What Google did, and didn't announce
On August 17, Google sent in-account notifications to Performance Max advertisers. No blog post. No help center update. Just a banner explaining that Google will use generative AI to create missing aspect ratios for your existing video assets.
What that means: you upload a 16:9 horizontal video. Google generates 9:16 vertical and 1:1 square versions automatically, so a single asset can serve across every PMax placement — Shorts, Display, Discover, Gmail, and YouTube in-stream.
On paper, this sounds like a time-saver. In reality, it's Google deciding what your creative looks like without asking you to sign off on the output. If you didn't see the in-account notification or dismissed it, you're already opted in by default.
What the reframing actually does to your creative
A 16:9 video cropped to 9:16 keeps roughly a third of the original width. Google's AI fills in the rest, extending the frame with content the model invents.
Four things tend to break in this process:
Logos placed in corners. Standard 16:9 composition puts brand assets at the frame edge. In a 9:16 cut, those corners are exactly what gets cropped first.
Text overlays and supers. Product names, pricing callouts, and CTAs burned into the horizontal video don't reposition for vertical. They shift to the margin or disappear entirely.
Legal disclaimers. If your category requires on-screen disclosures, these are typically placed in the lower third of a 16:9 frame. In a vertical reframe, that placement often falls outside the viewable area.
Shot composition built for horizontal. Wide establishing shots, left-right product reveals, two-person frame splits — these lose their structure in a vertical cut that the AI generates without understanding why the original shot was composed that way.
According to Search Engine Land, Google published no help center page for this feature. The in-account notification is the only official artefact.
Who faces the most exposure
PMax campaigns running a single horizontal video. If your campaign has only one video asset with no vertical or square alternatives uploaded, Google's AI fills every non-horizontal placement slot.
Brands with legal review in their creative workflow. Any advertiser whose video goes through legal sign-off before publishing now has creative running that bypassed that process entirely.
DTC brands with product-forward creative. Your product label, your packaging, your product name in frame — these get cropped or distorted depending on where the model focuses when generating the vertical version.
Regulated categories with disclosure requirements. Disclaimer placement is not flexible. An AI reframe that moves an on-screen disclosure out of the safe zone is a compliance issue, not just a creative one.
Your options, and the deadline
The opt-out runs through your Google account team or an opt-out form Google provides on request. The deadline is September 4. After that, video settings can still be changed within the account, so it's not a permanent lock-in, but AI-generated variants become the default for any placement you haven't covered with native assets.
The smarter path for most PMax advertisers is not to opt out wholesale, but to close the format gap. Upload native 9:16 and 1:1 assets alongside your horizontal. When you give Google the vertical it needs, AI generation doesn't activate for that format. This gives you control over what gets shown and removes the compliance risk.
If you don't have the budget or timeline to produce vertical cuts before September 4, opt out. Running your 16:9 horizontal across all placements with reduced vertical coverage is preferable to AI-generated cuts that no one on your team approved.
The pattern this belongs to
This is not the first time this year Google has applied automated creative modifications to PMax without a front-page announcement. AI Max added query matching changes earlier in the year. Conversational ad generation from landing pages went beta in May. Now video reframing arrives via in-account notification only.
The through-line is consistent: PMax is designed to minimize advertiser input into each individual decision. Every iteration moves more choices from your account to Google's model. That's the product direction, and it's not going to reverse.
Your leverage is on the input side. Feed quality, creative completeness, conversion signal accuracy. Give the system more of what it needs in formats it can use natively, and you have less reason to object to what it generates in the gaps.
If you want to know how your PMax campaigns are handling creative and conversion signals right now, a free account audit at Gromerce takes about three minutes.
One video asset in one aspect ratio is not a PMax creative strategy. It's an invitation for Google's AI to fill in the rest.
Sources: Search Engine Land, August 2026
