AI Max is Google's answer to a question every advertiser eventually asks: what if Google could find the searches, write the ads and choose the landing pages for me? Turn it on in a Search campaign, and it does all three. For a software account with months of qualified-lead data, that can find buyers nobody on the team would have thought to target. For a young account, it hands Google the controls before Google has learned anything useful.
Back in Chapter 9, this guide switched AI Max off at launch. This chapter covers what AI Max actually does, why its search matching won't work on the manual-bid exact match campaign, what it will copy from a software company's website, how to find out whether Google already turned it on for you and how to test it fairly.
AI Max Switches On Three Things at Once: Searches Past Your Keywords, Ad Text Google Writes and Pages Google Picks.
AI Max isn't one feature. It's a bundle of three that switch on together.
- Search term matching. Google's help page says turning on AI Max "will turn on search term matching," which expands your keywords "using broad match and keywordless technology." Your ads can show on searches you never listed, chosen from your keywords, ads and pages.
- Text customization. Google writes new ad text that "Uses text from your existing ads, landing page copy, and assets along with generative AI." The headlines Chapter 8 built from buyer reviews become a starting point, not the whole ad.
- Final URL expansion. The landing page stops being yours alone to pick. If Google thinks your integrations page answers a search better than the pricing page you set, the click goes there.
Google's setup page also confirms that every brand-new Search campaign starts life with AI Max on. That's why Chapter 9's launch checklist switched it off. Some parts can be turned off separately, and Google notes that turning off text customization automatically disables final URL expansion too.
AI Max's Search Term Matching Won't Run on Manual Bids. The Exact Match Campaign Was Never a Candidate.
A software account's exact match campaign, Isolation, sets every bid by hand, which leaves AI Max with little it can do there. Google's question-and-answer page for AI Max says plainly that its search-matching feature won't work with manual CPC bidding. On top of that, Google's setup instructions tie every part of AI Max to Smart Bidding that chases conversions.
It wouldn't belong there anyway. Isolation's whole job is to buy only searches somebody on your team chose, so the results are easy to read. AI Max's whole job is the opposite.
The only campaign in this guide's build that AI Max can join is Exploration, the broad match campaign running on target CPA. Even there, it comes last:
- After Exploration has settled, usually a month or two after its launch at about 30 qualified leads a month.
- After the CRM is sending qualified leads back (Chapter 1), so the bidding learns from buyers, not sign-ups.
- After the site is cleaned up, for the reason in the next section.
Exploration is a natural fit once it's ready. Our reading: it already runs broad match, so search term matching changes less there, and its target CPA bidding is the conversion-based Smart Bidding Google says AI Max needs. The risk is the other two parts, the ads Google writes and the pages it picks, which the next section covers.
In our reading, for many software accounts that's often four to six months after launch. For a small, sales-led product, it may be never, and the account is no worse for it.
4 of 6 Software Pricing Pages Promised an Annual Discount Some Plans Never Gave. AI Max Would Put It in Your Ads Anyway.
Text customization writes from your landing pages. Whatever your site says, AI Max can say in an ad, word for word or reworded. So before turning it on, read your own site the way an ad would.
When we checked the twelve sample software companies' sites, the copy had the kinds of mistakes an AI writer would happily repeat. Six of them advertised a saving for paying annually. Four of those six printed a label that didn't match the gap their own prices produced on every plan: a flat "20%" where one plan actually saved 16.8%, and "Save 30%" where the real gap was 22%. Two of the twelve showed different ratings or customer counts on different pages. One stated its free trial as 30 days on the home page, 31 days on the sign-up page and 60 days in ads running under another company's name.
The software reviews in Chapter 8 showed where an overpromise ends up: in a 1-star review that quotes the ad. An AI-written headline built from a wrong savings label is exactly that kind of promise, written by a tool that doesn't know it's wrong.
Three fixes before AI Max goes on:
- Audit the pages AI Max can read. Pricing, plans, trial terms, ratings and customer counts should match everywhere on the site.
