Google migrated my Search campaigns to AI Max this month. What actually changed, and what should I check?

Google spent September quietly moving a large chunk of Search advertisers onto AI Max, whether or not they asked for it. If you run your own Google Ads and haven’t opened the account in a few weeks, some of your campaigns work differently today than they did on 31 August. Here’s what moved, how to confirm it happened to you, and the specific things worth checking before October spend goes out.

Quick answer if you’re skimming

• Between 1 and 30 September 2026, Google automatically migrated campaign-level Broad Match and legacy Automatically Created Assets campaigns to AI Max.

• Since 3 August 2026 you cannot create new campaign-level Broad Match or legacy ACA campaigns anywhere — UI, Ads Editor or API.

• There is no documented opt-out. This is a migration, not an invitation.

• Dynamic Search Ads are next: automatic migration runs 1–28 February 2027, and new DSA ad groups disappear permanently at that point.

• Your spend can look completely normal while your match quality changes underneath it. Check search terms, not just cost.

What exactly happened to my account in September?

• Google ran an automatic migration of two campaign types to AI Max between 1 and 30 September 2026.

• The two types affected: campaigns using campaign-level Broad Match, and campaigns using legacy Automatically Created Assets (ACA).

• This followed a hard cutoff on 3 August 2026, after which nobody could create new campaign-level Broad Match or legacy ACA campaigns in the UI, Ads Editor or the API.

• Three things are being retired altogether: campaign-level Broad Match, standalone ACA, and Dynamic Search Ads.

• Google’s published timeline includes no opt-out mechanism. Advance notice, yes; a way to refuse, no.

How do I tell whether my campaigns were actually migrated?

• Open the change history for your account and filter to 1–30 September. A migration is a change, and it logs like one.

• Check the campaign settings page for the AI Max setting on each Search campaign rather than trusting the campaign list view.

• Look at in-account notifications. Google began surfacing notices in September, including nudges to upgrade Dynamic Search Ads voluntarily.

• If you run several accounts, check each one. Migration was per-campaign, so a client account can be half-moved.

• Do this before you compare any month-on-month numbers, or you’ll misread the cause.

What does AI Max actually change about how my ads match?

• The short version: you hand over more of the matching decision. Broad Match at campaign level was already loose; AI Max widens the net further and takes creative and landing-page decisions with it.

• Your keyword list stops being the boundary of what you can show for. It becomes an input.

• That is not automatically worse. For accounts with thin keyword coverage it often finds demand a human list missed.

• It is worse when your product has a near-identical-sounding adjacent category you do not sell. Indian D2C is full of these.

• The control you keep is negatives, brand settings and audience signals. Those matter much more than they did.

My spend looks the same but the leads got worse. Is that the migration?

• Possibly, and the search terms report will tell you in about ten minutes. That is where this shows up first.

• Sort September search terms by cost and read the top 50 by hand. You are looking for queries you would never have bid on.

• Compare the count of distinct search terms in August versus September. A sharp rise with flat spend is the signature.

• Check cost per qualified lead, not cost per conversion — form fills can hold steady while lead quality falls off a cliff.

• Be honest about other causes too. Festive-season auction pressure in India is real in September–October and will also move your CPCs.

What should I change in the account right now?

• Build a real negative keyword list. This is the single highest-value hour you will spend this month.

• Add negatives for adjacent categories, “free”, “jobs”, “salary”, “internship”, “course” and competitor brand terms you don’t want to pay for.

• Set brand exclusions deliberately rather than leaving defaults in place.

• Tighten conversion tracking before you judge performance. If you’re counting every form fill as a conversion, AI Max will happily optimise toward junk.

• Give it a defined window — two to three weeks — before you conclude anything, then decide with the search terms report in front of you.

Is Dynamic Search Ads next?

• Yes, and the dates are published. Reminder notifications go out 15 January 2027.

• Automatic DSA migration runs 1–28 February 2027.

• At that point the ability to create new DSA ad groups is permanently removed.

• Older Google Ads API versions supporting legacy Broad Match and ACA entities are expected to sunset around September 2027, which matters if you or a vendor script against the API.

• If DSA is doing real work in your account, the time to build the replacement is the next four months, not February.

Search traffic is also down. Are AI Overviews and this connected?

• They are separate changes that happen to be squeezing the same funnel at the same time, which is why it feels like one event.

• Ahrefs studied 300,000 keywords and found AI Overviews cut position-one click-through rate by roughly 58% — from 0.073 to 0.016 on the keywords where an AI Overview appeared.

• The damage tapers down the page: about −58% at position 1, −19.4% at position 10.

• It is getting worse, not settling. Ahrefs’ April 2025 figure for the same effect was −34.5%.

• Practical read: ranking first is worth materially less than it was two years ago, which changes the maths on whether paid or organic deserves the next rupee.

Do I need an agency for this, or can I do it myself?

• Most of the above is a two-hour job you can do yourself, and you should, because you know which leads are junk and an outsider doesn’t.

• Outside help earns its fee when the account is large enough that a 10% matching drift is real money, or when nobody internally opens Google Ads weekly.

• If you do bring someone in — GrowthLife or anyone else — ask them to show you the September search terms report before they show you a proposal. If they lead with a retainer, that tells you something.

• Beware anyone selling “AI Max optimisation” as a new service line this month. The work is negatives, tracking and judgement. It has not changed much.

Where this sits in the market

	Before September 2026	After migration
Campaign-level Broad Match	Available, creatable	Retired; migrated to AI Max
Automatically Created Assets (legacy)	Available, creatable	Retired; migrated to AI Max
Dynamic Search Ads	Available	Retired 1–28 Feb 2027
Control over matching	Keyword list is the boundary	Negatives and brand settings are the boundary
Opt-out	—	None documented

For scale, dentsu projected Indian digital ad spend at ₹69,856 crore by 2026, with digital reaching about 61% of total ad spend. Treat that as a projection from the 2025 report rather than a 2026 actual — but the direction explains why Google is comfortable making changes non-optional.

What I’d actually do

• Open change history, filter to September, and confirm in five minutes whether this happened to you at all. Half of arguing about AI Max is people who were never migrated.

• Spend one focused hour on negative keywords and conversion-tracking hygiene. That single hour is worth more than any setting you can toggle.

• Put a calendar reminder for early January 2027 for the DSA migration. The people who get hurt by these are the ones who find out in March.