What is AI Max for Search campaigns and what happens to your Dynamic Search Ads?

AI Max for Search campaigns is a Google Ads setting that lets Google match your ads to searches beyond your keywords, write extra ad copy for you and pick the landing page for each click. If you run Dynamic Search Ads, Google will move those campaigns to AI Max automatically from February 2027, and you lose the option to create new ones in January 2027.

That deadline has already moved once, and part of the switch has already happened. Campaigns using automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting kept the original September 2026 date, so if your account used either one, AI Max may already be running in it.

How AI Max for Search campaigns works

AI Max lives inside an ordinary Search campaign. Your keywords, ads, bidding and budget stay as they are, and AI Max adds three features on top, each with its own switch. New Search campaigns have AI Max on by default, and older campaigns opt in from the AI Max section of the campaign settings.

Search term matching extends your keywords using broad match and what Google calls keywordless technology, which reads your ads, assets and landing pages to find searches you never listed. You turn it on for the whole campaign, then switch it off for any ad group that should only show for the exact phrases you chose.

Text customization builds new headlines and descriptions from your existing ads, your landing page copy and your assets, with Google's generative AI filling the gaps. The ad a person sees can include lines nobody on your team wrote.

Final URL expansion sends the click to whichever page Google predicts will perform better, instead of the final URL in your ad. It needs text customization switched on. Turn text customization off and final URL expansion goes with it. Pinned headlines are skipped whenever Google chooses a different URL, so a line you pinned for legal or pricing reasons may not appear.

For example, take an ad group built around "emergency heating engineer" that points to your home page. It could show for "same day boiler repair", with a headline taken from your boiler repair page and the click sent there. That is all three features working on one search.

What happens to your Dynamic Search Ads, and when

Your Dynamic Search Ads keep running for now, and you can still create new DSA campaigns until January 2027. Google's Dynamic Search Ads help page states that from February 2027, campaigns using DSA will be upgraded to AI Max automatically. Google first set September 2026, then moved the date after advertisers asked for more time to prepare and to avoid big account changes in the fourth quarter.

• April 2026: Google announces that DSA, automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match will all upgrade to AI Max from September, with no new DSA campaigns after that.
• 11 June 2026: Google moves the DSA upgrade to February 2027 and restores DSA campaign creation from 15 June.
• 1 September 2026: campaigns using automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match start upgrading to AI Max.
• January 2027: creating new DSA campaigns stops again.
• February 2027: any DSA campaign still active is upgraded automatically, to an AI-powered Search campaign or to Performance Max.

The upgrade changes how the campaign is built. Dynamic ad groups become standard ad groups, and your Dynamic Search Ads become responsive search ads. All three AI Max features are switched on, and the URL rules you set up for DSA carry across as URL controls. The old Dynamic Search Ads keep serving for a short period after the upgrade, so expect to see both in your reports for a while.

Accounts upgraded in September got a narrower setup. Campaigns that used automatically created assets now run with search term matching and text customization. Campaigns that used the campaign-level broad match setting run with search term matching only, and you can change any of these settings afterwards.

Upgrading by hand before February is what Google's own developer team recommends, because a manual move lets you adjust your assets and keep control of how campaigns are structured. That advice holds. An automatic upgrade in February, with every feature on and no exclusions set, is the version of AI Max most likely to waste money.

Which keyword wins when AI Max is switched on

An exact match keyword that is identical to the search still wins. Google's keyword prioritization rules put identical exact match keywords first, ahead of phrase, broad and AI Max matches, and ahead of Performance Max. Identical covers spelling corrections but not plurals or synonyms, so "dentist near me" and "dentists near me" count as different searches.

This rule gives a small account its best protection. Add the searches that already bring you sales as exact match keywords, and those searches stay with the ads and landing pages you chose. AI Max then works on the searches you haven't found yet, rather than reshuffling the ones you already know convert.

When no keyword in the account is identical to the search, Google applies what it calls AI-based ad group prioritization. It reads the meaning of the search, every keyword in each ad group and the landing pages, then considers only the most relevant ad groups. If two are still level, the ad with the higher Ad Rank serves.

Picture a bakery with the exact match keyword "birthday cakes london" and AI Max on. A search for exactly that phrase goes to the exact match keyword and its landing page. A search for "birthday cake delivery london" has no identical keyword, so AI Max can match it, write a headline about delivery and send the click to the delivery page if the site has one.

The AI Max controls to set before anything changes

AI Max gives you more say over targeting than Dynamic Search Ads did, through brand lists, location intent, URL rules, text guidelines and negatives. Set them before you switch AI Max on, or before Google switches it on for you. Google asks you to wait at least two weeks after enabling AI Max before making changes. Anything you forget now gets fixed early against that advice, or paid for while you wait.

