AI Max is the newest setting on a Search campaign, and flipping it changes three things at once. It lets the keywords match searches that aren't on the list. It lets Google write ad text from the business's website. And it lets Google route the click to a page of its own choosing.
Each of those can find customers a keyword list would miss. Each also takes away a piece of the control the earlier chapters of this guide spent their time building: the exact match list from Chapter 6, the ads written from the page in Chapter 8, the town pages in Chapter 4.
This chapter explains what AI Max does, why Google's own setup notes make it a poor fit for a new local account, and how a local business that's ready for it can keep it on a short leash. It's the last step of the rollout, which is why it comes last in this guide's core chapters.
AI Max Lets a Local Account's Keywords Match Searches Nobody Put on the List.
The center of AI Max is a feature Google calls search term matching. Google describes it as reaching past the account's keywords two ways: by broad matching them, and by matching searches to the business with no keyword at all. In practice, a campaign with AI Max on behaves much like a campaign full of broad match keywords, with the business's landing pages and ads feeding the matching as well.
AI Max also arrives pre-selected on a new Search campaign, the default Chapter 9 told local businesses to untick before their first campaign goes live.
For a plumber, the difference is easy to see. An exact match keyword for "water heater repair" waits for that search. With AI Max, the same campaign can enter auctions for "tankless water heater not heating," "water heater pilot light won't stay lit" or "water heater making popping noise," some of which come from people ready to hire and some from people looking for a free answer.
With AI Max On, Google Can Rewrite a Plumber's Headlines and Pick a Different Landing Page.
The other two features change what the searcher sees after the match.
Text customization generates ad text from the business's website, landing pages, existing ads and keywords. For a local business that wrote its ads by Chapter 8's rule, with every headline something the page proves, that adds lines nobody checked against the page.
Final URL expansion is the page swap: a click meant for the plumber's water heater page can land on whichever page of the site Google rates higher for that search, within the ad group's theme. Google's setup page notes two connections worth knowing. Final URL expansion requires text customization, so turning text customization off turns both off. Pinning doesn't survive the swap either: once Google sends the click to another page, the license number or offer terms a business pinned in Chapter 8 can go unshown.
For a local account built around town pages and service pages, the landing page is half the ad. A searcher in one suburb who lands on the page written for another, or a coupon searcher who lands on a page without the coupon, is the same mismatch Chapter 4 warned about, now chosen by Google instead of a template.
Google Says AI Max Needs Smart Bidding Aimed at Conversions. A Business Still Bidding by Hand Can't Use It Well.
Google's setup page is plain about what AI Max needs to work: "Features like search term matching, final URL expansion, and text customization require conversion-based Smart Bidding strategies in order to function effectively."
That's the clearest reason AI Max doesn't belong in a new local account. Chapter 7 keeps a local account on manual bids until it holds about 30 quality conversions a month, because automated bidding has little to learn from below that. AI Max widens matching on the assumption that Smart Bidding will price each new search by how likely it is to convert. Without that bidding, the account is paying for searches it never chose, with bids that can't tell a booking from a browse.
In this guide's terms, the Exploration campaign already bids that way, with a cost target as our guardrail. A plumber's campaign on hand-set bids, or one bidding only for clicks, can't value the new searches AI Max brings. Doing it there amounts to bolting broad match onto an exact match list without touching the bids.
It also needs real conversions, not page views. The quality conversions Chapter 1 set up, calls long enough to be real, booked appointments, completed forms and booked jobs sent back, are what let Smart Bidding tell a profitable new search from a waste.
AI Max Isn't Where a Local Account Starts. Performance Max Should Already Be Bringing in Calls First.
Line the campaigns up in the order this guide has added them, and AI Max sits at the end:
- Isolation from day one: exact match on the searches that book jobs, manual bids.
- Exploration at about 30 quality conversions a month: a separate campaign with broad match and Smart Bidding.
- Performance Max, aimed at leads, once that volume holds.
