of every PPC professional’s workflow. It seems like there’s news about AI almost every day, whether in search or within an ad platform. In this week’s PPCChat session, host Julie F. Bacchini discussed the most hyped aspects of AI in PPC, how AI is reshaping the way experts manage campaigns, and more.

Google’s announcement regarding AI https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robbystein_today-we-launched-gemini-3-our-most-intelli[…]m=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGuUzYBDlXKq_1mSdj59hd7-vhzlszLDng

Q1: What do you think is the most hyped aspect of AI in general right now? Do you think it is over hyped?

It is all over hyped to me. I think though, the idea that you should use AI for everything is the biggest one. Especially when it gets things wrong so often. @NeptuneMoon

Yes, and overhyped right now is the vibe-coding stuff. Build this, do that, don’t worry if all your stuff gets erased! non-experts can do anything! ugh. @JuliaVyse

I also think companies pushing AI are out of touch with the appetite of the general public for AI to be shoved into everything. @NeptuneMoon

The definition is the most hyped. Artifical Intelligence. It’s not intelligence yet. It’s a tool powered by LLMs to augment Human Intelligence. @alimehdimukadam

Like Microsoft being shocked people don’t want an operating system where they have to talk to their computer to do stuff. @NeptuneMoon

Definitely overhyped. A good starting point, but definitely not production-ready. @Pete_Bowen

I believe it will be a classic case of branding go wrong – for tech – AI is the holy grail, but for normal people – AI has always been seen as a destroyer – Terminator, Ultron, iRobot, etc @alimehdimukadam

I think applications of AI are still mostly overhyped. It feels like the early days of the iPhone and the App Store. It felt so insane and crazy to have what felt like a limitless amount of “cool, innovative apps” at your disposal, but in reality, it was mostly just redesigned calculators, flashlights, and an app that made it look like you were drinking beer from a glass. In 5-10 years (not to mention 20+), I think we’ll be in a good spot, but right now, it’s a bunch of holler that ain’t worth a dollar. @AnthonyMcDaniel

Interesting way to put it @alimehdimukadam. I also can’t skip bringing up the environmental aspect of AI. The resources it requires are insane. We will need to reckon with that sooner rather than later. @NeptuneMoon

And the cost, it’s all funded by VC hope at the moment. @Pete_Bowen

One of the main reasons I do not use it very much at all is the environmental aspect @Pete_Bowen The companies are pouring money into each other to keep it going too. @NeptuneMoon

I think there is a certain confusion between “cool” and truly helpful. It’s cool to have groceries auto-refilled in a “smart” fashion, but is it helpful? Does it lead to over-consumption? It’s “cool” to abandon keywords (theoretically streamlining workflows), but is it helpful for brands? What about the risk of spending into irrelevance. @teabeeshell

Politicians & media will blame AI for their own lapses and economic policies, which are a cause of the slowdown. AI is being set up to be the fall guy for the next economic downturn and job losses, etc. And people will believe it, coz they have been conditioned to do so over the years. @alimehdimukadam

It feels like if PT Barnum were alive he would be the CEO of an AI company right now…@NeptuneMoon

I keep hearing “We should start integrating AI into our processes” like it’s magic but a major hype… like cool but what are we trying to fix or make better? @Meriem

I think some people are overly reliant on AI and trust it too much. I’ve seen it make mistakes. If you’re using AI, verify the output you see; it could be wrong. @JeffreyHain

The idea that AI is a substitute for people, search engines, etc is overhyped. @beyondthepaid

It’s very useful for things like taking meeting notes and then add some automations. Some use cases like Slides, Images, Summary, Deep Research are awesome, but it still requires Humans to prompt and drive. Can’t be automated or artificial. Human in the loop always. @alimehdimukadam

@alimehdimukadam yes. I love AI for my meeting notes & task extraction. It’s great for menial tasks. Not great for deep thinking. @beyondthepaid

The hype is real y’all. We’ve had pitch feedback that they didn’t see us using enough AI in our proposals. Like, we’ll pitch what’s appropriate for your business, but go off I guess. @JuliaVyse

@JuliaVyse UGH @beyondthepaid

ALSO the AI Overviews aren’t always right… and that’s getting on my nerves at the mo too LOL @Meriem

I think video AI is currently really bad and pushed a lot. I have seen loads of bad quality, yes, you can push a load of content out fast, but quality is still important. @JoeWilliams

Q2: What do you think is the most hyped aspect of AI as it relates to PPC right now? Do you think it is over hyped?

