AI Max for Search is an optional setting for Google Ads Search campaigns that lets Google’s AI go beyond your keywords, ad text and chosen landing pages. Switched on, it can show your ads for searches your keywords would not have matched, adjust headlines and descriptions using content from your website, and send people to the page on your site it judges most relevant.
How AI Max for Search works
Google introduced AI Max in 2025 as a bundle of features you turn on at campaign level. At the time of writing (October 2026), it has three main parts:
- Search term matching. Google uses your keywords, ads and landing pages as signals to find related searches, in a similar way to broad match but extended to queries none of your keywords would have caught.
- Text customisation. Google writes or adapts ad text based on your existing assets and website, to fit each search more closely.
- Final URL expansion. Google can send a click to a different page on your site from the one you set, if it thinks that page matches the search better. This works like final URL expansion in Performance Max.
You keep some controls. Brand settings let you include or exclude searches mentioning particular brands, URL rules can stop Google sending traffic to certain pages, and location controls at ad group level help where different ad groups serve different areas. Your normal negative keywords still apply. Reporting shows which searches came through AI Max and which landing pages it chose, so you can judge the extra traffic separately.
Why it matters
For a UK business with a well-built Search account, AI Max can find demand you were missing, especially long, conversational searches that are hard to predict with keywords. It suits accounts where conversion tracking is reliable, because Google decides what to chase based on the conversions you report.
The risk is that you give up precision. A London accountant who bids only on “small business accountant London” may find ads appearing for searches about free tax return help or accountancy jobs. Generated text can also say things you would not say. That matters more in regulated sectors: an FCA-regulated firm, a clinic under ASA rules or a solicitor still answers for every claim in the ad, whoever wrote it.
Common mistakes
- Switching it on across every campaign at once, so you cannot tell what it added.
- Running it with weak or broken conversion tracking, which teaches it to chase the wrong clicks.
- Allowing final URL expansion on a site full of blog posts, careers pages and old landing pages.
- Not reviewing the generated ad text, even though it appears under your name.
- Never reading the search terms it matched, then wondering why cost per lead rose.
How to act on it
Treat AI Max as a test, not a default. Pick one campaign with steady conversion volume and trusted tracking, and use a campaign experiment to compare it with the same campaign without AI Max. Before starting, exclude the URLs you never want used as landing pages, tighten your negative keyword lists and decide which text customisation you are comfortable with.
Review the search terms report weekly during the test, filtered to AI Max matches, and judge the result on cost per qualified lead or sale, not on clicks. If you would like a second pair of eyes on whether it suits your account, that is part of how I approach Google search ads management.