- AI Max, only when the first three each bring in paid work month after month.
Two rules hold even then. AI Max never goes on the Isolation campaign, whose whole job is to protect the known searches at known prices. And it goes on the Exploration campaign first, with enough budget that Google doesn't flag the campaign as limited by budget, since Google says AI Max won't be effective otherwise. That way the search terms it brings in can be judged against the campaign's results before and after.
Many single-location businesses will never take this step, and the account doesn't suffer for it. The Exploration campaign's broad match already reaches beyond the list, under tighter control.
AI Max Writes From Pages Across the Whole Site, Including the Expired Coupon and the Service You Dropped.
Because text customization draws on the business's website, the website becomes ad copy. A local site with an offer that has no expiry date, or a "24/7" claim the hours don't back up, hands AI Max material to write from. Both turned up in our St. Louis sample: 10 of the 12 ran at least one offer with no expiry date or a past date still live. So would a page for a service the business has stopped offering.
Google gives a business several ways to rein that in:
- Text guidelines, which let a business set term exclusions, words or phrases it never wants in its ads, and messaging restrictions on the tone of the generated text. For a coupon-heavy site, a messaging restriction against stating prices does more than excluding the dollar sign.
- URL exclusions, which keep Final URL expansion off certain pages. For a local account, the town pages and coupon pages are the first to exclude. URL inclusions work differently: with Final URL expansion on, they add pages to the ones Google can choose, and they only limit Google to the chosen pages when Final URL expansion is off. Both stop pinned lines from serving.
- Brand exclusions and inclusions, so a St. Louis plumber's AI Max campaign stays off a rival plumber's name, and off its own name too, since Chapter 5 gave that its own campaign.
One local-specific feature works in the business's favor. AI Max can set locations of interest at the ad group level (a different thing from the "Presence or interest" setting Chapter 9 turned off), and Google says that when a search names a place, "the location mentioned in the user's query is considered first." Searchers still have to meet the campaign's location targeting, so the presence setting from Chapter 9 keeps doing its job.
Our plumbers guide shows these controls for one trade, with text guidelines written for a plumbing company.
AI Max Will Buy Searches Nobody Chose. The Search Terms Report Shows Which Ones.
The practitioners we studied for this guide mostly keep AI Max off, citing irrelevant traffic and lead quality. The ones who use it keep it on a tight rein: one keeps Final URL expansion off, and another says the search terms "need a lot of policing."
Google makes the policing possible. Every search AI Max adds is tagged as such in the search terms report, with a column saying whether it came from widening a keyword or from matching with no keyword. The report also shows the headline and landing page that served, so a business can see when Google wrote a line or picked a page it wouldn't have.
For the first month, that report is a daily read. For a plumber, the searches to watch for are familiar: job seekers ("plumber jobs"), do-it-yourselfers ("how to fix a running toilet"), searches naming towns outside the service area, and other plumbers' company names. Every search that doesn't fit the business goes on the negative list, at the campaign level or on a shared list the other campaigns use too. Every generated headline that promises something the page doesn't support comes out. Every landing page that doesn't match the search goes on the URL exclusions.
Practitioners quoting Google's interface report it tells advertisers "most advertisers see 14% more conversions" with AI Max. That's Google's claim. Another practitioner, reporting a similar Google figure from Google's 2026 event, pointed out that Google gave the conversion lift but not the change in cost per conversion. A plumber judges ads by the cost per booked job, so the missing cost figure is the one to ask for.
Next: Google LSA Ads Can Bill You for a Call Nobody Answered During Business Hours.
That completes the core of this guide. The three bonus chapters cover the questions local businesses ask most, starting with Local Services Ads: how Google's pay-per-lead product charges, and why we run it only as a test beside Search.
Every chapter is on the guide's home page. If you'd rather have someone decide when AI Max is ready, our Google Ads management turns it on only after a local account's other campaigns are booking work, and reads the search terms every day while it learns.
