Google Ads is changing under your feet: the migration to AI Max has been running since September 1

In brief

• Since September 1, 2026, Google has been automatically switching Search campaigns to AI Max
• There are two deadlines: broad match and ACA now, Dynamic Search Ads not until February 2027
• New DSA campaigns can still be created — Google lifted the ban in June
• AI Max is the default setting for new Search campaigns
• You can't get into AI answers with a toggle — match type and campaign type decide

Since September 1, 2026, Google has been automatically migrating Search campaigns to AI Max. It's happening gradually throughout the month and doesn't affect all campaigns equally — there are two different deadlines, and most articles lump them together.

If you manage a Google Ads account, this isn't a note for later. The migration is running right now and changes how your ads are matched to searches.

In this article you'll find the exact dates, what AI Max actually does, why you can't get into AI answers with a toggle and what's worth checking in your account this week.

What is AI Max in Google Ads

AI Max is a set of settings inside a Search campaign that replaces Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match. It's not a new campaign type. It combines three features: matching search terms beyond your keyword list, tailoring ad copy to the specific query and expanding final URLs to a more suitable subpage.

Google took it out of beta on April 15, 2026. Since June 2026, AI Max has been the default setting when creating new Search campaigns — Google justified this with testing that showed campaigns reached their first conversion faster during the first two weeks after launch.

The migration is underway. Here's what's happening in your account

Google announced the end of the old settings on April 15, 2026. According to the announcement on the Google Ads blog, three things were to be moved into AI Max at once: Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets (ACA) and the campaign-level broad match setting.

Then the plan changed. On June 11, Google pushed back the Dynamic Search Ads migration by five months and at the same time restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns — from June 15, 2026. It reversed an earlier step in response to feedback from advertisers who didn't want to risk disruption to their campaigns before Q4.

For ACA and broad match, however, the deadline stayed the same.

Two deadlines, not one

This is worth distinguishing, because it determines what you need to deal with now and what in six months.

In practice this means: if you have Dynamic Search Ads in your account, nothing will happen to you this month, and you can still create new DSA campaigns for now. If you have automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match turned on, the migration affects you right now.

How the migration works

Google says it migrates campaigns in place, applying equivalent AI Max settings to minimize the impact on performance. Existing brand inclusions and exclusions carry over automatically, as do historical statistics.

It sounds low-key. The practical impact isn't — both how searches are matched and what happens to your copy are changing.

Could it have been avoided?

Yes, but the window has closed. Anyone who wanted to avoid the migration had to turn off automatically created assets or the broad match setting in the affected campaigns before September 1 — or switch to AI Max themselves and keep it under control.

Since the migration is rolling out gradually throughout September, some campaigns may not have been switched yet. If you find a campaign with the original settings in your account, you have a few days left to make the decision yourself rather than leave it to the system.

What AI Max does and what you pay for it

The three features AI Max combines work like this:

• Search term matching — Google reads your keyword list, ad copy and landing page content and looks for relevant queries beyond what you entered
• Text customization — the system adjusts headlines and descriptions to the specific query, in real time
• Final URL expansion — Google picks a more suitable subpage than the one you specified, even if you never added it to the campaign

According to Google's internal data, campaigns using the full feature set achieve on average 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS than campaigns using search term matching only. This is Google's figure for non-retail advertisers, with no published methodology.

What you lose

You won't find this in the announcements, but it's the heart of the matter. You're giving up two things at once:

Control over what you show up for. Your keyword list stops being a boundary and becomes a signal. You'll need to check search terms more often, and negative keyword lists will matter more than the keywords themselves.

Control over your copy. The system rewrites headlines and descriptions based on the query. For an e-shop with a standard product range, that mostly helps. For anything where wording matters, it's a risk.

Who this is a problem for

There are three situations where text customization and URL expansion need to be considered much more carefully:

• Regulated industries — healthcare, finance, legal services. An automatically generated claim can become a problem you deal with not with Google, but with a regulator
• A strict brand manual — if you have approved wording, AI will rewrite it
• Websites with thin content on subpages — URL expansion sends visitors where you didn't want them to go

In all three cases, the individual AI Max components can be turned off separately. It's not all or nothing.

Ads in AI answers: there is no toggle

This is the most common misunderstanding we run into. Clients look for a section in Google Ads where they can turn on serving in AI Overviews or AI Mode. There isn't one.

Google treats placements in AI answers as a regular part of the Search Network. You can't target them or opt out of them. According to Google Ads Help, ads are eligible to appear above and below AI Overviews in all of the 200+ markets where the feature is available.

