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AI Max for Search campaigns

AI Max for Search campaigns is a set of Google AI features inside a Search campaign that reach queries beyond its keywords and adapt ad text and landing pages.

How it works

AI Max is a layer switched on inside an existing Search campaign, not a separate campaign type. It adds three features:

  • search term matching uses broad match and keywordless technology to show ads on queries beyond the campaign’s keywords (see match types);
  • text customization writes headlines and descriptions from the landing page, the ads and the keywords;
  • final URL expansion sends the click to the page Google finds most relevant.

Brand controls, URL inclusions and exclusions, and locations of interest let you steer it. In the Google Ads API, switching AI Max on turns on only search term matching by default; you opt in to text customization and final URL expansion separately.

If the account also runs Performance Max, which shows ads on Google Search too, a Search campaign widened by AI Max can reach the same queries. Part of what AI Max brings may be sales that Performance Max used to get (how to test AI Max).

Google also uses the AI Max name for AI Max for Shopping, announced in April 2026 for Shopping campaigns. This entry covers Search.

Where you see it

You switch AI Max on for a whole Search campaign; in the Google Ads API, this is the field Campaign.ai_max_setting.enable_ai_max. The search terms report shows headlines and landing page URLs next to the queries. In the Google Ads API, queries matched through AI Max carry the match source AI_MAX_BROAD_MATCH or AI_MAX_KEYWORDLESS.

Not to be confused with

  • Performance Max — a separate campaign type that shows ads across Google’s channels. AI Max stays inside a Search campaign and builds on its keywords.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The Search campaign got more conversions after AI Max was switched on, so the store gained sales.” Right: some of those queries may have gone to Performance Max before; the gain is the change in Search and Performance Max taken together.

Sources