On February 26, 2026, Google published an announcement by Bill Reardon, General Manager of Enterprise Platform, confirming that the company will take the stage at Google NewFront on Monday, March 23, 2026, to present what it is calling "the Gemini advantage in Google Marketing Platform." The livestream is scheduled to run from 16:30 to 17:30 CET - or 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET - and will be accessible only to those who register in advance.
The announcement is brief but pointed. According to Reardon's published post, Google intends to show how its entire marketing ecosystem is running on the latest Gemini models, with three stated objectives: deeper visibility into the consumer journey, the removal of fragmentation across data and activation tools, and real-time data activation. The framing is deliberate. Google is not unveiling a new product on February 26; it is announcing an announcement - a staged reveal designed to build anticipation among marketing professionals ahead of the industry's annual NewFront presentations.
IAB NewFronts is the annual digital media marketplace event where major platforms pitch their video and streaming advertising capabilities to buyers and brand marketers. Google has participated in NewFronts for years, using the event to present updates to Display & Video 360 and its broader Google Marketing Platform stack. In 2024, Google used its NewFront slot to announce deeper integrations with Disney's Real-time Ad Exchange, Paramount Advertising, and Warner Bros. Discovery, along with audience persona features and privacy-focused targeting tools.
At the 2025 NewFronts, held May 5, Google revealed that Display & Video 360 reached 98% of CTV households in the United States, with access to more than 5 billion hours of ad-supported viewing monthly - a figure the company claimed was 40% more watch time than The Trade Desk and 90% more than Amazon DSP. That same event saw Bill Reardon - the same executive authoring the February 26 announcement - demonstrate how generative AI was being integrated end-to-end across DV360.
The 2026 NewFront falls on March 23. That Google is announcing its participation more than three weeks in advance, with a dedicated livestream registration page, signals the scale of what the company intends to present.
The FAQ published alongside the registration page provides additional technical context. According to that document, Google plans two distinct but connected presentations at NewFront. The first focuses specifically on Display & Video 360 and its position in the connected television advertising market. According to the FAQ, Google will "unveil how Display & Video 360 is transforming CTV beyond streaming," with attendees gaining first access to the latest product advancements and hearing strategic perspectives from brands. The phrase "beyond streaming" is notable - it suggests Google intends to position DV360 as capable of reaching audiences across live programming, sports, and other real-time video formats, extending its CTV footprint beyond on-demand content.
The second presentation covers Google Marketing Platform more broadly. According to the FAQ, Google will "unveil the latest product advancements across Google Marketing Platform" and present perspectives on how to "drive greater ROI with GMP's unparalleled inventory and AI integrations." The document confirms that registration is required to access the livestream, and that questions can be directed to [email protected] or to a Google Sales point of contact.
The FAQ stops well short of specifying which features will be shown. That is consistent with how Google manages event reveals - keeping technical details under wraps until the live presentation while providing enough of a preview to drive registrations and media interest.
To understand what Google is likely to show on March 23, it helps to trace how Gemini models have been deployed across its marketing products over the past two years.
Gemini was introduced in December 2023 as Google's most capable multimodal AI model, covering text, code, audio, image, and video. The initial launch made Gemini available via Google AI Studio and Vertex AI for developers. In January 2024, Google brought Gemini directly into Google Ads, using it to assist advertisers in creating Search campaigns - generating ad copy, keywords, images, and sitelinks through a conversational interface. Shortly after, Gemini was integrated into Performance Max campaigns, enabling long headline generation, Imagen 2-powered image editing, and auto-generated video production for campaigns seeing, on average, a 12% increase in conversions when video assets are included.
By December 2025, the integration had reached the analytics side of the stack. Google launched Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor for all English-language accounts, two conversational tools powered by the latest Gemini models. Ads Advisor can generate performance reports, troubleshoot delivery issues, and identify policy violations. Analytics Advisor connects to relevant reports and provides campaign performance insights. Both were initially announced at Google Marketing Live in May 2025, with limited rollout reaching 50% of eligible Ads Advisor users and 10% of Analytics Advisor users in September 2025 during Think Week.
On the DV360 side, Google made AI-powered Audience Personas available to all Display & Video 360 customers in September 2025, allowing advertisers to describe target audiences in natural language and receive AI-generated targeting recommendations covering gender, age, occupation, household income, interests, and lifestyle characteristics.
Each of these deployments feeds the narrative Google is building for March 23: that Gemini is not a standalone product adjacent to its advertising tools, but a capability embedded throughout the platform from creative generation to audience targeting to campaign measurement.
The FAQ's reference to Display & Video 360 "transforming CTV beyond streaming" deserves scrutiny. Connected television advertising has been a consistent theme at each of Google's recent NewFront presentations. In January 2025, Google announced privacy-preserving updates to DV360 specifically for CTV advertising, with household-level reach metrics, conversion measurement enhancements in both DV360 and Campaign Manager 360, and the broader rollout of Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation - a tool that had already been adopted as an IAB Tech Lab standard with over 20,000 publisher domains integrated through LiveRamp's Authenticated Traffic Solution.
