Google began automatically moving legacy Google Ads Search settings onto AI Max on 1 September 2026, and Dynamic Search Ads will follow by February 2027. If your account still runs campaign-level broad match, Automatically Created Assets or Dynamic Search Ads, some of that structure is either already changing or about to — whether or not anyone logs in to approve it.
What’s actually being upgraded, and to what
AI Max for Search is Google’s expansion of the automation that Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) already used, applied more broadly across Search campaigns. Google describes it as combining search term matching, automatic text customisation and final URL expansion with more real-time intent signals than manual keyword and landing-page targeting alone, alongside brand and location controls that weren’t previously available in the same package.
Three legacy Search campaign structures are being retired in favour of it:
- Campaign-level broad match settings
- Automatically Created Assets (ACA)
- Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) ad groups
Accounts using any of these aren’t being asked whether they’d like to switch — they’re being migrated on a fixed schedule, with an option to move earlier and with more control if an advertiser chooses to.
The confirmed timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–30 September 2026 | Campaign-level broad match and Automatically Created Assets auto-migrate to AI Max |
| 1–28 February 2027 | Dynamic Search Ads move to AI Max; creating new DSA ad groups is permanently removed after this |
| September 2027 | Older Google Ads API versions sunset, removing support for the legacy entities entirely |
The first stage is the one worth acting on now: it’s already underway. Google is issuing in-account notifications encouraging a voluntary upgrade before the automatic one lands, which is generally the safer route if you want to compare performance side by side rather than accept the change retroactively. A voluntary upgrade also keeps existing settings intact as a starting point, whereas an automatic upgrade carries legacy settings across but without the same opportunity to run a controlled before-and-after test first.
For most small and mid-sized advertisers, the practical risk isn’t that AI Max performs badly — Google’s own data points the other way — it’s that the change happens inside an account nobody is actively watching that week, and gets discovered later as an unexplained shift in reporting rather than a deliberate decision anyone made.
Why the Dynamic Search Ads deadline moved
DSA was originally scheduled to migrate alongside broad match and ACA in September 2026. Google pushed that specific deadline back to February 2027 after advertiser pushback about the timing colliding with fourth-quarter planning and execution.
“We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear: you need more time to transition from Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to AI Max.”
Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Liaison
The extension gives DSA users roughly five extra months to run their own comparisons before Google runs the comparison for them. It doesn’t apply to broad match or ACA, which are on the original, unextended timeline.
What this means for Malaysian and Singaporean advertisers
Nothing in Google’s announcements or the reporting around them carves out an exception for Malaysia, Singapore or any other market. This is a global infrastructure change to how Search campaigns are built, not a feature rollout that reaches some countries later than others. If a Malaysian or Singaporean account is running campaign-level broad match, ACA or DSA, it’s on the same September and February dates as everywhere else.
What’s confirmed is the schedule and the mechanics. What Google has also stated — an average uplift of roughly 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS when the full AI Max feature set is enabled — is a global average figure, not a Malaysia-specific one. It’s reasonable to expect a similar direction of movement locally, but the actual effect on cost per lead or lead quality for a specific account is something worth testing rather than assuming, particularly for the B2B and property accounts where lead volume and lead quality already tend to diverge (a pattern we’ve covered in why Google Ads leads don’t convert even when cost per lead looks fine and in building a B2B lead generation funnel that actually qualifies). Whether AI Max’s broader intent-matching helps or hurts that qualification problem in a given account is genuinely unresolved until it’s been run and measured.
What to check before the automatic migration reaches your account
- Audit whether current Search campaigns use campaign-level broad match, ACA or DSA ad groups — many accounts run at least one without it being a deliberate recent decision
- If upgrading voluntarily, use Google’s transition tools or one-click experiments to benchmark AI Max against the existing setup before switching everything over
- For DSA specifically, use the extra months to test deliberately rather than simply deferring the decision to February
- Record baseline performance now — conversion volume, cost per lead, and where possible lead quality — since campaigns can look structurally different in reporting once migrated, which makes before-and-after comparisons harder to trust after the fact
- If a developer or agency manages the account through the Google Ads API or scripts, confirm they’ve reviewed any references to the legacy entities ahead of the September 2027 API sunset
- If the account is managed by an external agency, ask directly whether they’ve already reviewed which of your campaigns fall into the September migration window, rather than assuming it’s been handled
What to watch next
Google has already revised this timeline once in response to advertiser pressure, so treat the current dates as the best information available rather than as fixed. It’s also worth watching whether Google publishes more granular guidance on how AI Max search-term reporting differs from the account history it’s replacing, since that’s the detail most likely to affect how confidently a business can judge its own campaign performance through the transition.
None of this calls for an overreaction. AI Max extends automation that’s already been running inside most Search accounts in some form for a while — it isn’t an entirely new system arriving from nowhere. But an unreviewed automatic migration is still worth watching rather than letting happen silently, especially for accounts where cost per lead and lead quality are already being tracked closely. If you’d rather have a specific audit of which campaigns in your account are affected, and a controlled test of AI Max before Google migrates it for you, MRVS’s Advertising Services team can review your account structure ahead of the deadline rather than reacting to whatever Google’s timeline does next.
