If you run Google Search ads, there’s a good chance an email landed in your inbox this week that’s easy to skim past and shouldn’t be. Starting September 1, Google is automatically upgrading a big chunk of Search campaigns to AI Max — and there’s no opt-out button. If your campaigns qualify, it’s happening whether you raise your hand or not. Here’s who this hits, what actually changes, and the one part that’s genuinely worth acting on before the date.
If you’re not sure what AI Max even is, I wrote a plain-English guide to Google AI Max here — this post assumes you’ve got the gist and focuses on the auto-upgrade specifically.
Who this actually affects
Let’s clear this up first, because it’ll save half of you from worrying about nothing. This only touches Search campaigns that use one or both of these settings:
Automatically Created Assets (ACA) — the feature where you let Google write extra headlines and descriptions for your ads automatically.
The campaign-level broad match setting — where you’ve flipped an entire campaign over to broad match keywords.
If you’ve never turned either of those on, you can stop reading and go enjoy your day — nothing changes for you right now. But both settings are common, especially ACA, because Google nudges people toward it constantly. So a lot of advertisers are in scope without realizing it. That’s the whole reason this is worth a look: not because it’s a disaster, but because it’s quiet.
What actually happens on September 1
Google says it’ll upgrade eligible campaigns to AI Max while mirroring your current setup as closely as it can, with everything wrapping up by the end of September. Specifically:
Campaigns using Automatically Created Assets get AI Max with search term matching and text customization switched on by default.
Campaigns using campaign-level broad match get AI Max with search term matching switched on by default.
For the broad match crowd, honestly, this is close to a rebrand — you were already handing Google a lot of matching freedom, so this is mostly the same thing wearing a new name. If that’s you, there’s not much drama here.
The part nobody’s talking about (but should)
Here’s the bit that actually matters, and it’s specific to the Automatically Created Assets group.
Up to now, ACA only did one thing: it wrote ad copy for you. It had nothing to do with which searches your ad showed up for. But part of this upgrade is “search term matching” — and that’s a completely different animal. Search term matching decides which queries your ad becomes eligible for. So a campaign where you’d only opted into automated headline writing is, as of September 1, also going to get automated query expansion — meaning your ads can start showing on searches you never actually chose, unless you turn that off at the ad-group level.
Read that twice, because it’s the whole ballgame. You signed up for Google writing your ad text. You’re about to also get Google broadening who sees your ads. For some businesses that’s a welcome bit of extra reach. For others — especially anyone on a tight budget or in a niche where irrelevant clicks add up fast — it can quietly send spend toward searches that were never going to convert. Same email, very different consequences depending on the campaign.
One more thing worth knowing
Back in June, Google gave Dynamic Search Ads a five-month reprieve on their own AI Max migration. A lot of people assumed that delay applied to everything. It doesn’t. The Automatically Created Assets and broad match upgrades did not get pushed back — September 1 is still the date for those. So if you were quietly counting on a delay, don’t.
For what it’s worth, Google says advertisers using the full AI Max feature set see around 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost, on average. That might well be true for plenty of accounts. But “on average” does a lot of work in a sentence like that, and better reach doesn’t automatically mean better leads. Whether it helps you depends entirely on how tightly your account is set up and how closely someone’s watching it.
What I’d do before September 1
You’ve basically got two choices, and doing nothing is the worse one.
Migrate on your own terms, now. You can upgrade to AI Max voluntarily before September 1, which lets you pick the settings instead of inheriting Google’s defaults. If you’re going to end up on AI Max anyway, doing it deliberately — with the features configured how you want — beats waking up on September 1 to a setup Google chose for you.
Or at minimum, get ready for it. Find your campaigns using ACA or campaign-level broad match. Make sure your negative keyword lists are solid, because they’re your main defence against the broader matching. And put a reminder in your calendar to watch your search terms report closely for the couple of weeks after the upgrade — that’s where you’ll spot if your ads start showing on junk queries, so you can add negatives fast.
The theme across every one of these Google changes lately is the same: automation is being switched on by default, and the control that’s left is in the details — negatives, exclusions, and actually reading your search terms. Set those up well and AI Max can genuinely help. Ignore them and you’re just giving Google a bigger budget to experiment with.
Want someone to handle it before the deadline?
If you’d rather not spend your evenings digging through campaign settings, that’s exactly what we do. We’re a Google Premier Partner agency in Toronto, and we’ll review your account before September 1, migrate you to AI Max the right way with the settings that fit your business, and make sure the upgrade brings you more customers instead of more wasted clicks. Book a free account review and we’ll get you sorted before Google flips the switch.
Quick questions
Can I opt out of the AI Max upgrade?
There’s no formal opt-out for eligible campaigns — the migration is mandatory. What you can control is the timing and settings by upgrading voluntarily before September 1, which lets you choose your own defaults rather than inheriting Google’s. You can also adjust individual features, like turning off query expansion at the ad-group level.
Does this affect all my campaigns?
No — only Search campaigns using Automatically Created Assets and/or the campaign-level broad match setting. If a campaign uses neither, it’s not affected by this particular change.
What’s the biggest risk to watch for?
For campaigns that used Automatically Created Assets, the upgrade adds automated query matching, so your ads can show on searches you didn’t specifically target. Keep a close eye on your search terms report after the upgrade and add negative keywords for anything irrelevant, so you’re not paying for clicks that won’t convert.