Google’s latest campaign update, AI Max for Search, is now appearing in advertiser accounts.
Following its announcement at Google Marketing Live 2025, AI Max represents a new frontier for Search campaigns. It is designed for how people search today: with long-tail queries, conversational phrasing, image-based inputs, and more open-ended discovery behavior. Rather than relying on exact-match keywords, it taps into AI to decode intent and optimise campaigns in real time. And now, it’s live.
We share a breakdown of what AI Max is, why it matters, and how early performance is shaping up.
What Is AI Max for Search?
AI Max is an AI-powered campaign type that blends Google’s most advanced targeting and creative capabilities into one simplified format.
Think of it as: Search meets Performance Max (PMax) but with greater transparency, more control, and smarter use of AI.
Key Features of AI Max for Search
Here’s what sets AI Max apart:
- Keywordless Search Matching: Uses your landing page, ad assets, and site content to find relevant queries you haven’t explicitly targeted.
- Dynamic Creative: Text assets are auto-generated to match user intent and context.
- Final URL Expansion: Ensures users land on the most relevant product or category page.
- Ad Group-Level Brand & Location Controls: A welcome return for advertisers seeking more control in automated campaigns.
- Enhanced Asset Reporting: See performance data across spend, CTR, conversions, and ROAS at the individual asset level.
Why AI Max Matters
As user behaviour shifts, so must the tools marketers use to reach them.
Search isn’t just about keywords anymore. Queries today are more complex, conversational, and multimodal than ever before. Consumers are asking questions, submitting images, and seeking discovery, not just typing keywords.
AI Max is Google’s answer to this evolution. Instead of targeting narrow, predefined terms, it focuses on understanding intent and responding in real time with contextualised and tailored experiences.
For advertisers, it opens the door to:
- New demand you weren’t previously capturing.
- Smarter automation without sacrificing control.
- Richer insights into what messaging and landing pages truly perform.
What This Means for Advertisers
Unlock Untapped Demand
Capture relevant queries you may not have bid on before, without the need for an exhaustive keyword list.
Smarter Automation Without Sacrificing Control
While the system automates targeting and creative, you still retain brand, location, and landing page control. This helps you move towards more confident scaling.
Richer Strategic Insights
The new asset-level reporting reveals which combinations of copy, creative, and landing pages perform best, fueling smarter optimisations and A/B tests.
What We’re Seeing So Far
At 360 OM, we’ve started spotting AI Max campaigns live in accounts. While performance benchmarks are still early, we’re seeing encouraging signals, especially in categories where search intent is broad or less structured.
While it’s still too early to declare definitive benchmarks, here’s what we’re observing:
- Increased impression volume across previously low-performing queries.
- Stronger CTR and engagement rates where dynamic creative better matches user context.
- Some variability in conversion performance, depending on how well final URL expansion is aligned with product availability and landing page quality.
Our Take
AI Max is not just another campaign format. It is one of the most meaningful updates to Google Search campaigns in years.
It signals the growing role of AI in understanding intent, automating creatives, and expanding reach. And crucially, AI Max strikes a balance between automation and advertiser control.
What’s Next
We’re currently developing:
- Testing frameworks to evaluate AI Max performance vs. traditional Search and PMax.
- Landing page strategies that align with Final URL Expansion.
- Creative best practices to optimise AI-generated assets.
As the rollout continues, we’ll be sharing more case studies, data-driven learnings, and integration strategies to help marketers get the most out of this new tool.
Stay tuned. AI Max is just the beginning of what’s shaping up to be a new era of Search.
Need a fresh perspective? Let’s talk.
At 360 OM, we specialise in helping businesses take their marketing efforts to the next level. Our team stays on top of industry trends, uses data-informed decisions to maximise your ROI, and provides full transparency through comprehensive reports.
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