If your Google Ads account used Automatically Created Assets or a campaign-level broad match setting, it likely changed on its own last month. Starting in September 2026, Google began automatically upgrading those settings to AI Max for Search — no click required on the advertiser's end, and no email that most small-business owners would have noticed.
Dynamic Search Ads, the third piece of the same policy, got more runway: Google quietly pushed that specific sunset from September 2026 to February 2027 in a June update to its own announcement. So some of what was supposed to change already did, and some of it is still coming. Both facts matter if you are running Search ads for a trades business, a dental practice, a restaurant, or a retail storefront in Northeast Indiana.
This post walks through exactly what auto-upgraded, what AI Max does once it is on, what independent data shows about the real-world results so far, and the specific things worth checking in your own account this week.
Key Takeaways
- Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match auto-upgraded to AI Max starting September 2026 — Dynamic Search Ads was later pushed to February 2027.
- AI Max layers three features onto existing Search campaigns: search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion, all on by default.
- An independent study of 250+ campaigns found a median 13% lift in conversion value, but also a median 16% increase in cost per acquisition.
- ROAS outcomes ranged from 42% above baseline to 35% below it — only 22% of campaigns studied landed close to their original target.
- Nearly half of advertisers studied were running AI Max alongside Dynamic Search Ads and Performance Max simultaneously, raising the risk of campaigns competing with each other.
- You cannot fully opt out of the September upgrade, but brand exclusions, location restrictions, and text guideline controls are still yours to set.
What Actually Changed in Your Account This September
Google first announced this shift on April 15, 2026, in a post by Brandon Ervin, Director of Product Management at Google Ads, on the official Google Ads and Commerce blog. The original plan bundled three legacy features into one September 2026 migration: Dynamic Search Ads, Automatically Created Assets, and campaign-level broad match settings — all converting to AI Max for Search.
That plan changed. In a June 11, 2026 update to the same post, Google confirmed that Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match would still auto-upgrade in September as originally scheduled, but pushed the Dynamic Search Ads sunset specifically to February 2027. New DSA campaigns can no longer be created through the Google Ads interface, Editor, or API, but existing DSA campaigns got five more months before the forced conversion.
If your account was still running on plain Search campaigns with ACA or broad match switched on, that part already happened — quietly, automatically, mirroring whatever your legacy settings were rather than anything you deliberately configured for AI Max. PPC Land's coverage of the original announcement put it plainly: automatic upgrades apply settings that “mirror legacy setups, which may not align with what an advertiser would configure deliberately” — advice written for the DSA migration that is just as true for the ACA and broad match changes that already landed.
What AI Max Actually Does to a Search Campaign
AI Max is not a new campaign type sitting next to Search and Performance Max. It is a set of three features that switch on inside an existing Search campaign once upgraded, each one changing how the campaign finds and talks to a searcher.
| AI Max Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Search term matching | Surfaces queries related to, but not exactly matching, the keywords you set — similar in spirit to broad match but driven by the campaign's own signals. |
| Text customization | Rewrites headlines and descriptions per searcher, drawing on the assets already in the account. |
| Final URL expansion | Can route traffic to a different landing page than the one set on the ad, if Google predicts a better match — existing URL exclusions are preserved on upgrade. |
All three switch on together by default when a campaign upgrades. Google's own figure, published on the same blog post, states that AI Max for Search campaigns see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost per acquisition or ROAS when the full feature suite is active. That is Google's number, measured on Google's terms — which is exactly why it is worth comparing against what independent analysts found once advertisers outside Google started measuring their own accounts.
It helps to understand why Google is pushing this rather than treating it as an arbitrary interface change. Search behavior itself has gotten harder to target with a fixed keyword list — the same searcher might phrase a plumbing emergency five different ways depending on the day, the device, and how urgent it feels. AI Max is Google's answer to that drift: instead of an advertiser predicting every phrasing in advance, the system expands around a smaller set of core keywords and lets the algorithm fill in the gaps. The trade-off is control. A manually built keyword list is predictable and auditable one line at a time; an AI-expanded one requires watching outcomes instead of inputs, which is a different kind of work for a business owner or agency to do well.
