As of September 1, Google began automatically migrating all Search campaigns running either campaign-level broad match or Automatically Created Assets (ACA) to AI Max. The migration rolls out progressively through September 30, so not every campaign flips today — but yours may already be in the new structure. There is no opt-out, and there is no revert path once a campaign migrates.
If you did nothing between now and August 26 to disable those legacy settings, Google is doing the work for you.
What just changed in your account
The outcome depends on which legacy feature your campaigns used.
ACA campaigns got the full AI Max default: search term matching on, text customization on. That means two things are now operating simultaneously — the system can serve ads on queries beyond your keyword list, and it can rewrite your headlines and descriptions to better fit each query.
Campaigns that used campaign-level broad match got search term matching only. Text customization stays off for those.
The distinction is meaningful. ACA accounts are running with the most permissive configuration by default. If your team spent time crafting specific, controlled messaging for compliance reasons, brand tone, or category sensitivity, text customization is the first setting to review.
What you can still turn off
Text customization is optional in AI Max. You can disable it within your AI Max campaign settings if you need the copy to stay close to what your team wrote. This gives you less flexibility on query expansion but keeps your ad appearance more predictable.
What you cannot disable is search term matching. That's not a toggleable feature — it's the central premise of AI Max. Your ads will match queries you never explicitly targeted.
What should have carried over automatically: brand inclusions and brand exclusions. Check that these migrated correctly. Google stated they transfer automatically, but brand exclusions are the highest-stakes setting to get wrong when the system is running broader queries. Run a quick filter in your search terms view for your own brand name to confirm.
What to watch this week
Pull a search terms report today and compare it against last week. Volume will expand — that's intentional, not a bug. What matters is which new queries are appearing. Some will be adjacent searches that convert well. Others will be obvious wasted spend. Negatives are still fully supported in AI Max, so add them as you go.
On CPA: one or two days of data is not enough to judge. Smart Bidding goes through a calibration phase after any structural change, and post-migration instability is normal for the first 7 to 10 days. If your conversion volume is below 30 per week, extend that window further.
Watch impression share on your core terms. If share on your highest-intent keywords drops while total impressions rise, AI Max is expanding reach into adjacent territory. Whether that expansion is valuable depends on conversion data, not volume alone.
The honest context
According to ALM Corp's State of PPC 2026 report, which surveyed 1,306 PPC professionals — the largest sample the survey has ever included — 53% say managing Google Ads is harder today than it was two years ago. The top reason, per the same report, cited by 62% of that group, is black-box automation: platforms making decisions advertisers cannot manually override.
The September 1 migration is that black box getting larger. A campaign structure that existed last week no longer exists. The controls you had are replaced by settings you can observe but not fully predict.
According to Google's own AI Max product blog, AI Max delivers 14% more conversions at a similar CPA for advertisers who enable it. Search Engine Land's independent testing of 23 campaigns found more varied results. Both can be true at once: aggregate improvement with high variance at the account level, depending on how clean the signal is going in.
Your job now
Accounts that fare worst in AI Max are typically the ones with messy data underneath — not the ones that migrated. If your conversion tracking is degraded, your CAPI coverage is low, or your brand exclusions are incomplete, September is when those gaps start showing up in CPA numbers.
The accounts best positioned to benefit from AI Max are the ones feeding the system good information: reliable conversion tracking, quality landing pages matched to query intent, and clear brand safety boundaries. That's not a comfortable position for everyone heading into this month.
If you want a clear read on where your account actually stands going into Q4, the free audit at gromerce.com/audit surfaces the signal quality picture in a few minutes.
AI Max is live. It's running. Pull the data before you form an opinion.
Sources: Search Engine Land, ALM Corp State of PPC 2026, Google Ads Blog, September 2026
