What Happened
Google announced earlier this year that AI Max for Search would replace several older features. In September 2026, it made that happen automatically.
The timeline:
If you didn't upgrade manually, there's a good chance Google did it for you. Plenty of business owners we speak to had no idea.
What AI Max Actually Does
AI Max isn't a new campaign type. It's a bundle of features inside a normal Search campaign. The three that matter:
We covered whether AI Max is worth using in our original AI Max review. This article is about what to do now that it has been switched on.
The Problems We Keep Seeing
Since the September upgrade, the same issues come up in almost every account we audit.
Ads sending people to the wrong pages
Final URL expansion is the biggest culprit. We've seen a boiler installer's ads send people to a careers page, and a solicitor's ads land on a three-year-old blog post. Both looked relevant to Google. Neither converted.
Search terms drifting
A kitchen fitter bidding on "kitchen fitters Leeds" started showing for "IKEA kitchen planner" and "kitchen cabinet doors". The clicks were cheap, but none of them were customers.
Headlines saying things you wouldn't
Text customisation pulls wording from your site. If your site mentions "free quotes" in one place and "from £99" in another, Google might combine them in ways that set the wrong expectations.
What To Check This Week
1. Find out which campaigns were upgraded
Go to Change history and filter for changes made by Google in September. Every campaign moved to AI Max will appear there.
2. Review final URL expansion
In campaign settings, you can turn final URL expansion off or exclude specific URLs. At a minimum, exclude:
3. Add brand and location exclusions
AI Max lets you set brand inclusions and exclusions, and location-of-interest controls at ad group level. If you only serve certain areas, use them.
4. Check search terms properly
Sort the search terms report by cost, not clicks. Add negatives for anything irrelevant. AI Max takes negatives seriously, and they're your strongest control.
5. Look at the headlines being shown
The asset report shows which AI-generated text is being served. Remove anything that misleads or doesn't match your offer.
Should You Turn It Off?
Not necessarily. In accounts with good conversion tracking and plenty of data, AI Max has found genuinely useful searches we would never have thought of. In smaller accounts with tight budgets, it often spreads money too thinly.
Our general rule:
Get Ready for February
If you run Dynamic Search Ads, you have until the end of January 2027 to decide how you want them to move. Upgrading manually now gives you control over the settings, rather than accepting whatever Google picks.
The Bottom Line
AI Max can work well, but switched on and left alone it tends to spend money on searches and pages you would never pick yourself. Twenty minutes of checking can make a big difference to your cost per lead.
Not sure what changed in your account? Our free PPC audit shows exactly which campaigns were upgraded and what it's costing you.