A Field Reference, April 2026
AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is a feature suite that sits on top of existing Search campaigns, layering AI-driven matching and creative on the same auction infrastructure advertisers already use. Once enabled, it changes how queries are matched to your ads, how your ad text is generated, and which page on your site the click lands on.
The three core components can be turned on individually. Each operates at the campaign level. Each replaces or extends a manual control you used to set yourself.
How Search Term Matching Works
Existing Search campaigns match queries to keywords you list. Broad match already widens that net, but you still need to tell Google what to bid on.
AI Max adds keywordless expansion on top of broad match. Once on, the system matches your ads to relevant queries you did not list as keywords at all, using your landing page, existing assets, and conversion history as signals.
Google’s own example: an apparel brand running exact match on “red midi dress” would not match a search for “colorful midi dresses for spring and summer”. With AI Max, that same campaign matches the longer query.
Negative keyword lists and brand exclusions still constrain what the system can match to. Those controls do not disappear. They become more important as the matching surface widens.
How Text Customization Works
Standard Search campaigns let you write up to fifteen headlines and four descriptions per responsive search ad. The system rotates and recombines them based on predicted performance.
Text customization in AI Max generates additional headlines and descriptions on the fly, drawing from your landing page content, your existing assets, and the searcher’s query. The generated text is attributed in reporting so you can see which AI-written headlines drove which conversions.
For brand-sensitive advertisers, brand controls operate at the campaign and ad group level. You can specify which brands your ads can appear alongside, and which they cannot. This is the lever that prevents AI-generated copy from drifting into competitor language or making claims that conflict with your brand voice.
How Final URL Expansion Works
By default, every ad points at one final URL. Final URL expansion lets the system send a click to a different page on the same site if the AI judges that page more relevant to the searcher’s query.
The control is “URL contains” rules. You can specify which URL patterns are eligible, or ineligible, for expansion. For example, a senior living advertiser could limit expansion to /independent-living/, /assisted-living/, and /memory-care/ paths, and exclude /careers/, /board/, and /donate/ entirely.
When expansion is off, the original final URL is the only landing page. When it is on without URL contains rules, the entire site is eligible.
Locations of Interest
Geo targeting in standard campaigns is built around where the searcher physically is, or where their browsing history suggests they spend time. Locations of interest is a separate ad-group-level layer that surfaces searchers whose query implies geographic intent, even if they are not in or near that location at the time.
A search for “memory care near Boston” run from a phone in Chicago is the kind of query this targets. The searcher is researching for someone in Boston. With locations of interest, the targeting is explicit, and the reporting shows the geography of intent rather than the geography of the searcher.
This feature only exists inside AI Max. Standard Search campaigns do not have it.
Reporting Changes
The search terms report now includes the AI-generated headlines and the final URLs that were served alongside each query. Asset reports show conversion contribution per asset, not just impressions. These two changes are most of how you audit whether AI Max is doing what you want, and the only way to catch AI-generated copy that drifts off-brand.
When Opting In Is Worth It, When It Is Not
AI Max rewards conversion-rich campaigns with clean tracking. The system needs signal to learn from. Campaigns with thin or noisy conversion data get worse results, not better, when matching is widened.
It also rewards landing pages that carry their own weight. Final URL expansion only works if the alternative pages on your site are genuinely more relevant for some searches than the designated final URL. Sites with shallow service pages, or pages that have not been written for search intent, do not benefit.
For regulated industries the calculus is different. Healthcare advertisers run into Google’s policy layer on what pages can be matched to which queries. Financial services advertisers face the same. Legal advertisers too. In those verticals, the safer move is to enable AI Max one feature at a time, watch for what gets matched and where the clicks land, and roll back the features that produce policy noise.
For everyone else, the question is whether you can keep up with the audit work. AI Max produces more decisions per week than the system it replaces. The reporting is there to catch drift, but only if someone reads it.
What You Keep Your Hands On
- Conversion architecture stays yours. What the system optimizes toward, how conversions are weighted, which actions count as primary.
- Brand voice stays yours. Pinning, brand inclusions and exclusions, and the rules that shape what the AI can write about your products.
- Geo and audience signals stay yours. AI Max changes how queries are matched, not who you are reaching out to.
- Negative keyword lists, URL contains rules, and per-feature opt-outs are the controls that scale with how aggressive the AI gets. Use them.