The lack of controls. The creative enhancements in Meta and Google are not ready for regulated fields and they’re aggressively pushing them into everything with no opt-outs or opt-outs that don’t work. @JuliaVyse

Yeah, the amount of Meta creative ‘optimization’ toggles drives me nuts. @Ashsanh

I have a few, but one of the biggest ones is that ad platforms have AI in them that is sophisticated enough to target effectively when you let them do what they want. AI Max, for example. And with the increase in AI in platforms, the transparency into performance decreases. It is a whole lot of “trust us, it’s working” which, thank you, but I need to see that for myself. @NeptuneMoon

What people are missing is context – especially if we put an algorithm – its job will be to maximize output – i.e. recommend budget increase, etc. It doesn’t have the context of the budget of the advertiser, seasonality, operational bottlenecks and capacity at their end, goals (top line, bottom line – all of which get discussed with the agency or the ppc professional knows why the setup is the way it is. But an algorithm doesn’t. @alimehdimukadam

All the hype over agentic things is also overblown to me. Like has Google really thought through these changes they are making to how search works beyond the next quarterly report and not seeming like they are falling behind in the AI race? Because how they want search to evolve does not seem compatible with ads like traditional search has been? @NeptuneMoon

I’m more comfortable with AI-driven targeting than I am AI-driven creative. Since the beginning of advertising, brands curate their own image. Granted, this is often overplayed, but with AI, we’re degrading this into background swaps, faux actors, and awkward contrived product angles. It’s under baked, to say the least. @teabeeshell

And people are not thinking about all of this sameness and where it gets to @teabeeshell When you’re using the AI for your creative, your messaging and targeting, where does your competitive advantage go? I think largely up in smoke…Having been through the original dot com bubble, this feels eerily familiar @NeptuneMoon

I can tell the difference between fast food hamburgers, but to the machine, a burger is a burger. So what do I say to my QSR client? @JuliaVyse

I think Google still has played it smart and well when it comes to plugging AI mode (not perfect obviously) But if we zoom out and look at the demand for TPU’s – over a long enough horizon – the search revenue has a competitor like how AWS was for Amazon. @alimehdimukadam

I think Google and all the platforms and companies are really overestimating both true demand for what they are shoving everywhere and the reality of how it actually performs. All those stories about companies letting people go in favor of AI doing their jobs? Most are rehiring cause AI can’t actually do that work. @NeptuneMoon

I agree with @teabeeshell re the creative. I’m very pleased when other people are using AI slop in their ads @Pete_Bowen

No one wants to deal with AI agents when they need anything more than the most basic of customer service. @NeptuneMoon

The idea that AI = great performance is overhyped. It’s not always true. @beyondthepaid

10000% agree with the meta AI stuff I’m so tired of turning them off and then doing it again multiple times if I edit anything or breath…. @Meriem

And the way that LLMs were sold as thinking models rather than very sophisticated pattern matchers is truly amazing. @NeptuneMoon

It’s not even really AI. It’s machine learning. There is a difference @beyondthepaid

Gemini, ChatGPT, etc are not thinking or solving a problem through reasoning and “thought” they are spitting out the answers that are most “likely” based on their training data and mathematical algorithms. Yet they are touted as being smarter than trained professionals of all stripes. Like I said, someone should just name one Barnum be be done with it! @NeptuneMoon

I think most platforms are pushing it but it’s so new and lack of data available it’s just a black box of currently unknown answers, which is always hard to speak to a client about. @JoeWilliams

