Dynamic Search Ads are being retired in February 2027. Google will automatically convert all Dynamic Search Ads campaigns to AI Max. If your account uses Dynamic Search Ads and you have not prepared for that, the conversion happens on Google’s terms, with default settings, across your entire account.
If you are not sure whether your account uses Dynamic Search Ads, a pipeline scan will tell you. More on that at the end.
For accounts built around precise keyword targeting and controlled matching, this is a problem worth solving before the deadline.
What AI Max Does to Your Account
AI Max is Google’s next-generation campaign setting. It combines broad search term matching, AI-generated ad copy and URL expansion to capture demand beyond your keyword list.
For some campaigns, that is useful. The risk is in how the automatic migration works.
When AI Max activates across all ad groups with default settings, search term matching turns on everywhere – meaning your ads start appearing for search queries you never specifically chose. Your daily budget, which used to be spent on the traffic you defined, now gets distributed across that wider range of queries, including ones that may not match your buyer profile. And instead of the conversion logic you configured, Google starts deciding what looks like a good match based on its own reading of your landing page and audience data.
In practice: if you run ads for a B2B SaaS product, Google might start showing your ads for broad informational searches – people researching the problem, not ready to buy. The budget moves toward those clicks. Form submissions drop. Cost per qualified lead goes up. The campaign dashboard still shows activity, which makes the shift easy to miss until you dig into the conversion numbers.
The risk is that campaigns look active while traffic quality shifts underneath. The problem surfaces in conversion quality and cost per lead, and by then it is harder to trace back to a settings change that happened in February.
What We Tested
Dynamic Search Ads were useful for one specific reason: Google would look at your website and automatically show your ads to people searching for things that matched your content – without you having to predict every possible keyword in advance. That worked well for a lot of accounts.
AI Max can do the same thing, but with more autonomy. The challenge is that if it runs without restriction, it does not just do that job – it expands into places you did not ask it to go.
What we wanted: the smart automatic discovery part of Dynamic Search Ads, inside a structure we control. Here is how we set it up.
Campaign settings. We switched on AI Max and text customisation, and switched off final URL expansion. URL expansion is the setting that allows Google to send your ads to any page on your website, including pages that may not be relevant to what a qualified buyer is actually looking for. Turning it off means Google can only send traffic to pages you have approved. For a lead gen business, this matters: you do not want budget going to a blog post when your goal is a demo request page.
One new ad group. Inside the campaign, we added what Google calls a keywordless ad group. Think of it as a dedicated lane for AI-driven discovery. In this ad group, the search term matching is switched on, and we gave it a list of approved pages on the site to work from. You set this under Url inclusions at ad group level, either as a manual page selection or by connecting a dynamic page feed, which gives Google a structured and managed list of pages to draw from. Google uses those pages to find relevant searches automatically, the same way Dynamic Search Ads did. The discovery happens here, scoped to pages you have defined.
All other ad groups. Search term matching is switched off in every other ad group in the campaign. Those continue to run on your keyword list, exactly as before. AI Max cannot expand them.
The result: one ad group does the automatic discovery work. The rest of the campaign stays exactly as you set it up. AI Max is active, but only where you said yes.
This is what we mean by foundation before spend: before Google reshapes how your account allocates budget, you decide the structure it operates within.
Why This Needs to Happen Before February
Google’s automatic conversion will not replicate this setup. It will activate AI Max with default settings, which means search term matching turns on at ad group level across your campaigns.
For accounts where conversion tracking is connected to demo requests, form fills or qualified leads, that shift can move budget toward broader queries that generate activity but do not convert at the same rate. The risk is that the campaign learns from the wrong signal, pulling optimisation further from your actual pipeline targets over time.
Setting this up now means you control where AI Max operates and where it does not. The migration happens on schedule: the difference is that you have decided how your account enters it.
If you are not sure whether your Google Ads account uses Dynamic Search Ads, or how your current setup will be affected in February 2027, a pipeline scan will show you where you stand and flag anything that needs attention before the deadline.
The scan takes seven days, is free, and has no obligations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Dynamic Search Ads?
Dynamic Search Ads allow Google to automatically generate ads based on your website content, targeting searches that match pages on your site without requiring a full keyword list. They can run as a dedicated Dynamic Search Ads campaign, or as a dynamic ad group set up within a standard campaign, in which case only that ad group is affected, not the rest of the campaign.
What is AI Max?
AI Max is Google’s next-generation campaign setting. It combines broad search term matching, AI-generated ad copy and URL expansion. It is more automated than Dynamic Search Ads and gives Google more control over where and when your ads appear.
What is search term matching?
In the context of AI Max, search term matching allows Google to show your ads for queries beyond your keyword list, based on what it infers about your landing page and audience. When it turns on across all ad groups, it broadens the traffic your campaigns capture. For SaaS and lead gen businesses focused on qualified pipeline, broader traffic does not mean better conversion.
Will this affect my budget?
Potentially. If AI Max activates with default settings in February, your campaigns may start capturing broader, less qualified traffic. The impact depends on how your account is currently structured and what conversion signal Google is optimising toward.
Do I need to do this for every campaign?
Only for campaigns that currently use Dynamic Search Ads. Standard search campaigns built on keyword targeting are not affected in the same way. That said, AI Max settings at the campaign level are worth reviewing across your full account before February 2027.
