Starting in September 2026, Google began automatically upgrading certain Search campaigns to AI Max, a setting that shows your ads on searches beyond your chosen keywords and writes ad text from your website. It hit campaigns using Dynamic Search Ads, campaign-level broad match, or automatically created assets. Check your search terms report for junk queries and block them.
If you run Google Ads, your account may have changed without you touching it.
What happened: an automatic upgrade to AI Max
Google announced in April 2026 that it would upgrade certain Search campaigns to AI Max, a feature that lets Google show your ads on searches beyond the keywords you've chosen and write ad copy pulled from your website. The upgrade targets campaigns already using Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), the campaign-level broad match setting, or the "automatically created assets" option. Voluntary upgrades opened first, and starting in September, Google began automatically upgrading the remaining eligible Search campaigns still on those legacy settings. Google says it expects all upgrades for eligible campaigns to be complete by the end of September 2026 (Google, Apr 2026).
Why it matters: your ads can now chase searches you never chose
AI Max loosens two of the controls contractors usually rely on to keep ad spend targeted. First, it can show your ad on searches that don't match your actual keyword list, based on Google's own judgment of relevance. Second, it can generate ad text directly from your website rather than the copy you wrote and approved. For a home services account, that combination means budget can start flowing toward searches, and messaging, you didn't sign off on.
What to do this week
- Pull your search terms report now. Look specifically for anything that landed in your account since early September.
- Flag junk searches. Common offenders in contractor accounts include "DIY," "jobs," "careers," and brand names of competitors or manufacturers you don't service.
- Add negative keywords. Block the junk terms you find so they stop pulling from your budget. Our negative keywords guide for contractors walks through how to build this list properly.
- Review the ad text Google generated. If AI Max is writing copy from your website, confirm it's saying what you'd actually want a homeowner to read.
Matt's take
The junk searches I see most often in contractor accounts are almost always some version of "DIY [service]," "how to fix [problem] myself," or someone searching for a job opening, not a service call. None of those searches were ever going to become a customer, and every one of them still costs a click.
Is AI Max a fit for a smaller-budget contractor? I'd rein it in rather than let it run loose. The broader reach sounds appealing, but a small daily budget gets eaten fast by irrelevant clicks if nobody's watching the search terms report closely. AI Max isn't automatically bad. It's automatically unsupervised, and those aren't the same thing.
On frequency: check the search terms report weekly at minimum while a campaign is on AI Max, more often in the first month after an automatic upgrade like this one. That's true whether you're managing the account yourself or paying an agency to do it. If nobody can tell you what showed up in your search terms report in the last two weeks, nobody's actually watching your budget.
