Which campaigns did the AI Max auto upgrade move?
Your October report is about to say AI Max worked. Some of that will be true. Some will be conversions your keywords were already winning, now wearing an "AI Max" label. On Google's schedule, Search campaigns moved into AI Max across September 2026, with no approval screen. Below: what changed inside them, the ten controls our search advertising team sets in the first two weeks, and a two-minute check that separates real gains from relabelled ones.
Two legacy settings triggered the move. Automatically Created Assets (ACA) let Google write extra headlines and descriptions. The campaign-level broad match setting was one checkbox that made every keyword in the campaign eligible for broad matching.
One ticked box was enough. Campaigns with neither stayed as they were.
The dates, from the Google Ads Developer Blog post of 12 August 2026: no new legacy settings from 3 August, then migration in place, campaign by campaign, between 1 and 30 September. There was no approval screen. Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) follow in February 2027, after Google pushed them back on 11 June.
Google calls it a shift away from manual maintenance. In practice the maintenance has moved, into a settings panel most teams have not opened since August.
What changed inside a migrated campaign?
Each one got the settings closest to its legacy setup, which Google's developer post calls migrating "in-place to equivalent AI Max settings". The three features, in plain words:
- Search term matching shows your ad on searches your keywords do not cover, using broad match plus "keywordless" matching from your site and ads.
- Text customization is effectively ACA under a new name: Google writes ad text from your pages.
- Final URL expansion lets Google pick the landing page.
| Feature | Had campaign-level broad match | Had standalone ACA | Where you switch it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search term matching | On | On | Ad group settings, per ad group |
| Text customization | Off | On | Campaign settings |
| Final URL expansion | Off | Off | Campaign settings |
| Brand lists | Existing lists preserved | Check; add them if missing | AI Max section, campaign settings |
The ACA column carries the surprise. An account that only let Google add a few headlines now also matches queries its keyword list never named: a targeting change bundled with a creative one.
The broad match column hides a quieter loss. The old setting let each keyword compete as both exact and broad; the new setup does not. To keep that priority, Google's help page says to "add copies of exact match keywords in your new AI Max campaign", warning that converting broad to exact "will remove historical keyword stats".
One exception: Google's FAQ says search term matching "will not work with manual CPC bidding", so a Manual CPC setup changed less than its panel suggests.
The bigger question is whether any of this added conversions or just renamed them. There is a check for that further down, and it takes three numbers you already have.
Can you opt out of the AI Max auto upgrade?
No. According to Google's developer post of 12 August 2026, the legacy settings can no longer be created, and Google moved everything eligible on its own schedule. What you control is the result: each feature can be switched off afterwards, and so can the whole bundle.
Switching everything off costs more than it looks. Google's FAQ says that switching it off means "all of the AI Max features will be disabled and campaign performance may be impacted", brand exclusions included. The old broad match checkbox does not come back either. You end up with a third version, neither August's nor September's.
We would keep features on where you can measure them and restrict them where you cannot. Our AI Max vs Performance Max guide covers the choice between the two.
The ten controls to set in the first two weeks
In order of risk. Steps 1 and 2 are quick, and they decide whether anything later can be measured.
- Find every migrated campaign Day 1Look for an AI Max section in each campaign's settings, and note the migration date for each. With many accounts, use the API: query
campaign.aca_migration_date_timeandcampaign.broad_match_migration_date_timeseparately. The developer post's sample joins them with AND, which drops anyone who had only one setting, and the query language has no OR. - Export a baseline that ends on 31 August Day 1Because the move was in place, pre-September history is still there. The trap is the date range: "last 12 weeks" pulled in October already includes September. Export 8 to 12 weeks ending 31 August: conversions, conversion value, cost per acquisition, search terms, landing pages.
- Open every ad group Day 1Search term matching is switched per ad group, so it can be on in one and off in the next. Text customization and final URL expansion sit in campaign settings. The likely surprise is an ACA setup nobody remembered.
- Restore exact-match priority where it mattered Day 2For former broad match setups, add exact-match copies of the keywords that carried the account, as Google's help page suggests.
- Set brand exclusions and inclusions Day 2Keep generic ads off your own brand terms, and keep brand ads off competitor names you have not approved.
- Attach your negative lists Day 2Google's FAQ says negative keywords are still respected. Attach the shared lists everywhere and add the query themes you already know do not convert.
- Keep final URL expansion off, or exclude pages first Day 2If you do switch it on, exclude careers pages, investor pages, blog posts and any page with product terms that need a disclaimer.
- Read the generated text and check your pins Week 1Google's FAQ says pinning "will not be respected" once text customization and final URL expansion are both on, or when URL inclusions are set, and its help page adds that pinned assets "aren't used if a more relevant URL is chosen". A disclaimer held in description line 1 by a pin loses that protection. Google's text disclaimers are guaranteed to show in the description line and work with final URL expansion, so move required wording into one (90 characters, added after the campaign exists) instead of relying on a pin. Two limits from Google's help page: if a disclaimer is disapproved, the ad keeps serving without it, and in rare cases it can be truncated. Check its approval status before the ad goes live.
- Save the reporting views Week 1In the search terms report, filter match type to AI Max and add the Source column. In the landing pages report, add the "Selected by" column.