- Use text guidelines. Google lets a campaign carry "up to 25 term exclusions per campaign," words AI Max may never use, and "up to 40 restrictions per campaign," plain-language rules, such as Google's own example, "Don't imply our products are discounted." Use them for the free-trial terms from Chapter 8 and for any claim you can't back.
- Fence the pages. Final URL expansion can choose from your whole site, and Chapter 10 found that blog posts and help articles made up most of the sample sites' pages. URL exclusions work at the campaign level, so rule out /blog, /help and /careers before turning it on.
Google Has Been Moving Older Search Campaigns Into AI Max on Its Own. Check Whether Yours Was One.
Some software accounts already run AI Max without anyone deciding to. Google's announcement about Dynamic Search Ads, last updated in June 2026, says campaigns that used automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting were scheduled to start moving to AI Max automatically in September 2026. The upgraded campaigns arrive with search term matching on, and those that used automatically created assets get text customization too. Dynamic Search Ads themselves begin their own move to AI Max in February 2027.
If your account has been running a while, check:
- Each Search campaign's settings for an AI Max panel and whether it's on.
- The search terms report. Rows labeled "AI Max" in the match type column are the searches it found. Add the Source column to see how Google found each one.
- The landing pages report, where a "Selected by" column shows pages AI Max chose instead of you.
If you find it on in an exact match campaign that uses manual bids, search term matching can't run there, but check whether text customization is writing ads. Finding it on in a campaign that already uses Smart Bidding means Google has been writing ads and picking pages for you. Read the last month of both reports before deciding whether to keep it.
Also check what the upgrade changed in the ads. If text customization came on, Google may have been showing headlines nobody on your team wrote. Pull the ad assets report, read every Google-written headline against your pricing and trial terms, and remove any that promise something the product doesn't deliver. Then decide, on the evidence, whether the campaign keeps AI Max or turns it off until it's ready for a proper test.
Google's AI Max Test Splits Traffic 50/50. Judge It on Qualified Leads, Not on the Conversions Google Counts.
When Exploration is ready, test AI Max instead of switching it on outright. Google offers a one-click experiment that "sets up a 50/50 split test comparing your base Search campaign against an AI Max treatment arm." A few setups block it: text customization already on in the base campaign, a portfolio bidding strategy or a shared budget.
Google's own pitch puts the typical gain at 14% more conversions, or conversion value, at about the same cost per conversion or return. That's Google's figure, measured in whatever each advertiser counts as a conversion. For a software account, that's the problem. If the experiment counts trial sign-ups, AI Max can win it by finding more sign-ups, the same trap Chapters 1 and 11 described.
Run it the way the rest of this guide measures everything:
- Judge on qualified leads from the CRM, per dollar, in each arm.
- Give it time. Google's reporting page says to wait "at least 2 weeks" after enabling AI Max before making changes like adding negatives, and qualified leads take longer than that to confirm.
- Read the search terms labeled AI Max, and add the junk to the negative list once the two weeks are up.
- Keep your brand out. Add your brand to AI Max's brand exclusions so it can't claim the searches the brand campaign from Chapter 12 already wins.
If the AI Max arm brings more qualified leads at a cost Chapter 3's payback math accepts, keep it. If it brings more sign-ups and the same number of qualified leads, it found more of what you didn't want.
Next: "Alternative" Searches Are Tiny and Carry Software's Highest Bids. Run Them Apart, Aimed at a Comparison Page.
AI Max is the last of Google's campaign features this guide covers. Chapter 14 returns to a search only software companies fight over: buyers typing a rival's name plus "alternative."
Every chapter, from tracking to brand campaigns, competitor campaigns and the rules for free trials, is on the guide's home page. Chapter 12 covers the brand campaign AI Max should be kept away from.
For software clients in our Google Ads management work, AI Max is tested only on the broad match campaign, only after the pricing page has been checked line by line, and only against qualified leads. Open your own pricing page today and check whether every saving it advertises matches the prices underneath it.