What determines eligibility

Meeting one of four conditions is enough:

The reason is practical. AI answers are triggered by long conversational questions like “which cabin near Banská Štiavnica is suitable for a family with a dog”. Exact match will never catch a question like that, because nobody has it in their keyword list.

Also note what this means for the migration: accounts that switch to AI Max get into AI answers automatically. That's one of the reasons Google is pushing the switch.

Where your ads won't appear at all

Google doesn't show ads from sensitive industries in AI Overviews — this includes adult content, alcohol, gambling, finance, healthcare and politics. If your business is in one of these, this whole section doesn't apply to you yet.

Search partners have nothing to do with AI answers

One more misunderstanding we often encounter. In the campaign settings there's a checkbox “Include Google search partners”. It has nothing to do with AI Overviews or AI Mode — these are third-party sites that use Google's search. Turning it on won't get you into AI answers.

Four new formats you don't have yet

At Google Marketing Live on May 20, 2026, Google unveiled a new generation of ad formats built on Gemini:

• Conversational Discovery Ads — the creative is generated for the specific query, along with an independent explanation from Gemini
• Highlighted Answers — the ad is placed directly into the recommendation list in AI Mode
• AI-powered Shopping ads — Gemini writes an explanation for each product of why it fits the question
• Business Agent for Leads — a chatbot right in the ad that answers from your website content and pre-fills a form. Google is testing it in education, automotive and real estate

All four are in testing or limited rollout. Google hasn't announced general availability, separate bidding or separate reporting. In practice: keep an eye on them, but don't plan budget around them.

Ask Advisor and agentic tools

Google is merging its previously separate AI assistants into a single agent called Ask Advisor. It works across Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Center and Google Marketing Platform.

What's interesting is its so-called shared memory — the agent keeps the context of your business goals even as you switch between tools, so you don't have to explain what you do and why with every question.

Alongside that, Asset Studio gained multimodal creative generation via the Gemini Omni model and one-click variant testing.

What's usable today

Let's be specific. You can use Asset Studio and asset generation, and they save time when producing variants. For now, Ask Advisor is more a faster way to get to your data than a replacement for decision-making — for strategic budget decisions it lacks the context that a person who knows the client carries in their head.

It's worth noting how this differs from ChatGPT Ads Manager, which has just opened for Slovakia. There, you deliberately open an account and set up targeting yourself. In Google, it runs underneath what you already have — and that difference shows in how easily you understand each channel.

Measurement has become the deciding factor

This is the part most companies skip, yet it matters more than any new format. Automated bidding optimizes for the signals it receives. If the signals are weak, AI Max has nothing to choose from.

Among the new features, these deserve attention:

• Meridian in Google Analytics 360 — marketing mix modeling across channels including TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap and Meta, right where your campaign data lives
• Qualified Future Conversions — a Gemini-powered metric that links today's ad interaction to predicted purchase behavior up to six months ahead
• Journey-aware bidding — in testing; it also learns from intermediate steps such as phone calls and forms
• Demand-led pacing — spends more on high-demand days and less on weaker ones, without exceeding limits

One limitation that applies doubly to Slovak companies

Meridian is available only in the paid version, Google Analytics 360. In the free version of GA4, you don't get this integration, scenario planning or cross-channel modeling.

For most Slovak companies, this means the feature is out of reach. But that's no reason to give up — the foundation that really matters is available to everyone: clean conversions tied to real business events, not form submissions. That's the core of advanced analytics, and without it neither AI Max nor anything after it works.

What to check this week

Sorted by urgency, not importance.

1. Find out which campaigns have already been migrated. The migration rolls out gradually throughout September. Go through your Search campaign settings and see where AI Max is already on and where it isn't yet.

2. Review search terms more closely than usual. The next two to three weeks are when you'll see what the matching actually brought. Not a monthly average — look at the days before and after the migration separately.

3. Decide on text customization. In regulated industries and with a strict brand manual, turn it off. Deliberately, not by default.

4. Check where URL expansion leads. If your website has old or thin subpages, the system will find them. Either improve them or turn the expansion off.

5. Expand your negative keyword lists. With looser matching, their weight increases. This is work worth doing properly once.

6. If you use scripts or the API, review them. Legacy structures are gradually disappearing from the API. Automated tools that create campaigns programmatically need to be updated before they stop working.

7. Use the time you've been given for DSA. Until January 2027, new DSA campaigns can still be created, and Google recommends running a parallel experiment against AI Max. A voluntary switch during a quiet period beats an automatic one in the middle of the season.

Where it's all heading

Behind all these changes is one thing: Google is reducing the number of campaign types and adding more automation to each of them. AI Max, Performance Max and Demand Gen are the three pillars it stands on.