- Write the decision rule, then test one campaign Week 2Agree in writing which result keeps each feature on and who makes the call. Illustrative rule: once labelled traffic reaches 40 conversions, if its cost per acquisition runs above 1.3 times the keyword CPA, matching goes off in that ad group. Then run an on-versus-off experiment on one campaign with steady volume.
Google's help page and FAQ, as read on 6 October 2026, describe no step where a person approves generated text before it serves. Text guidelines, an experimental beta with up to 25 term exclusions and 40 messaging restrictions per campaign, restrict concepts; they do not approve copy. The fixed-wording route is a text disclaimer. If your rules require ad copy to be approved before publication, keep text customization off there until your compliance team has agreed how generated text will be reviewed. This is operational guidance, not legal or compliance advice, and the rules differ in each market.
Give each feature a named owner. Otherwise the media buyer assumes compliance saw the copy, and compliance never knew a machine wrote it.
| Feature | Can change without a human edit | Owner | Evidence to keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search term matching | Which queries you pay for | Paid search lead | Weekly export of new search terms and the negatives added |
| Text customization | What the ad says | Brand or compliance reviewer | Dated sign-off; a note of every pinned disclaimer |
| Final URL expansion | Where the click lands | Compliance, with the web owner | URL exclusion list and its last review date |
| The verdict | Which number leadership hears | Head of marketing | The written decision rule, test dates and the monthly four-number report |
How to tell real gains from relabelled conversions
Start with Google's own number. The April 2026 post promises "an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA/ROAS when using the full feature suite" (Google internal data, 2026, non-Retail). The comparison is with search term matching alone, which is exactly where former broad match setups landed. So the 7% argues for switching on the features that write your ads and pick your pages. It says nothing about what the migration did to your account.
Google's reports label the new traffic; only an experiment shows whether it added anything. A label tells you which query triggered the ad. It does not tell you whether that buyer would have found you anyway, through another keyword or a brand search tomorrow. Try it on round numbers first.
A campaign converted 200 times a month before migration. After migration it shows 230, and 45 carry the AI Max match type. The tempting read is "the upgrade added 45".
Keyword-matched conversions fell from 200 to 185, so at least 15 of the 45 look like conversions the keywords used to catch, under a new label. The lift is at most 30, before seasonality. Made-up round numbers; try your own below.
Lift ceiling: 30. Keyword-matched: 185 (was 200). At least 15 of the 45 labelled conversions look relabelled.
Formula: lift ceiling = now minus baseline; relabelled (at least) = labelled conversions minus lift ceiling, floor zero. It ignores seasonality and assumes keyword conversions would have held at baseline, so treat it as a rough diagnostic; the experiment still decides.
Google's own tools help here. On 20 August 2026 it announced AI Max experiments that can keep brand or location controls on, plus multi-campaign A/B tests of budgets and ROI targets, announced for September; confirm they are in your account. Run the test through at least one full buying cycle and judge it on total conversions, never on the labelled rows alone. Our incrementality testing guide covers test design in more depth.
An on-versus-off test cannot recreate August; the old settings are gone. It tests whether the features earn their place in the campaign you have now. Set the cost-per-acquisition tolerance before it starts.
| What the test shows | Likely meaning | What we would do |
|---|---|---|
| Total up, CPA inside tolerance, labelled rows mostly new query themes | Reach the keywords were missing | Keep search term matching; test text customization next |
| Total flat, labelled rows up, keyword rows down by a similar amount | Relabelling | Tighten negatives and brand exclusions, or switch matching off in that ad group |
| Total up, CPA outside tolerance | Reach at a price nobody agreed | Restrict with location and brand controls, then retest |
| Too few conversions in either arm | No verdict | Extend the test or move it to a busier campaign; change nothing account-wide |
Leadership will ask whether the upgrade worked. Until the experiment ends, report four numbers a month and nothing else:
- keyword-matched conversions against the August baseline;
- labelled conversions, with their own cost per acquisition;
- the lift ceiling from the check above;
- the experiment's status and its planned end date.
If finance wants one figure, give them the ceiling. The labelled total flatters the upgrade.
What is still coming: DSA in February 2027 and new reporting
DSA campaigns migrate between 1 and 28 February 2027, and they get more switched on than anyone moved in September. Per the April post, all three features "will be enabled with your legacy URL controls preserved." The developer post scheduled upgrade banners from September 2026 and a reminder on 15 January 2027; in February, remaining DSA campaigns become standard Search ad groups with AI Max on.
Final URL expansion is the setting we told you to keep off, so run the checklist on one DSA campaign in December, on your terms, rather than in February on Google's.
On 23 September 2026 Google also promised "a single, unified view of the Search ads journey" later this year. It will show the path to each conversion, not whether the conversion would have happened anyway, so keep the experiment.
Running Microsoft Advertising too? Check its Google Import schedule: Microsoft says scheduled imports inherit Google AI Max settings on every sync. We compare the defaults in Microsoft AI Max vs Google AI Max, and our Google platform notes track changes as they land.
Start with step 2 today, before anyone forwards an October dashboard. Pull a baseline that ends on 31 August and names each campaign's migration date. If it includes a single September day, re-pull it. Every number leadership hears about AI Max from here on is only as honest as that export.