• Brand exclusions, set per campaign, stop your ads showing on searches for brands you list. Add your own brand here on non-brand campaigns so AI Max doesn't pull brand searches away from your brand campaign.
• Brand inclusions do the opposite and limit matching to the brands you name. You can set them per campaign or per ad group, and the ad group list wins.
• Locations of interest work per ad group. They target people by the place they search for, which suits a business with branches in several cities.
• URL inclusions tell final URL expansion which pages an ad group may send clicks to.
• URL exclusions cover the whole campaign and keep pages like careers, old blog posts or discontinued products out of rotation. They only work with text customization and final URL expansion on.
• Negative keywords and negative URLs can be added straight from the search terms report by ticking the row.

Text guidelines are the setting to finish first if your ads have legal or pricing limits. Google's text guidelines feature lets you add up to 25 term exclusions per campaign: words or phrases the generated copy must never use. You can also add up to 40 messaging restrictions, written as plain instructions such as "never mention discounts". The feature is still an experimental beta and needs text customization on. When you add a guideline, any generated asset that breaks it stops serving and is marked as removed.

One more limit sits outside the settings page. Google states that AI Max won't be effective if a campaign is limited by budget. If your campaign already shows "Limited by budget", raise the budget or narrow the campaign before you judge AI Max on it.

What the performance numbers say about AI Max

Google's own numbers are positive, and they come from Google. Its AI Max help page says advertisers who turn it on usually see 14% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS, based on internal 2025 data for non-retail advertisers. The April 2026 announcement adds that campaigns using all three features see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS, from internal 2026 data.

Independent data is less tidy. Smarter Ecommerce's analysis of more than 250 Search campaigns, reported by Search Engine Journal in March 2026, found a median 13% rise in conversion value alongside a median 16% rise in CPA. Results ranged from 42% above baseline ROAS to 35% below it, and only 22% of campaigns finished close to their original ROAS targets.

Read the two sets of figures side by side. In the median campaign, AI Max found extra conversion value and paid more for each conversion. A 16% higher cost per acquisition is easy to carry for a store with healthy margins, and painful for a service business already paying close to its break-even cost per lead.

Neither source fits every business. The Smarter Ecommerce data leans toward online stores, and Google's headline figures exclude retail advertisers, so a lead generation business learns its own number only by testing.

Pros and cons of AI Max for Search campaigns

AI Max is worth testing in any account that tracks conversions properly. The gains come from searches you never thought to add. The costs show up as a higher CPA, ad copy you didn't approve and clicks landing on pages you didn't pick.

What you gain:

• Reach into searches your keyword list missed, without writing hundreds of extra keywords.
• Controls that Dynamic Search Ads never had, including brand lists, locations of interest and text guidelines.
• A clearer view of what ran: the search terms report shows the headline and landing page used for each search, next to the campaign and ad group.

What it costs:

• A higher cost per conversion. The median CPA rose 16% in the Smarter Ecommerce data.
• Generated headlines that can make claims you would never sign off, until text guidelines are in place.
• Pinned assets that drop out whenever final URL expansion picks a different page.
• Reporting that needs care. Filtering the search terms report by the "AI Max" match type shows lower numbers, because that filter leaves out "Other search terms".

Who should use AI Max now, and who should wait

Turn AI Max on now if you run Dynamic Search Ads, run an online store that can carry a higher CPA, or have campaigns that hit their conversion targets with budget to spare. Wait, or use only part of it, if your budget is capped, your cost per lead is already at its limit, or your industry restricts what ads can say.

If you run Dynamic Search Ads today, start a campaign experiment now. The test Google's developer team suggests puts AI Max, with broad match and Smart Bidding, against your existing DSA campaign. When it holds up, move over with the one-click upgrade tool, which keeps your historical reporting.

Online stores with margin to spare can switch on all three features, leave them alone while the experiment runs, and then judge on ROAS instead of conversion count.

Local service businesses on small budgets should start with search term matching only. Keep text customization off until your text guidelines are written, and fix any budget limit first.

Finance, health and legal advertisers should keep text customization off, or write a full set of messaging restrictions, because every generated line still has to meet the advertising rules for their industry. Accounts with a separate brand campaign should add brand exclusions to every non-brand campaign before anything else.

A checklist for moving from Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max

None of these eight steps needs a developer, and all of them fit before January 2027.

1. List every campaign that still uses Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting.
2. Add the searches that already convert as exact match keywords, so they keep priority.
3. Set URL exclusions, brand exclusions and text guidelines.
4. Check each campaign for "Limited by budget" and fix it before testing.
5. Run a campaign experiment of AI Max against your current setup, and leave it at least two weeks before changing anything.
6. Review the "Search terms and ad combinations" view every week. Add negative keywords or negative URLs only for terms that keep missing your targets, which is also Google's own advice.
7. Upgrade manually with Google's one-click tool once the experiment holds up.
8. Set a reminder for December 2026: from January 2027 you can no longer create a DSA campaign as a fallback.

February 2027 is when Google makes these choices for you. Every week before then, you still make them yourself.

If you would like the Techno Mantraa team to review your Google Ads account before the upgrade, send us a note through the Get a Quote form on our contact page at technomantraa.com/contact-us or email info@technomantraa.com.