Week in Brief
- Google’s Search generative AI control, launched in June for .co.uk sites only, started appearing on US and other non-UK Search Console properties on July 09, 2026. Setting a property to “exclude” removes it from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative features in one to two days.
- Child properties inherit the generative AI control from their parent by default, so one change at the domain level applies to every subdomain until someone overrides it.
- Google announced platform properties in Search Console on July 07, 2026, letting site owners verify Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube accounts and see clicks, impressions and queries for that content. LinkedIn is not one of the four.
- OpenAI added custom audience uploads to ChatGPT Ads on July 07, 2026. Advertisers can now upload raw or hashed emails and phone numbers as campaign audience filters, with a minimum of 25,000 matched users before an audience can be used.
- The Google Ads budget pacing change that went live on June 01, 2026, closed its first full billing month on June 30, 2026, and the invoices landed this week. Schedule-restricted campaigns now pace toward 30.4 times the average daily budget.
Google’s Search generative AI control appears on US and other non-UK properties, giving site owners a one-click exclusion from AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google first introduced this AI control toggle on June 03 2026, and launched it to a subset of UK site owners. It shipped alongside the Search generative AI performance reports.
On July 09, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reported the setting appearing on US and other non-UK properties. Google has published nothing on the wider rollout, and the setting is live on some properties and not others.
Google’s own help documentation on the Search generative AI control says the control took effect on June 17, 2026, and covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative features in Google Discover.
A property set to “exclude” stops appearing in those features within one to two days and receives no impressions or traffic from them. It continues to appear in standard Search results, and Google says the control is not used as a ranking signal anywhere else in Search.
What this AI control rollout means for B2B, ITES, and SaaS
The companies most exposed are B2B, SaaS and ITES firms where a legal, brand, or IP team has been pushing to block AI from using their content. This control does not stop model training. It does, however, remove the site’s links and content from the covered generative Search surfaces once the exclusion propagates.
The inheritance rule creates the larger operational risk. Google sets a property to inherit its parent’s control by default, so one exclusion at the domain level silently applies to a docs subdomain, a blog subdomain, and a help centre subdomain. For a SaaS company, those subdomains are usually where the AI citations actually come from.
For most firms, the sensible default is to remain included while measuring current exposure. Before changing the setting, capture a baseline from the generative AI performance report and document the pages, countries and impressions that could be affected. We covered how to read them in our breakdown of the Search Console generative AI performance reports, including what the impression data does and does not tell the Business and Content teams.
To reduce the risk of the AI toggle being changed accidentally, limit owner-level access to no more than two specifically designated people. Restricting ownership keeps tighter control over the AI Overviews setting and prevents unauthorized or unintentional changes to how the site’s content is used in generative AI experiences.
Google Search Console adds platform properties for Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube, with LinkedIn absent
Google announced platform properties on 7 July in its Search Central post for social and video content. Creators and publishers can verify an Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube account as a Search Console property and see which Google searches lead people to that content.
Google’s platform property help documentation says the reports can include clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, top content and discovery trends across Performance, Insights and Achievements. Discover and Google News reports appear only when the property receives traffic from those surfaces, and the feature is rolling out gradually.
What Platform Properties Mean for B2B, ITES and SaaS
B2B SaaS companies with YouTube demo libraries can now see which Google searches surface their own videos and which posts generate clicks. This closes a specific measurement gap between a platform’s native analytics and discovery on Google; it does not measure views or engagement occurring inside YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or X.
LinkedIn is not supported. Because LinkedIn remains central to many B2B content programs, Search Console platform properties complement rather than replace LinkedIn reporting. For most B2B and ITES teams, YouTube is the logical first property to verify when the channel contains searchable demos, webinars, comparisons, or implementation guidance.
OpenAI Adds Custom Audiences to ChatGPT Ads as Ads Manager Expands to Japan and South Korea
OpenAI rolled out Audiences as a targeting option in ChatGPT Ads on July 07, 2026. Help document on setting up custom audiences for a campaign confirms advertisers can upload raw or hashed emails and phone numbers to use as audience filters.
During the same week, Search Engine Roundtable reported several updates to ChatGPT Ads, including auto-generated ad creative, a new Overview tab, and expansion into Japan and South Korea. A custom audience list needs 25,000 users or more; lists can be used to include or suppress an audience, and bid multipliers can be set per audience at the ad group level.
OpenAI’s Ads Manager availability page currently lists seven markets: Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. India is not currently listed.
How B2B, ITES, and SaaS can take advantage of the feature
For enterprise advertisers with sufficiently large, consented first-party lists, Custom Audiences can support inclusion, exclusion or bid adjustments inside ChatGPT Ads. The 25,000 matched-user minimum makes the feature impractical for many narrow account-based marketing lists, so it should not be treated as a direct replacement for LinkedIn Matched Audiences.
For ITES firms targeting Japan and South Korea, ChatGPT Ads introduces a new paid acquisition channel that may offer an early-mover advantage while advertiser competition is still developing. However, lower competition should not be assumed to guarantee low costs or strong lead quality. LinkedIn Ads remains more precise for B2B targeting based on seniority, job function, industry, and company attributes. The practical approach is to keep LinkedIn as the core demand-generation channel while testing ChatGPT Ads with a controlled pilot budget, clear conversion tracking, and predefined performance benchmarks before considering any meaningful budget reallocation.
Google Ads adds AI creation disclosures, with visible on-ad labels for campaigns targeting India, the EU and New York
Google announced a global “How this ad was made” panel in My Ad Center for ads across Search, YouTube and Discover. Google automatically adds a disclosure when its own generative AI advertising tools create or edit an asset, while advertisers can use a control to disclose AI work completed outside Google.
