If your main problem with the Microsoft Store is that you get too many relevant results when you search for apps, good news: Microsoft is officially launching Microsoft Store Ads, a way for developers to pay to get their apps in front of your eyes when you go to the store to look for something else.

Microsoft also provided an update on the health of the Microsoft Store, pointing to 2022 as "a record year," with more than 900 million unique users worldwide and "a 122% year-over-year increase in developer submissions of new apps and games."

Advertisement The company launched a "pilot program" of the Microsoft Store Ads back in September of 2022, and the look of the ads doesn't appear to have changed much since then.

Samples of the new Microsoft Store ads, including one for the prolific developers at Contoso Inc.

These kinds of ads are usually described in benign terms—that they're merely a way for the developers on the Microsoft Store to boost their work and find more users.

The new addition may or may not turn up relevant search results for users, but it does add more advertisements to a platform that already has plenty of them.