Google’s ad‑safety numbers

Google says its latest ad crackdown relied on Gemini to stop most bad ads before they ever appeared, with more than 8.3 billion ads blocked or removed in 2025. (blog.google) The company said it suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts last year and caught more than 99% of policy-violating ads before they were served. Google published the figures on April 16, 2026, in its annual Ads Safety Report. (blog.google) Google said 602 million blocked or removed ads and 4 million suspended accounts were tied to scams. It said Gemini models now analyze signals such as account age, behavior patterns, and campaign activity to flag abuse earlier than older keyword-based systems. (blog.google) Google’s ad-safety pitch is partly about scale: its systems review ads before they run, and the company says faster automated screening lets legitimate advertisers get approved more quickly while blocking fraud at submission. By the end of 2025, Google said most Responsive Search Ads were being reviewed instantly. (blog.google) The company has been moving in this direction for at least two years as generative artificial intelligence made scam campaigns cheaper to produce. In its 2024 report, Google said it rolled out more than 50 large-language-model updates and built a team of more than 100 people to counter AI-generated public-figure impersonation ads. (blog.google) That 2024 push included a policy change under Google’s Misrepresentation rules that let it suspend advertisers promoting impersonation scams. Google said those measures led to more than 700,000 permanent advertiser suspensions and a 90% drop in reports of that type of scam ad in 2024. (blog.google) The enforcement numbers also sit alongside a broader transparency program for advertisers. Google says all advertisers will eventually have to complete verification, and verified advertisers can have information shown in ad disclosures and the Ads Transparency Center. (support.google.com) Google expanded that disclosure system in 2025 by showing a payer name for verified advertisers in My Ad Center and the Ads Transparency Center. The update was designed to show not just who was verified, but which entity was paying for the ad. (support.google.com) The company’s case is that ad safety now depends on catching bad actors at account setup as much as at the ad itself. Google’s own numbers show the strategy has shifted from removing individual ads after the fact to suspending millions of accounts before campaigns can spread. (blog.google)