North American Media Experts
Google retires Dynamic Search Ads in September 2026 with auto-migration to AI Max. Here's the playbook: timeline, six-step framework, and pitfalls to avoid.
9 min read
Starting in September 2026, Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), automatically created assets, and campaign-level broad match will be automatically upgraded to AI Max for Search campaigns. New DSA campaigns won't be creatable in Google Ads, Google Ads Editor, or the Google Ads API after that point. For many advertisers, this is the biggest change to Search since the move from expanded text ads to responsive search ads. Our paid search team is already migrating client accounts ahead of the deadline.
If you're running DSA today, doing nothing is technically allowed — Google will migrate the campaign for you. But that's also the worst option. Automatic migrations are designed for the broad middle of the market, not for the specifics of your account, your negatives, or your landing-page strategy. This guide gives you a practical DSA to AI Max migration playbook: what AI Max actually is, the timeline you need to plan around, a six-step framework to move campaigns over, and the pitfalls we're already seeing trip teams up in early upgrades.
AI Max is Google's replacement for the layered set of expansion tools that have shaped Search for the last decade — DSA, broad match, and automatically created assets — combined into one Gemini-powered system. Instead of bolting expansion features onto a keyword-driven campaign, AI Max treats your landing pages, ad copy, and feeds as the primary signal and lets the model match those signals to user queries.
Three components do the heavy lifting:
Layered on top is AI Brief, a Gemini-powered control panel that lets you write the context the AI should respect — your brand voice, what you sell, what audiences you want to reach, and what you want the AI to avoid. AI Brief is what makes AI Max meaningfully different from a simple broad-match-and-hope setup. It's where the migration work actually pays off.
Google's rollout is happening in two phases, and the difference between them is the difference between control and being pushed.
Phase 1: now through August 2026. Manual upgrade tools are already live inside Google Ads. You can port your historical DSA targets, exclusions, and performance data into new AI Max ad groups on your own schedule. This is the window where you decide what gets kept, what gets cut, and how aggressively the AI is allowed to expand from your existing footprint.
Phase 2: September 2026. Any eligible Search campaign still running DSA, automatically created assets, or campaign-level broad match will be automatically upgraded. Google expects all migrations to be complete by the end of September. After that, you cannot create new DSA campaigns at all.
The performance signal matters here. Google reports that AI Max delivers an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS when advertisers use the full feature suite versus running search term matching alone. That's a meaningful lift for non-retail accounts, but only if you do the migration work. Accounts that get force-migrated without an AI Brief, refreshed negative lists, or updated assets often see the opposite — expanded reach against irrelevant queries with no human guardrails. The good outcome requires preparation.
There's a tempting argument for doing nothing and letting September take care of it. It's the wrong argument for three reasons.
First, control over the test. Migrating manually in May, June, or July means you can run AI Max alongside your existing DSA setup, measure incremental conversions cleanly, and learn which AI Max levers actually move your numbers. Migrating in September means you discover what works while it's already spending your money.
Second, negative keyword and brand discipline. Forced migrations import a snapshot of your current account but don't audit it. If your negative lists are stale — and most accounts' are — AI Max will happily spend against terms a sharper review would have caught. We covered the audit groundwork in our 10-step Google Ads account audit checklist for 2026, and that audit is the prerequisite to a clean migration, not an afterthought.
Third, creative readiness. AI Max's text customization is only as good as the asset library it has to work from. Accounts running on three headlines and two descriptions won't get the 7% lift; they'll get bland rewrites. Migrating early gives you time to expand your asset variety, add brand pinning where you need it, and write an AI Brief that captures the nuance your business actually requires.
Use this framework on every campaign you intend to move. It works whether you have one DSA campaign or thirty.
Step 1: Audit your current DSA performance and exclusions. Pull the last 90 days of search term reports for each DSA campaign. Tag the top 25 converting query themes and the top 25 wasted-spend query themes. The first list becomes context for AI Brief; the second becomes your starting negative list. If your account hasn't been audited in the last quarter, do that first — see the audit checklist for the order of operations.
Step 2: Document landing page targets and category boundaries. List every URL or URL pattern your DSA campaigns currently target. Note which sections of the site are off limits (legal pages, blog content not meant to monetize, out-of-stock categories). AI Max's final URL expansion will reach into your whole site by default, so explicit exclusions are non-negotiable.
