Google is force-upgrading your Search campaigns starting in September

Marcus runs a flooring company in Avon. Hardwood, tile, the occasional epoxy garage floor. He has run Google Search ads for six years, mostly Dynamic Search Ads, because he never had time to build a keyword list for every species of wood and every finish he installs.

Last week he logged into his account and found a banner he did not ask for. Google wanted to upgrade his campaign to something called AI Max.

Starting in September, Google is auto-converting three Search campaign settings, Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets, and campaign-level broad match, into that one system. You cannot opt out. You cannot create a new Dynamic Search Ads campaign after the switch, not in the Google Ads interface, not in Editor, not through the API.

What DSA, ACA, and broad match do

Three terms, three plain definitions.

Dynamic Search Ads writes your headline and picks your landing page from your website content instead of a keyword list you built. Automatically created assets, ACA, lets Google write extra ad copy on top of what you wrote. Campaign-level broad match matches your keywords to a wider set of searches than the ones you typed in.

If your account uses any of the three, September changes it whether you log in that week or not.

What is Google claiming?

Google's pitch, straight from its own April 2026 announcement: campaigns running the full AI Max feature set, search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion, saw an average of 7 percent more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost per acquisition, compared to search term matching alone.

That number comes from Google's internal data, for non-retail advertisers, and Google is the one selling you the upgrade. Treat it as a ceiling, not a promise. Pull your own before-and-after numbers 30 days after you switch. Don't take Google's word for what Google's product does to your account.

Where the money gets lost

AI Max's final URL expansion sends visitors to whatever page on your site Google predicts will convert best, not always the page you built the ad copy around. If your account uses a tracking template, the kind of custom string that appends UTM codes or call-tracking parameters to every click, and that template doesn't include the {lpurl} tag in one of the patterns Google recognizes ({lpurl}?, {lpurl}&, {lpurl}#, or a bare {lpurl}), the dynamic landing page can 404.

You pay for the click. The visitor lands on a broken page. Nobody notices until the conversion count drops for a week and somebody finally checks the URL the ad sent people to.

Marcus's old agency built his tracking template by hand three years ago. It points to a static domain with no {lpurl} tag anywhere in it. If he lets the auto-upgrade run without touching that, every dynamic landing page AI Max picks routes through a template that was never built to hold one.

Three things to check this week

1. Open Google Ads, go to Campaigns, and filter by campaign type. If "Dynamic Search Ads" shows up, you're affected.
2. Open campaign settings and look for automatically created assets or a broad match toggle at the campaign level. Either one means you're affected too.
3. If you run a tracking template, test it against the four {lpurl} patterns above before September. Fix the template first. Upgrade second.

If none of that applies to your account, close this tab. Standard keyword campaigns without broad match, Performance Max, and Local Services Ads sit outside this migration entirely.

Should you switch now or wait for September?

Switch now, on your own schedule. AI Max ships with brand inclusion and exclusion controls and a text guideline setting that lets you block specific phrases from ever showing up in AI-written ad copy. Set those before the algorithm starts writing on your behalf, not after it has already spent two weeks unsupervised.

You cannot opt out of Google writing your ads. You can opt out of it writing them without guardrails.

Ten minutes with the brand controls open beats a September morning spent reading a search terms report full of copy you never approved.

Marcus set his up on a Tuesday afternoon, between two job walkthroughs. Ten minutes, on his terms, instead of whatever September was going to hand him.

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Sources

#	Source	What it backed up
1	Dynamic Search Ads are upgrading to AI Max	Google's own timeline for the September auto-upgrade, the no-opt-out policy on new DSA campaigns, and the 7 percent conversion claim.
2	How AI Max for Search campaigns works	Definitions of search term matching and asset optimization, and the four {lpurl} tracking template patterns AI Max recognizes.
3	Set up AI Max for Search campaigns	Details on the upgrade tools, brand controls, and text guidelines advertisers can set before the automatic migration.
4	Your Google Ads campaign is about to get more expensive	Luminest's earlier reporting on Google Ads changing bidding behavior without an advertiser-facing announcement.