By March 2025, Google introduced IP address-based targeting capabilities for CTV advertising, using confidential computing within its advertising products to allow first-party data connections without re-identifying individual users. The company stated that advertisers using these tools would "automatically benefit from more effective household connections, deeper campaign insights, and higher CTV ROI."
In May 2025, Google announced at NewFronts that live sports inventory was immediately available on DV360, granting access to live championships across basketball, tennis, baseball, football, hockey, and soccer. NBCUniversal's Ryan McConville stated at that event that 70% of all NBCUniversal content in 2025 would be live content, and that Peacock alone would deliver 7,500 hours of live sports that year. That context gives "beyond streaming" a specific technical meaning: Google is building a case that DV360 reaches audiences not just through on-demand viewing but through live events, sports, and real-time programming - an area where linear television advertisers have traditionally held significant budget.
The March 23 event also arrives at a moment of heightened competition in advertising technology. Google unveiled shopping ads in AI Mode on February 11, 2026, targeting users through conversational search with what the company described as reaching key moments of discovery. That announcement followed the January 11, 2026 launch of the Universal Commerce Protocol in partnership with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart.
At the same time, questions about Gemini's monetization path have run through the advertising industry since late 2025. In December, Google representatives reportedly told advertising clients that ads would come to Gemini in 2026, though VP of Global Ads Dan Taylor publicly denied those claims on December 8. In January 2026, Taylor reiterated the position, stating "there are no plans for ads in the Gemini app" while drawing a sharp distinction between the Gemini chatbot and AI-powered search products like AI Mode and AI Overviews.
The March 23 presentation at NewFront sits squarely within this context. Google is channeling Gemini's technical capabilities into its advertising platform rather than into the chatbot itself - at least for now. The phrase "our best AI, for your best ROI" used in the registration materials captures the commercial logic: Gemini as infrastructure for the marketing platform, not as a standalone ad inventory.
Marketing professionals evaluating Gemini-powered tools should consider independent performance data. A study published July 10, 2025 by WordStream tested five major AI platforms across 45 identical PPC questions, finding that Google Gemini achieved the lowest error rate at 6%, compared to 26% for Google AI Overviews - the highest error rate in the test. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Meta AI fell between these figures. The same study noted that Google Gemini and AI Overviews declined to produce Google Ads scripts for automated keyword pausing, citing security concerns. This suggests that while Gemini demonstrates strong factual accuracy for advertising questions, the system is configured to avoid certain automation tasks that Google considers sensitive.
Accuracy matters for the advisors being built on top of Gemini models. Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor are conversational interfaces through which marketers may act on recommendations without fully verifying the underlying logic. Platform-level error rates, even at 6%, translate into actionable inaccuracies when queries involve budget allocation, bid adjustments, or audience segmentation at scale.
The March 23 livestream runs from 16:30 to 17:30 CET, one hour in duration. In the United States, that corresponds to 11:30 AM ET. According to the registration page, the session is a single scheduled block titled "Google NewFront Livestream." Registration is mandatory. The Google NewFront FAQ confirms there are no walk-in provisions and directs unresolved questions to [email protected] or to a Google Sales representative.
Leading brands will present case studies during the session, according to Reardon's February 26 announcement. The cases are expected to demonstrate results from using Google Marketing Platform's unified, AI-powered platform - though specific brand names and metrics are being held for the live event.
Who: Bill Reardon, General Manager of Enterprise Platform at Google, authored the February 26 announcement on behalf of Google Marketing Platform. The audience is enterprise advertisers, agencies, and marketing professionals using Google's advertising technology stack.
What: Google announced it will present the "Gemini advantage in Google Marketing Platform" at its Google NewFront 2026 event. The session will cover product advancements across Google Marketing Platform and Display & Video 360, with a specific focus on CTV advertising capabilities described as going "beyond streaming." Leading brands will present case studies. Registration is required to access the livestream.
When: The announcement was published on February 26, 2026. The livestream itself takes place on Monday, March 23, 2026, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET, or 16:30 to 17:30 CET.
Where: The event is a livestream accessible to registered attendees globally. The NewFront presentations traditionally take place in New York, though the livestream format extends access beyond in-person participants.
Why: Google is using the NewFront platform - the industry's primary annual showcase for video and streaming advertising - to demonstrate how Gemini models are now embedded across its marketing platform, from audience targeting in DV360 to the Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor tools. The presentation arrives as competition in advertising AI intensifies and as Google separately navigates questions about Gemini monetization. The company's strategy appears to position Gemini as core infrastructure for its marketing platform rather than as a standalone advertising channel.
