What Google changed in the schedule
The official announcement about the move to AI Max includes a clarification dated June 11, 2026: the start of the automatic DSA upgrade was postponed to February 2027. This is separate from campaigns that use Automatically Created Assets or the campaign-level broad match setting, for which the move still starts in September 2026. It is important to read the updated clarification, because the original wording of the announcement also remains on the same page.
AI Max widens how matching to searches works and combines text matching with final URL expansion. The announcement is not proof of improvement in a specific account; the effect depends on the site, the conversions and the settings.
Map the account before any change
Our recommendation is to prepare a list of DSA campaigns, ad groups, page targets, exclusions and performance data. Also save the search terms reports and the landing pages that received traffic. That way, after the move you can tell whether a change in cost comes from bids, from volume of exposure, or from traffic to other pages.
For a business with several services, decide in advance which pages are not suitable for advertising: job listings, informational articles, service areas that are not active, or products that are out of stock. Check which URL and brand controls are actually available in the account.
How to test the move without losing a baseline
Choose activity at a scale you can test and record the day of the change. Compare quality inquiries, cost per quality inquiry, spend and landing pages, and not only the reported number of conversions. If a suitable experiment option is available, use it instead of changing the whole account at once.
Set stop conditions in advance: for example, traffic to an irrelevant service, or a tracking fault. There is no reason to wait for a test period to end when the traffic itself is not suitable. On the other hand, a small daily fluctuation is not enough to reject a change.
Source and further reading
Facts about the platform are based on the linked source. The working recommendations and examples are our professional analysis. Checked on October 25, 2026.
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