Google to migrate Search campaigns to AI Max in September 2026

Google has announced a transition for Search campaigns to its AI Max solution. Starting September 1, 2026, campaigns utilizing automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match will undergo a progressive migration throughout the month.

Technical details released via the Google Ads Developer Blog indicate that the creation of legacy configurations was disabled in late August to prepare for the rollout. To assist with performance tracking during this period, Google is introducing two new reporting fields: ‘campaign.aca_migration_date_time’ and ‘campaign.broad_match_migration_date_time’. These timestamps allow advertisers to identify exactly when a campaign’s targeting behavior changed.

The migration is divided into two phases. Phase 1, covering campaign-level broad match and standalone automatically created assets, begins in September 2026. Phase 2, which includes Dynamic Search Ads, has been rescheduled for February 2027. A grace period for older API versions is expected to continue into 2027.

Additionally, Google Ads is expanding its customer acquisition settings with a new report to monitor newly acquired customers without requiring changes to existing bidding strategies. The company is also testing ‘Exploratory Smart Bidding,’ a beta feature utilizing AI and flexible target ROAS values.