For marketers, this changes the job. For years, the core was managing keywords and bids. Now the focus is shifting to the quality of inputs — clean data, good landing pages, a clear brief on what the company sells and to whom.

It's less control and more responsibility for what you feed the system. Those who already had their measurement in order will gain from this change. Those who didn't will see it in the numbers faster than ever before.

In parallel, a second thing is happening: advertising is moving into AI answers — both in Google and beyond it. If you want to appear in answers without paying, you need content optimization for AI search. They're two different disciplines, and neither replaces the other.

Need to get this sorted?

We'll look at your account and tell you straight what the migration changed, what to leave alone and where it pays to step in.

If you need to explain this change to a client or colleagues without jargon, we've written a simpler version for business owners.

Digital marketing →  |  Write to us →

Frequently asked questions

What is AI Max in Google Ads?

AI Max is a set of settings inside a Search campaign that combines search term matching beyond your keyword list, tailoring ad copy to the specific query and final URL expansion. It replaces Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match. Since June 2026, it has been the default setting when creating new Search campaigns.

When will Google migrate my campaigns to AI Max?

Campaigns with automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match are migrated from September 1 to 30, 2026, gradually throughout the month. Dynamic Search Ads won't be migrated until February 1 to 28, 2027.

Can the migration to AI Max be avoided?

Before September 1, 2026, it could be avoided by turning off automatically created assets or the broad match setting in the affected campaigns. Since the migration rolls out gradually throughout September, some campaigns may not have been switched yet. You can't opt out once switched — but the individual AI Max components can be turned off separately.

Can new Dynamic Search Ads campaigns still be created?

Yes. On June 15, 2026, Google restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns, lifting the earlier ban. Creation of new DSA campaigns ends in January 2027, and automatic migration of existing ones will take place in February 2027.

Are Dynamic Search Ads ending in September 2026?

No. Google originally planned to migrate Dynamic Search Ads in September 2026, but on June 11, 2026, it pushed the date back to February 2027. The reason was feedback from advertisers who didn't want their campaigns disrupted before Q4.

How do I turn on ads in AI Overviews or AI Mode?

You can't — there's no toggle. Google treats these placements as a regular part of the Search Network. You're eligible if you have at least one broad match keyword in a Search campaign, AI Max turned on, a Performance Max campaign or a standard Shopping campaign. With exact and phrase match alone, you're not eligible.

Is the Google search partners checkbox related to AI answers?

No. Search partners are third-party sites that use Google's search. They're not related to AI Overviews or AI Mode, and turning this option on won't get you into AI answers.

Do ads from every industry appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google doesn't show ads from sensitive industries in AI Overviews — this includes adult content, alcohol, gambling, finance, healthcare and politics.

Does AI Max rewrite my ad copy?

If you leave text customization on, yes. The system adjusts headlines and descriptions to the specific search query, in real time. The feature can be turned off separately, which is worthwhile in regulated industries and with a strict brand manual.

Is historical data preserved during the migration?

Yes. Google migrates campaigns in place with equivalent settings. Historical statistics and brand inclusions and exclusions carry over automatically, so the system doesn't start from scratch.

Is Meridian available in the free version of Google Analytics?

No. The Meridian integration, scenario planning and cross-channel modeling are available only in the paid Google Analytics 360.

Sources

1. Dynamic Search Ads are upgrading to AI Max — Google Ads & Commerce Blog, Apr 15, 2026. End of beta, reasons for the switch, the 7% figure.
2. Google delays Dynamic Search Ads migration to AI Max — Search Engine Land, Jun 12, 2026. DSA postponement, campaign creation restored, AI Max as the default setting.
3. Google sets AI Max migration timeline for Search campaigns — Search Engine Land, Aug 14, 2026. The complete timeline, including API impacts.
4. About ads and AI Overviews — Google Ads Help. Eligibility, placements, excluded industries.
5. A new generation of ads for the AI era of Search — Google, May 20, 2026. New formats for AI Mode.
6. Google Marketing Live 2026: News and announcements — Google. Ask Advisor, Asset Studio, Meridian, measurement.
7. Google Marketing Live 2026: every announcement that actually matters — PPC Land, May 20, 2026. Timeline of announcements and Qualified Future Conversions.

Status as of September 2, 2026. The migration is in progress and the timeline may change — Google has already moved one deadline once. We will keep this article updated.
Author: the MR. Digital team, a digital agency managing Google Ads accounts since 2011
Published: Sep 2, 2026  |  Updated: Sep 2, 2026