Announcing the Search Central Live Mexico roadshow

Search Central Live is coming to Ciudad de México on November 7. The event will have a mix of presenters from the Google Search, News, and Partnership teams. The content will be delivered in Spanish and English (with live translation to Spanish). Check more details about speakers, agenda, and how to sign up to the event.

Turn Q&As on or off for Google Meet livestream viewers

What’s changing 

Earlier this year, we announced that meeting hosts can now enable Q&A and poll features, which previously were only offered in traditional Meet meetings. Beginning today, meeting hosts can turn Q&A on and off for livestreams.


We’ve also increased the limit of questions per meeting or livestream from 200 to 500. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using polls and Q&As in Google Meet. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning upgrade customers 

Resources 


Performance Max: create listing groups using batch processing

What’s New

Starting on October 4, 2023, AssetGroupListingGroupFilters can be created asynchronously using batch processing with the Google Ads API. If you use BatchJobService to create AssetGroupListingGroupFilter entities and other Performance Max resources in a single request, errors in the listing group tree creation will not block the creation of the remaining entities. However, the operations to create a listing group tree will still be atomic. This means that if any operation related to the creation of a listing group tree returns an error, all operations related to that listing group tree will also fail, save a few caveats, which are detailed in this Jobs & listing group filters guide.

This update does not change the behavior of any existing batch jobs that do not include operations that create listing group filters.

Previous Behavior

Prior to October 4, 2023, AssetGroupListingGroupFilters could only be created synchronously using the GoogleAdsService.Mutate or AssetGroupListingGroupFilterService.MutateAssetGroupListingGroupFilters method. Requests using the GoogleAdsService.Mutate method are always atomic when they contain AssetGroupListingGroupFilterOperation operations. This is because partial_failure is not supported for these operations, which means that an error in listing group tree creation would block all other operations in the request. If you tried creating AssetGroupListingGroupFilter entities prior to October 4, 2023 using batch processing, you would receive a MutateError.OPERATION_DOES_NOT_SUPPORT_PARTIAL_FAILURE error.

Change Rationale

Batch processing is a powerful feature in the Google Ads API that allows you to dispatch a set of operations, which may be interdependent, to multiple services without synchronously waiting for the operations to complete. We have made batch processing available for AssetGroupListingGroupFilters in response to your feedback to provide another option for creating listing group trees asynchronously and without blocking other operations in the same request.

Implementation Details

In order to add an AssetGroupListingGroupFilter using a batch job:

  1. Create a MutateOperation containing an AssetGroupListingGroupFilterOperation. This is no different than creating a MutateOperation using the GoogleAdsService.Mutate service.
  2. Add the MutateOperation to the batch job as you would with any other type of operation.

The example below demonstrates the process of adding a single AssetGroupListingGroupFilter to an existing batch job. See the Creating Shopping Listing Groups guide to learn more about creating product partition trees using AssetGroupListingGroupFilter entities.

// Constructs the AssetGroupListingGroupFilter.
AssetGroupListingGroupFilter listingGroupFilter =
     AssetGroupListingGroupFilter.newBuilder()
         .setAssetGroup(assetGroupResourceName)
         .setType(ListingGroupFilterType.UNIT_INCLUDED)
         .setVertical(ListingGroupFilterVertical.SHOPPING)
         .build();

// Constructs the operation to create the AssetGroupListingGroupFilter.
MutateOperation operation = MutateOperation.newBuilder()
     .setAssetGroupListingGroupFilterOperation(
           AssetGroupListingGroupFilterOperation
      .newBuilder()
      .setCreate(listingGroupFilter))
      .build();

// Sends a request to add the operation to the batch job.
AddBatchJobOperationsResponse response =
    batchJobServiceClient.addBatchJobOperations(
        AddBatchJobOperationsRequest.newBuilder()
            .setResourceName(batchJobResourceName)
            .addMutateOperations(operation)
            .build());

The following resources contain additional information to help you with your integration:

Improving Performance Max integrations Blog Series

This article is part of a series that discusses new and upcoming features that you have been asking for. We’ll cover what’s new and how it differs from the current implementation approach.

Keep an eye out for further updates and improvements on our developer blog, continue providing feedback on Performance Max integrations with the Google Ads API, and as always, contact our team if you need support.

Announcing the Inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First cohort

Posted by Yariv Adan, Director of Cloud Conversational AI and Pati Jurek, Google for startups Accelerator Regional Lead

This article is also shared on Google Cloud Blog

Today’s startups are addressing the world's most pressing issues, and artificial intelligence (AI) is one of their most powerful tools. To empower startups to scale their business towards success in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First offers a 10-week, equity-free program for AI-first startups in partnership with Google Cloud. Designed for seed to series A startups based in Europe and Israel, the program helps them grow and build responsibly with AI and machine learning (ML) from the ground up, with access to experts from Google Cloud and Google DeepMind, a mix of in-person and virtual activities, 1:1 mentoring, and group learning sessions.

In addition, the program features deep dives and workshops focused on product design, business growth, and leadership development. Startups that are selected for the cohort also benefit from dedicated Google AI technical expertise and receive credits via the Google for Startups Cloud Program.

Out of hundreds of impressive applications, today we welcome the inaugural cohort of the Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First. The program includes 13 groundbreaking startups from eight different countries, all focused on different verticals and with a diverse array of founder and executive backgrounds. All participants are leveraging AI and ML technologies to solve significant problems and have the potential to transform their respective industries.


Congratulations to the cohort!

We are thrilled to present the inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First cohort:

  • Annea.Ai (Germany) utilizes AI and Digital Twin technology to forecast and prevent possible breakdowns in renewable energy assets, such as wind turbines.
  • Checktur.io (Germany) empowers businesses to manage their commercial vehicle fleets efficiently via an end-to-end fleet asset management ecosystem while using AI models and data-driven insights.
  • Exactly.ai (UK) lets artists create images in their own unique style with a simple written description.
  • Neurons (Denmark) has developed a precise AI model that can measure human subconscious signals to predict marketing responses.
  • PACTA (Germany) provides AI-driven contract lifecycle management with an intelligent no-code workflow on one central legal platform.
  • Quantic Brains (Spain) empowers users to generate movies and video games using AI.
  • Sarus (France) builds a privacy layer for Analytics & AI and allows data practitioners to query sensitive data without having direct access to it.
  • Releva (Bulgaria) provides an all-in-one AI automation solution for eCommerce marketing.
  • Semantic Hub (Switzerland) uses AI leveraging multilingual Natural Language Understanding to help global biopharmaceutical companies understand the patient experience through first-hand testimonies on social media.
  • Vazy Data (France) allows anyone to analyze data without technical knowledge by using AI.
  • Visionary.AI (Israel) leverages cutting-edge AI to improve real-time video quality in challenging visual conditions like extreme low-light.
  • ZENPULSAR (UK) provides social media analytics from over 10 social media platforms to financial institutions and corporations to facilitate investment and business decisions.
  • Zaya AI (Romania) uses machine learning to better understand and diagnose diseases, assisting healthcare professionals to make timely and informed medical decisions.
Grid image of logos and executives of all startups listed in the inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator

To learn more about the AI-first program, and to signal your interest in nominating your startup for future cohorts, visit the program page here.