Google is moving your ads to AI Max. What to check before February

If you run Google Ads, some of your Search campaigns may already be running on AI Max, whether or not you turned it on. Google started upgrading campaigns automatically in September 2026, and two more changes arrive in February 2027. None of it is a reason to panic, but it's worth an hour in your account before then.

What AI Max is

Google describes AI Max as a layer that sits on top of an ordinary Search campaign. It does three things:

• Search term matching: your ads can show on searches beyond your keywords, based on what Google reads on your ads and website.
• Text customisation: Google writes some of your ad text for each search.
• Final URL expansion: Google picks which page of your website to send people to.

What's changed, and when

From September 2026, Google began upgrading campaigns that used automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting to AI Max, with some features switched on by default. Dynamic Search Ads campaigns are due to be upgraded from February 2027.

Also from February 2027, Search campaigns with the Display Network turned on lose their current spending setup, and Google says you "may see a shift in channel spending".

Why it matters for a B2B advertiser

If you sell something specialised to a small market, every click on the wrong search costs real money, and the wrong enquiry costs your sales team's time on top of that. AI Max is built to find more searches. For some businesses that's welcome. For a supplier whose buyers use precise terms, it can mean more spending on searches you'd never have chosen. I've written more about what matters in Google Ads for high-value sales.

Six things to check

1. Is AI Max on, and which parts? Look in each Search campaign's settings. Each part can be switched off on its own: search term matching at the ad group level, and text customisation and final URL expansion in the campaign settings.
2. Read the search terms. The search terms report now shows "AI Max" as a match type, and the "Search terms and ad combinations" view shows each search with the headline and page it got. Google suggests waiting two weeks after turning AI Max on before adding negatives. Then add them, because Google confirms negative keywords are still respected.
3. Check where people land. With final URL expansion on, Google chooses the page. Exclude the ones that should never be a landing page, like careers, old news or terms and conditions. Pinned headlines aren't respected with it on.
4. Use the controls. You can include or exclude brand names and target by where people are interested in, as well as where they are.
5. Set your channels before February. The new channel prioritisation lets you mark Search, search partners and the Display Network as high or low priority, and cap what a low-priority channel can spend. Setting the Display Network to 0% means Google won't spend there. If you set this before February, it takes effect straight away.
6. Judge it on sales, not conversions. A form fill isn't a sale. If your CRM can tell Google which enquiries became real opportunities, AI Max is aiming at the right thing. I've covered measuring marketing on a long sales cycle.

Should you turn it off?

Not by reflex. Google now lets you test AI Max against your current setup as an experiment, and I'd do that on your biggest campaign before deciding. One catch: turning AI Max off switches off all its features at once, including brand exclusions if you were using them.

It's also worth knowing that ads in Google's AI Overviews are live in Australia, and they're matched through broad match, AI Max, Performance Max and similar. So switching it all off also means not showing there.

If you'd rather someone else worked through this, it's part of how we run Google Ads.

How we help with this: Google Ads →