Google blocks 5.1 billion ads & boosts AI ad safeguards

Google has released its annual Ads Safety Report detailing actions it has taken in 2024 to enforce advertising policies, block bad actors, and protect consumers.

The report provides new statistics regarding the scale of measures implemented against policy-violating ads and advertisers. In 2024, Google states that it blocked or removed over 5.1 billion ads and restricted more than 9.1 billion ads. The company also suspended in excess of 39.2 million advertiser accounts and removed ads from more than 1.3 billion web pages. Over 30 advertising policies were added or updated during the year.

The report highlights the impact of advancements in large language models (LLMs), noting that these technologies have increasingly helped Google to prevent fraudulent activity and scams before such ads reach users. Google says it launched over 50 separate enhancements to its LLMs in 2024, allowing for more efficient and precise policy enforcement on its platforms.

According to the report, these technical updates resulted in faster and more thorough investigations, which increased the company's ability to identify bad actors and detect fraudulent behaviour, such as the use of illegitimate payment information, during the advertiser account set-up phase. The company claims that such systems prevented billions of policy-violating ads from ever being displayed to consumers, while also supporting legitimate businesses by facilitating quicker ad approvals.

Significant attention was given to combatting new forms of scams, particularly those involving the use of AI to generate adverts impersonating public figures. In response to this trend, Google assembled a team of over 100 experts to devise countermeasures and updated its Misrepresentation policy to target advertisers promoting such scams. The company reports that these measures led to the permanent suspension of more than 700,000 advertiser accounts and resulted in a 90% decrease in reports relating to this kind of scam ad during 2024.

Alex Rodriguez, General Manager of Ads Safety, Google, said: "Our latest Ads Safety Report highlights a key trend from 2024: how AI is improving our ability to prevent fraudsters from ever showing ads to people."

Rodriguez continued: "For years, we've deployed our most advanced technologies to safeguard our ads platforms from bad actors. In 2024, we launched over 50 enhancements to our LLMs, which enabled more efficient and precise enforcement at scale. These updates sped up complex investigations, helping us identify bad actors and fraud signals — like illegitimate payment information — during account setup. This kept billions of policy-violating ads from ever showing to a consumer, while ensuring legitimate businesses can show ads to customers faster."

He added: "We also adapted our defenses against ever-evolving scams, notably the rise of AI-generated public figure impersonation ads. To fight back, we assembled a team of over 100 experts to develop countermeasures, such as updating our Misrepresentation policy to suspend advertisers that promote these scams. As a result, we were able to permanently suspend more than 700,000 offending advertiser accounts. This led to a 90% drop in reports of this kind of scam ad last year."

The Ads Safety Report provides insight into Google's ongoing measures to mitigate risks in digital advertising and respond to evolving challenges in online ad fraud and misuse.