It was a busy week for Google. Along with Google Marketing Live on Wednesday, Google I/O took place this week, and between the two, they announced an incredible list of updates (100+ between the two events!).
NB: This is an article from gcommerce
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While Google Marketing Live centered around product updates associated with its ad campaigns and platforms, Google I/O focused on updates more applicable to organic search marketing.
It’s such an incredible moment in history for organic search. Generative AI platforms are pushing change across the industry, and it has big implications for hotel organic search marketing. Here are our top takeaways for hotels from Google’s I/O 2025.
1. AI Mode rolling out to everyone in the US
As of May 20th, 2025, Google announced that its AI Mode search experience is rolling out to everyone in the US. It was previously just available to those owho pted in via Search Labs. Our team has been deep in testing mode with this new search experience and will be releasing a study soon. Unfortunately, it’s been discovered that there is no referral tracking in analytics from AI Mod,e and this traffic is currently set to be tracked as direct traffic.
This means AI Mode traffic is currently untrackable. As usage of this search experience increases, it will mean a continued decline in organic search traffic to hotel websites. We’re having to let go of even more data as it’s taken away from us and lean into AI as well as a deeper understanding of make sure our ads are visible where our audience spends their time. Also noteworthy is that Google announced ads are coming to AI Mode and AI overviews during Google Marketing Live.
Agentic capabilities in AI Mode
Google announced it’s bringing agentic capabilities to AI Mode, starting with the ability to let the agent search out, compare shop between sites, and present site options to book your event ticket. How? They are partnering with top ticket broker sites like StubHub to provide a seamless experience. They are starting with event tickets but plan to roll this out to restaurant reservations and local appointments. It’s only a matter of time before it hits the hotel industry.
History shows that Google leans into partnerships with top industry companies that can support the tech. Alexa partnered with Kayak early on for voice search. Recently, Selfbook and Perplexity announced a partnership to enable booking directly on the platform – it’s available for hotels using the Selfbook booking engine. This gave us hope for independent hotels and the battle for direct bookings. We can only hope that other booking engine providers will lead this charge. Chances are, sites like Kayak or OTAs will step up to be the first.