I just want to say I appreciate you all so much – I’m actively working on “AI empathy content” and these nuggets are gold. P.s. does all of this apply to Copilot as well or is Copilot so far out of your sphere of consideration that you don’t think of it as a distinct AI @navahhopkins

It’s our main ai platform at work, it’s definitely in our sphere of consideration. It’s distinct for the user, so we consider it distinct w understood differences. @JuliaVyse

@navahhopkins Unfortunately for me, I don’t use Copilot AI (my perception – it’s same as ChatGPT – coz of the OpenAI/MSFT deal, please correct me if I am wrong – I haven’t taken the effort to figure out if there’s a difference to it or not) And I don’t have a strong enough reason as I am on Google Workspace, Mac & use MSFT only for ads & office. @alimehdimukadam

Q3: What are you getting asked about with regard to AI from clients or stakeholders right now?

Showing up in AI Overviews. @NeptuneMoon

How do we get mentioned in ChatGPT, and: How are we using it, how should we use it, what is the right approach? like, this arrived two seconds ago. @JuliaVyse

And my follow up question is always – why do you want to be in the overview and what do you think that will do for your business? @NeptuneMoon

Showing up in AI Overviews here too. we have clients OBSESSED with that @beyondthepaid

The fact that full on AI Mode is getting put into regular old search by Google is going to be a mess. @NeptuneMoon

The theme for me is, Can I trust this? For targeting, sure. We’re far past the minutia of age, gender, demo, interests, etc. For efficiency, absolutely not, at least not right away. With AI Max, for example, you forfeit the ability to target with specificity (KWs), but you gain scale through never-before-thought-of KWs…AND a ton of irrelevance. So I propose the known trade-off back to them. Does this feel worth it to you/your business? @teabeeshell

If you have not seen it, I shared this earlier, but here is what Google is announcing about AI Mode in search: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robbystein_today-we-launched-gemini-3-our-most-intelligent-activity-7396596480817582080-iFbT @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon Well they have to get people to use it and that’s the only way right??? @Meriem

I think the FOMO for clients is so real too. AI is being talked about by people who have no idea what it actually is and they really fear being left behind or seeming out of touch. It is a problem. @NeptuneMoon

FOMO is definitely driving a lot of it. @beyondthepaid

This is the first draft from last week. I have tried to reverse engineer how Gemini works and how it can help. Need to polish it a bit more. @alimehdimukadam

And I also don’t want to seem like I am somehow gatekeeping searching, but does anyone else find it creepy how all these AI systems want to suck you in by sounding like a friend or therapist, etc.? @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon Yes, especially with ChatGPT. It ends up saying Yes to everything. @alimehdimukadam

AI is very fear mongering… and i don’t like that. I get people are scared of the unknown, but also we need to learn how to use these things… and my clients are 50/50, some assuming they won’t need me within a year and others are scared it will kill there businesses in some way due to the biggest beasts or tech making it easier for people to copy them… most my clients are eCom. @Meriem

The level of sucking up the AI does when you keep engaging with it is creepy and dangerous depending on what you are asking of it. @NeptuneMoon

ChatGPT knows my name and thinks I’m very detail oriented. It also provides incorrect or incomplete answers to my detailed questions. @JeffreyHain

More how ppc and ai can work in multi channel strategy, how LLM are impacting search and if so how much, are impressions decreasing and CPM increasing thats some analysis I have been carrying out. @JoeWilliams

Q4: How is AI impacting how you do PPC?

I recently had AI take a keyword list for an account I’m restructuring (several hundred long) and break them out into general themes that I could then use for either campaigns or ad groups. I was able to confirm relevance much more quickly than I’d have been able to determine the themes myself. I’ve also used AI to help write and troubleshoot google ad scripts (about to do that today) which has been very helpful! @AnthonyMcDaniel

We are using it for routine things like SQR reviews and ad copy creation. It’s also great for competitor research . Go watch my SMX Next preso from a couple weeks ago to see how we’re using it @beyondthepaid

Lot of thoughts here: @alimehdimukadam

It will force people to level up and offer more value or discount pricing.
Siloed teams and functions will not work. The whole digital marketing team (SEO, PPC, Retention, Creatives) need to integrate and exchange notes a lot more than before.
Brand will be the ultimate moat. Distribution and Top of the funnel advertising is key as over indexation on Performance Marketing is shooting yourself in the foot.