Step 3: Create new AI Max ad groups in parallel. Don't overwrite the DSA campaign. Build an AI Max ad group alongside it and split traffic. Use experiment or campaign-level budget pacing to give each side a fair test. Plan for a 14- to 28-day learning period before drawing conclusions.
Step 4: Enable the full feature suite, not just one piece. The 7% lift Google cites depends on running search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion together. Turning on just one — typically what cautious advertisers do — leaves the value on the table. Enable all three, then constrain through AI Brief and negatives rather than by switching features off.
Step 5: Write a real AI Brief. This is the single highest-leverage step. A useful AI Brief includes: your business model in one sentence, who you sell to, what you don't sell, your tone of voice, regulated-claim language to avoid, and any geographic or seasonal constraints. Think of it as onboarding a new media buyer who has never seen your account. Treat it as a living document and update it monthly.
Step 6: Stage budget shifts based on quality metrics, not volume. When the AI Max ad group is hitting your CPA or ROAS targets on a representative sample of spend, shift budget over in tranches — 25%, then 50%, then 100% — rather than flipping the switch. Watch share-of-voice and search term reports daily for the first two weeks.
The migration story doesn't stop at Search. AI Max is rolling out to Shopping campaigns and travel-specific ad formats on a similar trajectory. For retailers, AI Max for Shopping uses your Merchant Center feed to transform product data into dynamic shopping ads that answer conversational, AI-generated queries — the kind of long-tail searches that standard Shopping campaigns historically miss.
For travel advertisers, AI Max introduces formats designed for the high-research, multi-step path travel buyers actually take. Both expansions follow the same logic: feeds and site content become the primary input, and AI bridges the gap to whatever the user is asking. If you run both Search and Shopping, plan your migration sequencing — Search first, then Shopping — so the lessons from one transfer to the next. A useful starting point on the broader channel question is our breakdown of paid social vs. programmatic in the modern channel mix, which frames how Search fits into the larger media plan.
We're already seeing repeatable mistakes in early AI Max upgrades. Watch for these.
Treating AI Max like a set-and-forget upgrade. The AI handles matching and creative variation, but it doesn't manage your strategy. Brand safety, negative keywords, and asset quality still need a human owner. Plan for 30 to 45 minutes per campaign per week during the first quarter post-migration.
Cutting headlines and descriptions instead of adding them. Some teams remove pinned headlines and constrained assets to let the AI work. This is backwards. AI Max performs best when it has a rich asset library to remix from. Aim for the maximum of 15 headlines and 4 descriptions per ad, with pinning used sparingly for legal or brand-mandatory copy only.
Ignoring final URL expansion controls. URL expansion is the feature most likely to surprise you. Use exclusions to keep traffic out of low-converting pages, careers pages, and any URL that contains parameters you don't want crawled by the AI. Review the destination URL report weekly.
Forgetting that attribution has also changed. AI Max launches into the same conversion-measurement landscape that Meta's 2026 attribution update has been reshaping for paid social. Cross-channel attribution is messier than it was 12 months ago, and the temptation to over-credit AI Max for lifts that come from other channels is real. Use experiments and incrementality checks, not just last-click reports.
Skipping the budget conversation. AI Max's expanded reach means more eligible auctions, which can mean faster spend pacing if you don't update budgets. Revisit campaign budgets at the same time you migrate — our 2026 Google Ads budget guide lays out a framework for sizing spend against business goals.
The DSA-to-AI-Max migration is not an isolated event. It's part of a broader move in which Google, Meta, and every major ad platform are consolidating manual levers into AI-driven systems that depend on three inputs: your assets, your feeds, and your first-party signals. The platforms are getting better at matching. Your competitive edge is increasingly the quality of the inputs you feed them.
Practically, that means three priorities for the next 90 days. Get your asset library deep and on-brand. Audit your negative keywords and brand safety controls. And invest in first-party data so the AI has high-quality conversion signals to optimize against. The accounts that win in the AI Max era are the ones that show up to September prepared. The ones that don't will find out in October that automatic migration is not the same as a successful one.
If you'd like an outside read on your DSA campaigns before the September deadline — a migration plan, a brief draft, or a full digital advertising services review — our team can help. Request a custom quote and we'll come back with a concrete next step within one business day.
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