What the Independent Data Shows
The most detailed independent look came from Brooke Osmundson, Director of Growth Marketing at Smith Micro, published by Search Engine Journal on March 5, 2026. The study analyzed more than 250 Search campaigns and over a million AI Max impressions to see how the feature performed outside Google's own reporting.
The headline number looks good in isolation: a 13% median increase in conversion value across the campaigns studied. But cost per acquisition rose by a median 16% over the same period, and return on ad spend swung anywhere from 42% above baseline to 35% below it depending on the account. Only 22% of campaigns studied landed close to their original ROAS target after the upgrade. The study also broke down what AI Max's expanded matching actually pulled in: 80.11% exact match, 19.52% phrase match, and just 0.38% true broad match — the expansion is far more conservative in practice than “AI Max” might suggest.
| Metric (SMEC data, 250+ campaigns) | Result |
|---|---|
| Median conversion value change | +13% |
| Median cost per acquisition change | +16% |
| ROAS range vs. baseline | +42% to -35% |
| Campaigns landing near original ROAS target | 22% |
| Expanded matches that were true broad match | 0.38% |
Why Results Are So Mixed
Part of the explanation sits in how advertisers were already running their accounts before the upgrade. The same study found 1 in 6 advertisers were running AI Max alongside Dynamic Search Ads, 1 in 4 alongside Performance Max, and nearly half running all three simultaneously. When overlapping campaign types chase the same queries, they can end up bidding against each other inside the same auction rather than each pulling in distinct traffic — a structural problem no amount of AI tuning fixes on its own.
The keyword match data points to the same conclusion from a different angle. If true broad match only accounted for 0.38% of AI Max's expanded queries, runaway keyword expansion is probably not what is driving the median 16% CPA increase for most accounts. The more likely culprits are the other two AI Max features — final URL expansion sending traffic to pages that convert at a different rate than the one an advertiser originally chose, and text customization producing ad copy that was never tested against the account's own audience. Both are harder to spot in a quick glance at the dashboard than a keyword list is.
Osmundson's own advice, stated directly in the study, is the most useful summary: “Treat AI Max as a controlled expansion layer, not a replacement for the foundation of your Search campaigns.” The data backs that framing up — incremental conversions from AI Max's expanded matching tend to cost more than a business's existing keyword traffic, which is a normal diminishing-returns pattern, not a flaw unique to this feature. The study's broader recommendation is to keep visibility into exactly which queries and landing pages AI Max is using and to audit legacy keyword structures regularly, rather than treating the upgrade as a one-time event to approve and forget.
What Northeast Indiana Businesses Should Check This Week
None of this requires panic, but it does require a look. A trades business running Search ads for emergency calls, a dental practice bidding on new-patient keywords, or a retailer running seasonal campaigns all have the same blind spot right now: a setting may have changed without anyone on the team choosing it.
A Practical Post-Upgrade Checklist
- Pull your search terms report since September. Look for query types your team would not have targeted deliberately — that is AI Max's search term matching at work, and the clearest sign your campaign already upgraded. A lawn care or HVAC account should expect to see a wider spread of “near me” and emergency-style phrasing; a dental or retail account should expect fewer surprises, since those searches tend to be more specific to begin with.
- Check cost per acquisition before and after September. With a median 16% CPA increase in the independent data, a jump on campaigns using ACA or broad match is not automatically a problem, but it is worth knowing whether your account moved and by how much before deciding whether to leave the budget where it is.
- Map out campaign overlap. If AI Max, Dynamic Search Ads, and Performance Max are all running in the same account, review whether they are targeting genuinely different intent or quietly competing for the same searches. Mixed campaigns — ones containing both standard and dynamic ad groups — deserve a specific look, since Google's own guidance treats them as an edge case worth reviewing individually.
- Review final URL expansion and brand exclusions. Existing URL controls carry over on upgrade, but confirm they are still set the way you want — especially if a campaign has strict landing-page rules tied to a specific service or location page.
- Watch the DSA timeline separately. Google has already revised this once, from September 2026 to February 2027. Check Google Ads Help Center directly before planning around either date, rather than relying on an article's publish date.
- If you rely on the Google Ads API for campaign creation, confirm your workflow still works. New DSA campaigns can no longer be created through the Ads interface, Editor, or API — any automated scripts or agency tooling that generate DSA campaigns programmatically need an update regardless of the later sunset date.
