Google's AI Max for Search is out of beta, and from September campaigns using Dynamic Search Ads and broad match will be upgraded to it automatically. The change is coming whether you opt in or not.
A 7% lift sounds great until you remember the system also decides which searches you show up for and which URLs it sends them to.
Google is moving advertisers into AI whether they raise their hand or not. AI Max for Search is out of beta, and from September, campaigns running Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets and the campaign-level broad match setting will be upgraded to AI Max automatically. This is not an invitation. It is a migration with a date on it.
The pitch is performance. Google says the full AI Max feature suite, search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion, delivers an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost per acquisition, compared with using search term matching alone. AI Max sits inside a broader push toward agentic advertising, where a Gemini-built agent spans Google Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center and the Marketing Platform.
Why it matters
This is the same pattern as Meta, just on the search side. Google is handing more of the steering to its own AI and giving advertisers fewer levers. The upside is real, more conversions for the same cost is not nothing. The risk is the loss of control. AI Max expands the queries you match to and rewrites where it sends people, which means the machine is deciding things you used to decide.
For Australian advertisers the September date is the part to circle. If you do nothing, your campaigns change. Going in blind to an automatic upgrade is how you wake up to a spend pattern you did not choose.
Average lift in conversions Google reports from the full AI Max feature suite over basic search term matching
What to do about it
Mark the September upgrade date and decide on purpose, rather than letting it happen to you. Before it lands, capture a clean baseline of your current performance so you can tell whether AI Max actually helped. Use the controls AI Max does offer, brand exclusions and URL settings, so the system does not send budget somewhere you would never choose. Watch your search term reports closely after the switch, because broader matching can quietly drag in junk queries. Judge the change against your own cost per acquisition and margin, not Google's conversion count.
The upgrade is coming. Whether it helps you or just helps Google is the question to answer before September, not after.