As I said I don’t use it a lot. But I think getting a machine interpretation of things like keywords or what do you think this company does for either client or competitors. @NeptuneMoon

@alimehdimukadam very astute 3rd point there. No one wants to invest in TOF anymore, and platforms aren’t exactly helping with pushing ad inventory (still) that’s suboptimal. @teabeeshell

Small thing: I asked Chat GPT (or was it Perplexity?) to look at a search query report and identify all the brand terms it found. It did a good job and saved me time creating a new negative keyword list. @JonDeNunzio

Yes it’s great at parsing a lot of data very quickly. @beyondthepaid

Bigger thing: I would like to use it (if it’s good) to help with reporting to clients. My experiments so far have been so-so. @JonDeNunzio

Current AI is more “computer from Star Trek” than “Data from Star Trek @beyondthepaid

Basically anything that used to be a time-consuming, arduous task in Google Sheets, I now export to AI: @teabeeshell

KW Research + Refinement
Competitor Analysis
SQR Review (negatives, new themes, cost centers, etc.)
Copy Ideas (human-refined)

Do you all double check what it does with data? Or are you doing things that if it isn’t totally right or precise it does not matter a ton? Had a client that wanted me to do all kinds of analysis of performance data in AI and got annoyed when I said that the process would also need to include cross checking the results. @NeptuneMoon

We do check and QA its work, yes @beyondthepaid

Note to those who work with clients – you might want to add into your contracts about using AI generated anything and how you cannot guarantee its accuracy. Whether it comes from the client or they have you generate it. Big potential liability issue, IMO. @NeptuneMoon

I have been checking the data so far. It’s not high-stakes reporting, but I want to get it right. Long-term, this is only a good solution if it can do math with 100% accuracy IMHO. @JonDeNunzio

@JonDeNunzio Exactly – it does not save me time if I have to go over every data point @NeptuneMoon

I know it’s powered by an LLM, but still … tech that can’t do math still baffles me. @JonDeNunzio

@JonDeNunzio I would use it for sheets & data parsing but create a looker studio dashboard on top of it with manual config. @alimehdimukadam

LLMs do not calculate like say an excel sheet. They are still guessing @NeptuneMoon

I use it to bounce ideas, and also scope out potential competitors, similar words, ideas of basic keywords… formulas for Google sheets too… fixing a script I broke.. @Meriem

I think of it like an assistant or junior search person. Give it a task and then check its work @beyondthepaid

Along these lines, this was an interesting read: https://onlinejournalismblog.com/2025/09/16/i-tested-ai-tools-on-data-analysis-heres-how-they-did-and-what-to-look-out-for/ @JonDeNunzio

I think ai for me is being used in a great way for time efficiency for reporting and mass data analysis. It can aid in the review as long as we understand and know the data story that got to that point. @JoeWilliams

Q5: What do you wish would happen with AI as it relates to PPC?

I would like the hype to cool off. @NeptuneMoon

Training people about capabilities, pitfalls and limitations especially the ones who are entering the workforce now. Creating an image with Nano Banana Pro is different than running campaigns with $ thousands on the line. @alimehdimukadam

Use it as a tool – like Excel. It’s all ones and zeroes. Marketing & Advertising is more human. @alimehdimukadam

As long as we are wishing I wish that platforms and companies were more honest about the limitations of their AI. Highlight where it shines and let us do that instead of having experiences that range from “this is cool” to “OMG make it stop” @NeptuneMoon

Bit more awareness that it’s not going to take your jobs, a lot of people are focused on AI but forget it still needs us and the input from Humans to make it successful across all paid campaigns and strategies. @JoeWilliams

PPCChat Participants