• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 27, 2024

Google engineered a way of using generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and large language models (LLM) to more quickly identify and suspend millions of ad accounts and block billions of ads in 2023.

In fact, the company stated in its Ads Safety Report 2023 that it suspended 12.7 million ad accounts and blocked 5.5 billion ads in 2023.

"The key trend in 2023 was the impact of generative AI," said Duncan Lennox, VP and GM, Ads Privacy & Safety at Google. On a call with reporters this week he said it’s important to trust the information and not get blindsided by false claims.

“When it comes to ad safety, gen AI has presented us with some challenges, which we take quite seriously,” he said. “While it introduces new issues, we also see it as a transformative technology to keep users safe.”

The number of advertisers who were blocked or removed due to policy violations nearly doubled compared with the previous year.

The speed is tied to LLMs that can rapidly identify, review and interpret content at a higher volume, while capturing important nuances within the context and content.

Google declined to elaborate on the speed in which the models can identify the accounts, only to say it is based on better reasoning capacities and can identify patterns of those abusing consumer trends.

Brand safety required Google and others to keep vigilant on fraudulent accounts to ensure a safer space for consumers.

Google, overall, blocked or removed 206.5 million advertisements for violating its misrepresentation policy, which includes scam tactics and 273.4 million advertisements for violating its financial services policy.

The company also blocked or removed more than 1 billion advertisements for violating its policy against abusing the ad network, which includes promoting malware.

Google blocked or restricted ads from serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages, and took broader site-level enforcement action on more than 395,000 publisher sites, up from 2022.

Efforts to help keep the internet a safer place continue. The company reminded us that in 2023 it launched the Ads Transparency Center, a searchable hub of all ads from verified advertisers, which helps people learn more about the ads they see on Search, YouTube and Display.

The company also updated its suitability controls to make it simpler and quicker for advertisers to exclude topics they wish to avoid across YouTube and Display inventory. Overall, Google made 31 updates to its Ads and Publisher policies.