If you run Google Ads for your business, something important changed this year — and if you haven’t heard about it, this post is for you.
Google has been moving steadily toward AI-powered advertising for a few years now, but 2026 is the year that shift became impossible to ignore. Two campaign types are at the centre of it: AI Max and Performance Max. Both sound technical, and neither has a particularly user-friendly name. But understanding what they are — and what they mean for your budget — matters a lot right now.
Let me break it down in plain language.
What is Performance Max?
Performance Max (often written as PMax) has been around since 2021, but it’s changed significantly since then. At its core, it’s a single campaign type that runs ads across every Google channel — Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps — all at once.
Instead of you choosing where your ads appear and manually bidding on keywords, Performance Max uses Google’s AI to decide where to spend your budget to get the best results. You provide the creative assets (text, images, video if you have it) and tell it your goal (leads, sales, website traffic), and the AI handles the rest.
In 2026, Performance Max has received some genuinely useful upgrades. Brand exclusion controls are now available — meaning you can prevent your ads from appearing alongside competitor brands or in placements you don’t want. Reporting has also improved substantially, with channel-level breakdowns so you can finally see where your budget is actually going.
What is AI Max?
AI Max for Search campaigns is newer, and it’s where Google’s attention is most focused right now. Think of it as an upgrade to traditional keyword-based Search ads, with AI doing significantly more of the targeting work.
The key features are:
- Search term matching — AI Max finds relevant searches beyond your exact keyword list, reaching people with intent similar to what you’re targeting
- Text customisation — the system can adjust your ad copy to better match what someone searched for
- Final URL expansion — Google can send people to the most relevant page on your website, not just the one you specified
In April 2026, Google officially moved AI Max out of beta. And starting September 2026, Dynamic Search Ads campaigns will automatically be upgraded to AI Max. If you run Dynamic Search Ads, that deadline is relevant to you.
What actually changed for advertisers in July 2026
Something that flew under the radar for many businesses: Google updated its Terms of Service on 1 July 2026, for the first time since 2018. The update reflects how much the platform has changed. The short version is this — when you connect your website to your Google Ads account and enable any AI-powered features, you are now formally giving Google permission to crawl your site and use that content in your ads.
That’s been happening in practice for a while. But it’s now in the contract.
The practical implication: it’s worth reviewing what pages on your website Google can access. Expired promotions, terms and conditions pages, outdated blog posts, and anything you wouldn’t want turning up in an ad headline should be excluded using your URL settings. It’s a quick audit worth doing.
What this means if you’re running Google Ads yourself
If you’ve been managing your own Google Ads and you’re using older campaign types — particularly Dynamic Search Ads or standard keyword campaigns with manual bidding — changes are coming to your account whether you plan for them or not.
The advertisers I’ve seen do well with Google’s AI campaigns are the ones who understand that automation still needs direction. Specifically:
Conversion tracking matters more than ever. If your tracking isn’t properly set up, the AI has no real signal for what “good” looks like. It’ll spend your budget efficiently — but efficiently towards the wrong thing. Get this right first.
Your website quality is now a campaign input. Google’s AI is crawling your site and using it to inform targeting and ad copy. A slow, thin, or confusing website sends bad signals. A well-organised, content-rich site sends good ones.
Asset quality drives results. With Performance Max especially, the creative assets you upload — headlines, descriptions, images, video — are what the AI works with. Put more thought into these, not less, just because the campaign is “automated.”
Should you just let Google do everything?
I’d be cautious about that framing. Google’s automation is genuinely more capable in 2026 than it was two years ago. But “automated” and “optimal” are not the same thing. I’ve seen automated campaigns spend budgets quickly and efficiently on entirely the wrong audience, because no one was checking the search terms report or reviewing what the AI was actually doing.
Professional management in 2026 isn’t about manually controlling every bid. It’s about giving the AI the right inputs, reviewing its decisions regularly, and knowing when to override it.
If you’d like someone to take a look at your current Google Ads setup, my Work With Me page is the place to start — I offer a free 30-minute call and I’ll tell you honestly what I see.
— Geeta
