Google Ads will push DSA campaigns into AI Max in September

Google Ads is making AI Max the default route for a major slice of Search campaign automation, not just adding another optional toggle. In an April 15 Ads & Commerce post, Google said AI Max for Search campaigns is moving out of beta and that legacy Dynamic Search Ads, automatically created assets, and campaign-level broad match settings will be moved into AI Max in September.

The scale is the story. Google says hundreds of thousands of global advertisers are already scaling Search campaigns with AI Max. It also cites internal 2026 data for non-Retail advertisers: when the full feature suite is enabled, search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion produce an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA/ROAS than search term matching alone.

The migration schedule gives advertisers a narrow window to test before the defaults change. Google says DSA users are getting upgrade tools starting this week to port historical settings and data into new standard ad groups. In September, remaining eligible campaigns with legacy settings will upgrade automatically, and advertisers will no longer be able to create new DSA campaigns through Google Ads, Google Ads Editor, or the Google Ads API.

The operational risk is in the mapping. Dynamic ad groups move into standard ad groups; DSA users get all three AI Max features enabled while preserving legacy URL controls; automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match settings receive their own defaults. For teams that still treat DSA as a predictable catch-all, September is the deadline to run controlled experiments instead of discovering performance changes after the account has already moved. Source: Google Ads & Commerce Blog.

The other consequence is API-level housekeeping. When new DSA creation ends in Google Ads API as well as the UI, agencies and in-house tooling need to audit scripts that still create or clone DSA structures. The change is therefore both a performance bet and a migration deadline for ad operations code.