Google’s AI content label guidance says the setting is rolling out gradually during July. The disclosure is globally accessible in My Ad Center, while campaigns targeting the European Union, India and New York can also show visible overlays directly on ads when assets are designated as AI-created or AI-edited.
What to Watch Next Week
The Search generative AI control is reaching every Search Console property
Google has made no announcement, and the setting is appearing property by property rather than all at once. The AI performance report followed the same pattern earlier this year, launching in the UK before expanding outward over several weeks.
Whether LinkedIn joins the Search Console platform properties
Google confirmed a gradual rollout of the four launch platforms over the coming weeks and has said nothing about adding a fifth. Watch the Search Central blog through August. Until LinkedIn appears, B2B social reporting stays split across two systems.
ChatGPT Ads market expansion beyond Japan and South Korea
OpenAI is adding countries in batches, and Japan and South Korea landed this week. India and the EU are the two markets that matter to many B2B, ITES and SaaS readers. Watch OpenAI’s help documentation, which has been updated ahead of the announcements, over the next 60 days.
The White Bunnie Observation
In our client accounts this week, monthly Google Ads spend is coming in above plan across nearly every campaign that uses ad scheduling. The accounts have not materially changed their targeting, bidding, schedules, or budget settings. The common factor is Google’s budget pacing change for scheduled campaigns, which took effect on 1 June 2026.
Google now paces campaigns using ad schedules toward the full monthly spending limit of 30.4 times the average daily budget, even when those campaigns are eligible to run on only certain days. Previously, spending was effectively paced against the number of active days available in the schedule. See Google’s guidance on ad scheduling and spending limits.
A weekdays-only campaign with a $100 average daily budget, for example, would previously have been planned around approximately 22 working days, producing an expected monthly spend of roughly $2,200. Under the new pacing approach, Google can work toward the full monthly limit of $3,040, while compressing that spend into the same 22 active days. That is roughly 38% more monthly spend from an unchanged daily budget.
In White Bunnie’s internal review, more than 90% of the schedule-restricted campaigns examined showed this pattern, with the largest gaps in campaigns using the tightest schedules. The fewer days a campaign is eligible to run, the more aggressively the full 30.4-day monthly allowance may be compressed into those available days. This is a portfolio-specific operational observation, not a market-wide benchmark.
In one ITES account, a weekdays-only search campaign with a $62 average daily budget spent $1,962 in June against a planned monthly budget of approximately $1,350. The original budget had been calculated using roughly 22 working days, which reflected the campaign’s previous spending pattern. Under the revised pacing approach, Google worked toward 30.4 times the daily budget instead.
The change was also easy to miss. Google did not publish a prominent blog post; it notified affected advertisers through an in-account email, and trade press covered the rollout in April while it was still gradual. Nothing obvious changed within the campaign interface: the average daily budget continued to display the same amount it showed in May, and ads still did not run on the days excluded by the schedule.
Google’s help documentation also continues to state that campaigns may spend up to twice the average daily budget on a given day, while monthly charges are limited to 30.4 times the average daily budget. The key difference is that this full monthly allowance now appears to apply even when an ad schedule restricts the campaign to fewer active days.
Because the interface does not clearly surface the change, the variance may only become apparent during month-end reporting or when the invoice is reviewed. That is why the issue took a full billing cycle to emerge across many accounts.
The correction is arithmetic. New average daily budget = intended monthly spend ÷ 30.4. The ITES campaign above, budgeted at $1,350 a month, needs an average daily budget of about $44 rather than $62. We are resetting schedule-restricted campaigns on that basis and setting account-level budget alerts slightly above the planned monthly amount, so unexpected acceleration is caught before the end of the billing cycle.
At the same time, we are monitoring July’s daily spending velocity and lead quality before reaching a firm conclusion on whether the additional volume is producing a qualified pipeline or simply accelerating spend toward the monthly cap.
The appropriate response depends on the campaign objective. Where the monthly budget is fixed, divide the target monthly spend by 30.4 and reset the average daily budget accordingly. Where the priority is share of voice and the additional spend is generating qualified opportunities at an acceptable cost, maintaining the higher spend may be justified, but the quarterly forecast should be updated honestly to reflect the new pacing reality.
Questions we were asked this week
What is Google’s Search generative AI control?
The Search generative AI control is a setting on a verified Search Console property that lets the site owner exclude that property from Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and the generative features in Google Discover. Google launched it on 3 June 2026 for UK site owners and it began appearing on US and other non-UK properties on 9 July 2026.
How long does an exclusion take to apply?
One to two days. Once a property is set to “exclude”, it stops appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative features and receives no impressions or clicks from them.
Does excluding a property stop Google from training on my content?
No. The control governs where your content can appear in Google’s generative surfaces. It does not stop model training, and it does not remove your pages from standard Search results.
Do subdomains inherit the generative AI control?
Yes, by default. A child property inherits its parent’s settings, so an exclusion applied at the domain level also applies to a docs, blog, or help-centre subdomain until someone overrides it on that property.
Is LinkedIn a Search Console platform property?
No. The four launch platforms announced on 7 July 2026 are Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube. Google has said nothing about adding a fifth, so B2B social reporting stays split across two systems.
Why did my Google Ads spend jump in June 2026?
Because of the budget pacing change that took effect on 1 June 2026. Campaigns using ad schedules now pace toward the full monthly spending limit of 30.4 times the average daily budget, rather than the number of active days in the schedule. To hold monthly spend flat, reset the average daily budget to intended monthly spend ÷ 30.4.
Disclaimer: Sources were last checked on 13 July 2026.
