Google blocked a record 8.3 billion advertisements globally in 2025, a significant increase from the 5.1 billion blocked the previous year. The announcement was made on Thursday in the company's annual Ads Safety Report. Despite the surge in blocked ads, the number of suspended advertiser accounts fell, highlighting a strategic shift in how the platform polices its advertising ecosystem.
The search giant attributed this disparity to its growing reliance on artificial intelligence, specifically its Gemini family of AI models. Google stated that these AI-driven systems now detect and block over 99% of policy-violating ads before they are shown to users, allowing for earlier and more precise enforcement.
From Banning Accounts to Blocking Individual Ads
The data reflects a broader transition in Google's enforcement strategy. The company is moving away from using "a much more blunt instrument, like advertiser suspensions," according to Keerat Sharma, VP and General Manager of Ads Privacy and Safety at Google. Instead, it is focusing on targeted, AI-driven action "at a much more granular level, on a creative level." Sharma told reporters at a virtual briefing that this approach has reduced incorrect suspensions by 80% year over year.
This shift also mirrors Google's wider push to integrate its Gemini AI models more deeply into its core products, including advertising infrastructure. The AI is increasingly used to automate campaign creation, detect policy violations, and respond to emerging threats in real time.
Scale of Violations and Regional Breakdown
Among the total figures, 602 million ads and 4 million advertiser accounts were specifically linked to scams. The rise in blocked ads is partly attributed to scammers using generative AI to produce deceptive content at scale, with Gemini models helping to detect patterns across large campaigns.
In the United States, Google removed over 1.7 billion ads and suspended 3.3 million advertiser accounts in 2025, with ad network abuse, misrepresentation, and sexual content among the top violations. In India, Google's largest market by users, it blocked 483.7 million ads—nearly double the previous year—even as account suspensions fell to 1.7 million from 2.9 million. Trademarks, financial services, and copyright issues were the most common violations there.
Preventative Measures and Future Outlook
Google's layered defenses include advertiser verification, a process requiring businesses to confirm their identity before running ads. Sharma said this is designed to prevent bad actors from creating accounts in the first place, contributing to the overall decline in suspensions.
The company acknowledges that the numbers are likely to fluctuate as it rolls out new defenses and bad actors adapt. The stated goal is to stop harmful advertisements as early in the pipeline as possible, aiming for preventative action rather than reactive account removal.