Google is porting its Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) system, which automatically generates Search ads based on the content of an advertiser’s webpage rather than preset keywords, into AI Max, its AI-powered hub for Search ads. As part of the transition, AI Max is now out of beta and available to users globally.
Voluntary migration to AI Max will begin this week, but in September, the company plans to upgrade all campaigns using DSA, as well as legacy tools like automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match, to their equivalents on the new platform.
Debuted last spring, AI Max helps advertisers anticipate user intent rather than rely on outdated keyword strategies—even for complex queries. It includes a range of AI-powered capabilities for identifying right-fit search terms, text tweaking, and determining which of a brand’s webpages to route users to. The system is what Google views as “the future platform for Search campaigns,” in the words of Brandon Ervin, director of product management at Google Ads.
The decision to move AI Max out of beta now is informed, at least in part, by the sea change happening in online search generally. Users are increasingly opting for AI search engines like Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT rather than traditional search engines. Today, some 37% of consumers begin their searches with AI tools rather than search engines, according to a recent study from marketing firm Eight Oh Two. With that shift—and the advent of Google’s AI Overviews atop search results—users are clicking through to website links at lower rates, decimating publishers’ traffic while upending traditional search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Plus, as queries grow longer, more nuanced, and more conversational, the challenges of nailing keyword variations and mastering user intent only deepen.
In this environment, DSA doesn’t offer the same value it once did, Ervin suggested. “For years, DSA has been this really great catchall campaign for advertisers to help capture the long tail of traffic that they might not have been getting with manual keyword campaigns,” he said. “But search continues to become a lot more dynamic, a lot more complex and unpredictable, and so it’s hard to continue to keep up with that.”
Getting advertisers onto AI Max, Google hopes, will help them participate and compete more effectively on Search.
“We want to continue to help advertisers move towards campaigns and setups that help them optimize AI and move away from some of these manual, high-intensity tasks like keyword management, DSA management, things like that, and focus more on some of the strategic efforts going forward,” Ervin said. And so far, he believes, “AI Max has done a great job handling the creative and targeting automation while keeping advertisers firmly in control.”
