Google began automatically migrating Search campaigns running campaign-level Broad Match or standalone Automatically Created Assets to AI Max on September 1 — a mandatory, non-optional upgrade rolling out through the end of the month, not an opt-in advertisers can decline.
01What’s actually changing
- Who’s affected: any Search campaign still using campaign-level Broad Match or legacy Automatically Created Assets — settings Google already stopped letting advertisers newly create, in the UI, Ads Editor and API, back on August 3.
- What the migration does by default: ACA campaigns move to AI Max with search term matching and text customization switched on; Broad Match campaigns move to AI Max with search term matching switched on — both defaults expand how loosely Google can match a query to an ad without an advertiser opting in campaign by campaign.
- What’s next: Dynamic Search Ads campaigns get the same treatment starting February 2027, after Google already pushed that deadline back once.
02Why this is a buy-side control problem, not a feature update
AI Max isn’t new — Google has offered it as a choice since its launch. What changed on September 1 is that choice disappearing for a specific, sizeable slice of the existing campaign base: agencies and in-house teams who never opted in now have their account structure changed for them, with search-term matching defaults that were previously something a media buyer had to actively turn on. That’s the same shape of story this desk has covered all week from Meta’s side — a platform converting an advertiser’s manual setting into an automated one, on the platform’s timeline rather than the buyer’s — just running through Google Ads accounts instead of Meta’s ad sets.
Google framed AI Max as an advertiser choice for over a year; September 1 is the date that framing stopped applying to a meaningful share of the existing account base.
03What ad-ops teams should do this week
04The bottom line
Google framed AI Max as an advertiser choice for over a year; September 1 is the date that framing stopped applying to a meaningful share of the existing account base. The technical change is gradual through the month — the control question it raises for every agency running Google Search isn’t.
Search Engine Land, “Google sets AI Max migration timeline for Search campaigns,” and PPC Land, “Google blocks new broad match settings before September 1 AI Max migration” (both August 2026), for the migration timeline, the August 3 lockout date, the default-setting behavior, and the February 2027 Dynamic Search Ads date. The buy-side control framing is APH desk analysis.