None of these checks require pausing campaigns or reverting the upgrade — Google does not offer a simple opt-out for ACA and broad match at this point. The goal is visibility: knowing what changed, what it is costing, and whether it is worth actively managing rather than leaving on autopilot. This is the same discipline we apply when reviewing what moved after any Google Ads policy shift — see our breakdown of why ads stopped showing under Limited Ad Serving, why a strong ROAS number can still lose money, and what Google's Target CPA and ROAS bidding change meant for advertisers — three cases in the same pattern, where the number on the dashboard and the number in the bank account told different stories.
Not Sure What Changed in Your Account?
Button Block audits Google Ads accounts for Northeast Indiana businesses after platform changes like this one — checking what auto-upgraded, what it is costing you, and whether your campaigns are competing with themselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What actually changed in my Google Ads account in September 2026?
- Two settings auto-upgraded to AI Max starting in September 2026: Automatically Created Assets (ACA) and campaign-level broad match. Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) was originally scheduled for the same September auto-upgrade, but Google pushed that specific migration back to February 2027 in a June 11, 2026 update to its own announcement. If your account used ACA or broad match at the campaign level, it was very likely touched last month whether or not anyone on your team clicked anything.
- What is AI Max for Search?
- AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is a set of three features layered onto an existing Search campaign: search term matching (which finds new, loosely related queries beyond your exact keywords), text customization (which rewrites headlines and descriptions per searcher), and final URL expansion (where Google can send traffic to a different landing page than the one you set, if it predicts a better match). All three switch on by default when a campaign upgrades.
- Did my results get better or worse after the upgrade?
- It depends, and that is the honest answer the data supports. An independent study of 250+ Search campaigns and over a million AI Max impressions, published by Search Engine Journal in March 2026, found a median 13% increase in conversion value but also a median 16% increase in cost per acquisition. Return on ad spend ranged from 42% above baseline to 35% below it, and only 22% of campaigns landed close to their original ROAS target. There is no single typical outcome.
- Can I turn AI Max off?
- You cannot fully opt out of the ACA and broad match auto-upgrades that already happened, but you are not locked into the defaults. Google preserves your existing URL controls on upgrade, and AI Max still supports brand exclusions, location restrictions, and text guideline rules. The practical move is auditing those controls rather than assuming the upgrade left your account exactly as configured before.
- What should I check in my account this week?
- Pull your search terms report and look for query types you would not have targeted manually, check whether cost per acquisition moved since September on campaigns that use ACA or broad match, and confirm whether you are running AI Max alongside Dynamic Search Ads or Performance Max in the same account. Search Engine Journal's data found nearly half of advertisers studied were running all three at once, which raises the odds of campaigns competing against each other for the same auction.
- Does this affect Performance Max too?
- Not directly — this particular upgrade applies to Search campaign settings, not Performance Max itself. But the overlap matters anyway: the same Search Engine Journal study found about 1 in 4 advertisers ran AI Max alongside Performance Max, and when campaign types overlap on the same queries, one can end up bidding against the other without anyone intending it.
- When does Dynamic Search Ads actually go away?
- Per Google's own announcement as last updated June 11, 2026, DSA as a standalone format is now scheduled to sunset and auto-upgrade starting February 2027, not September 2026 as originally announced in April. New DSA campaigns can no longer be created today, but existing DSA campaigns got more runway than the rest of the policy change. Confirm the current date directly in Google Ads Help Center before making account decisions based on either timeline, since Google has already revised it once.
Sources & Further Reading
- Google Ads & Commerce Blog: blog.google/products/ads-commerce/dsa-upgrade-to-ai-max-2026 — “We're upgrading Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max,” Brandon Ervin, Director of Product Management, Google Ads (published April 15, 2026; updated June 11, 2026 with the revised DSA timeline)
- Search Engine Journal: searchenginejournal.com/what-smecs-data-reveals-about-ai-max-performance — Independent analysis of 250+ campaigns by Brooke Osmundson, Director of Growth Marketing, Smith Micro (published March 5, 2026)
- PPC Land: ppc.land/google-ends-dynamic-search-ads-dsa-upgrades-to-ai-max-in-september — Coverage of the original migration announcement and advertiser preparation steps, Luis Rijo, founder, PPC Land (published April 15, 2026)