Google AI Max: What It Is and How It Affects Your Campaigns

Few changes to Google Ads have had as big an impact on advertisers’ routines as the current transition. If your paid traffic relies on the Search Network, you’ve probably already seen the update notifications in your account.

At the heart of this change is Google AI Max, the suite that brings artificial intelligence into search campaigns and will replace the old DSAs.

The keywords, titles, and pages you’ve defined will now share space with the platform’s AI-driven decisions.

The migration is inevitable for those using the old features, but the outcome is uncertain: accounts that migrate methodically tend to gain reach; the rest risk paying for irrelevant clicks.

What is Google AI Max and how does it work?

Google AI Max is a set of AI features for search campaigns that can be enabled with a single click within an existing campaign. It combines three key features: search term matching, ad text personalization, and final URL expansion.

The goal is to capture relevant searches that traditional keywords don’t cover, while maintaining reporting and controls for the advertiser.

According to the Google’s official announcement, the approach is to learn from what the account already has: keywords, ads, and website content. Using this data, the AI identifies new searches with compatible intent.

This change goes hand in hand with the transformation of search itself. With AI-generated answers and new formats, such as ads on ChatGPT, searches have become more conversational, and a fixed list of keywords covers an increasingly smaller share of them.

What does the end of DSAs mean for your campaigns?

The end of DSAs is official—Google has even confirmed that campaigns with dynamic search ads will be automatically updated to AI Max.

The same update applies to automatically created ads (ACA) and to the broad match setting at the campaign level. Anyone who does not migrate on their own will be migrated by the platform.

Google has even extend the automatic migration timeline following feedback from advertisers, but the overall direction has not changed, and DSAs will be phased out.

During the automatic update, Google promises to mirror the old settings. Dynamic ad groups become standard ad groups, with history and URL controls preserved, and the three AI Max features are enabled all at once. Here’s how the two generations compare:

Table: Editorial comparison based on official Google Ads documentation.

What does AI decide for you in AI Max?

With AI Max, AI now decides three things that were previously done manually: which searches the ad appears in, what text is displayed, and which page the click is directed to.

The advertiser sets the limits, but the execution—query by query—is handled by the algorithm. Understanding each decision is what allows you to oversee it.

In targeting, search term matching expands existing keywords using broad match technology and keyword-free search.

This is broad match in practice: AI learns from the account and bids on search auctions for terms you’ve never listed.

On the creative side, text personalization (an evolution of automatically generated creatives) generates headlines and descriptions based on the landing page, ads, and keywords.

On the landing page, final URL expansion sends the user to the page on the website that the AI considers most relevant—not necessarily to the registered URL.

Bids are excluded from the package and continue to use the Smart Bidding strategy the account already employs. In practice, however, everything works together, as in Performance Max campaigns, and the quality of conversion data becomes the system’s limiting factor.

Since the AI participates in more auctions, budget spend tends to increase, and CPA or ROAS targets need to be adjusted accordingly.

Caption: Conceptual illustration of the integration between artificial intelligence, search processing, and Google AI Max features.

What results does Google report with AI Max?

Google reports, based on internal data disclosed at launch, that advertisers who enable AI Max in search campaigns typically see about 14% more conversions or conversion value with similar CPA or ROAS.

For campaigns focused on exact and phrase match, the typical reported increase rises to 27%. These figures come from Google itself and should be viewed with a critical eye.

Upon taking the product out of beta, the company released another statistic: using the full suite yields, on average, 7% more conversions or conversion value than enabling only search term matching.

The same launch announcement cites examples such as L'Oréal, which reportedly doubled its conversion rate while reducing its cost per conversion by 31%.

Three points to keep in mind when interpreting these figures: they are averages drawn from a massive pool of accounts, they come from Google’s own internal data, and—with a similar CPA—more conversions require a higher absolute investment.

The reasonable conclusion is that the gain is plausible, but it depends on reliable tracking and active oversight. Without these, expanding reach may simply result in higher costs.

What are the risks of AI Max, and how can you stay in control?

The main risks of AI Max are paying for irrelevant searches, displaying generated text that strays from the brand’s tone, and sending clicks to the wrong pages on the website.

None of these are inevitable, however; the platform offers specific controls for each one, and the manager’s job is to configure them and audit the reports frequently.

For targeting, negative keywords remain effective and are your primary tool for refining your campaigns. Brand controls define which brands your ads can appear alongside, and locations of interest restrict geographic targeting at the ad group level.

For creative content, text guidelines dictate what the AI can write, and any generated headlines or descriptions can be manually removed. For landing pages, URL controls allow you to exclude pages that should not receive traffic, such as blogs, career pages, or logged-in areas.

The search terms report now includes the headlines and display URLs for each match, which makes auditing easier. The Google Ads Help Center provides details on each of these controls.

There is also a silent risk: poor tracking. If the recorded conversions do not reflect the actual business, the AI will optimize for the wrong target with increasing efficiency.

How can you migrate to AI Max without losing performance?

A safe migration to AI Max follows this sequence: get your measurement in order, activate features in a controlled test, set limits, and only then expand.

Migrating on your own, before the automatic update, ensures that every decision is yours. Ten steps outline this process:

1. Audit your conversion tracking. Confirm that your primary conversions reflect business outcomes (qualified leads, sales, sign-ups), not just button clicks.
2. Map out what will be migrated. List campaigns with DSA, automatically generated assets, and broad match at the campaign level.
3. Document current performance. Record CPA, ROAS, conversion rate, and top search terms as a baseline.
4. Start with a mature campaign. Enable AI Max where there is conversion volume, using the platform’s one-click experiments.
5. Enable features gradually. Turn on search term matching first, then add text personalization and URL expansion later.
6. Set up controls before scaling. Define brand controls, locations of interest, text guidelines, and URL exclusions.
7. Strengthen negative keywords. Import DSA lists and review search terms weekly during the first month.
8. Monitor the report on search terms with titles and URLs. See where clicks are going and what the AI is displaying, removing anything that deviates from the norm.
9. Compare against the baseline. Evaluate CPA, ROAS, and volume against Step 3, isolating the effect of AI Max from seasonality.
10. Expand at your own pace. Apply what you’ve learned to other campaigns and reassess your budget allocation, including between Google Ads and Meta Ads.

The official migration guide documents feature mapping and campaign eligibility. If you have a large account, treat the migration as a project with an owner and a deadline, since the automatic update won’t wait for your schedule.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google AI Max

Is it worth enabling AI Max now, or should I wait?

Waiting isn’t a strategy: the migration from DSAs and legacy features to AI Max will no longer be optional. The real choice is between migrating methodically, testing feature by feature, or receiving the automatic update with everything enabled at once, as the platform default.

If your account has reliable tracking and someone to review terms, text, and URLs every week, enabling AI Max now is likely to be beneficial.

But if it doesn’t, getting the account’s measurement and structure in order comes first. It’s this kind of foundation that a professional SEM builds before giving the AI autonomy.

Want to know how your account would fare in this transition? The team at Mkt4edu, a Google Partner agency, can perform a diagnosis of your Google Ads account and show you what to enable, what to fix, and where waste is occurring—before the automatic migration decides for you.