Google has delayed the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max for Search from September 2026 to February 2027, and restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns from 15 June 2026. AI Max expands your matching far beyond your keyword list, so without governance it will find ways to spend on queries you would never consciously target. Treat the delay as a runway, not a reprieve. The accounts that come through the migration unscathed are the ones that build a negative keyword governance system in the months they have just been handed.

Here is the uncomfortable truth. When your Dynamic Search Ads are migrated to Google AI Max, the loose grip you thought you had on what you were paying for gets looser. DSA already lets Google choose queries based on your site content. AI Max widens that further with AI-powered matching that reaches well beyond your keywords. The brands that feel the migration as a quiet, painful drift in performance will be the ones who assumed the spending guardrails were still doing their job.

What actually changed

Google has pushed back the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to AI Max for Search by five months, moving it from September 2026 to February 2027, and has restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns from 15 June 2026. The reporting is covered by Search Engine Land, and Google set out the detail on its Ads Developer Blog.

The headline reads like a reprieve. It is better understood as a runway. You now have until February 2027 to evaluate AI Max properly, run side-by-side experiments against your DSA campaigns, and build the controls that keep spend honest once the matching opens up. The brands that use that runway will barely feel the migration. The brands that read "delayed" as "ignore for now" will be building their controls in February while the budget is already leaking.

The new timeline

• June 2026: DSA campaign creation returns.
• June 2026 – January 2027: Extended testing and voluntary migration period.
• January 2027: New DSA creation ends.
• February 2027: Automatic migration begins for remaining campaigns.

Dates of this kind can still move, so keep an eye on Google's own announcements, but plan around February 2027 as the deadline that matters.

What Google AI Max actually does

AI Max for Search campaigns is a setting that turns on AI-powered expansion of your Search activity. It is built to find more converting queries than your keyword list alone can reach. There are three core parts worth understanding before you decide how to control it.

Keywordless search term matching

This is the big one. AI Max uses broad, expansive matching to find relevant queries beyond your existing keywords and match types. It reads intent and reaches for queries it judges to be relevant, which is a much wider net than even broad match on its own. If you are coming from DSA, you are already used to Google choosing targeting from your site content. AI Max extends that logic and widens the range of queries in play.

Automatically created text assets

AI Max can generate and customise headlines and text assets to match the query it has decided to serve against. Useful when it lands well. A liability when it pairs an off-target query with copy that makes a promise your landing page does not keep.

Final URL expansion

Rather than always sending clicks to the URL you set, AI Max can route a click to the page on your site it judges most relevant to the query. On a large catalogue that can help. Without rules, it can also send high-intent buyers to a blog post or a thin category page that was never built to convert.

Why DSA accounts need governance most

None of those mechanics are bad in themselves. The problem is what happens when aggressive matching meets an open budget and no controls. DSA users feel this sharpest, because the format already hands query selection to Google, and AI Max widens the aperture again. If you have not told the system what to avoid, it will quite happily spend on queries you would never consciously buy: informational searches with no purchase intent, competitor brand terms, wrong-geography traffic, and the long tail of loosely related searches that look relevant to a model but convert at a fraction of your core terms.

This is the same failure pattern we see on paid social when spend outruns the controls around it. If you have watched budget evaporate into traffic that never converts, the diagnostic mindset is identical. Our piece on why Meta ads stop converting walks through the same discipline applied to a different platform.

The accounts that will not feel the migration are the ones that already treat exclusions as a system rather than a quarterly tidy-up. That system is what the runway is for.

The negative keyword governance system to build

Governance is not one setting. It is a small set of controls that, run together and reviewed on a cadence, keep AI Max pointed at the queries you actually want. Build these during the testing window so the controls are mature by the time the migration lands.

• Account-level shared negative keyword lists. Build shared negative lists and apply them across every campaign rather than maintaining exclusions campaign by campaign. A single, governed source of truth, updated once and enforced everywhere.
• Brand exclusions and brand inclusions. Decide deliberately whether your own brand, and competitor brands, are in scope, rather than letting the model decide for you.
• A weekly search terms report review. Review the report weekly at minimum to see exactly what AI Max is matching to, catch waste early, and feed new negatives back into your shared lists.
• Controls on final URL expansion. Use page exclusions and rules to keep clicks on pages built to convert, and out of blog posts and thin pages.
• Tighter location settings. Set targeting to "presence" rather than "presence or interest" so you pay for people actually in your target geography.
• Clear conversion tracking. Get tracking clean and aligned to real revenue so expansion works in your favour rather than chasing the wrong action.

What to do before February 2027

Google is encouraging advertisers to audit existing DSA campaigns, run side-by-side experiments against AI Max for Search, and use the voluntary migration tools before the deadline. Use the runway in this order.

Do this across the testing window and February becomes a setting change rather than a fire drill. Leave it until the deadline and you will be building the controls while the spend is already leaking.

• Audit your current negative keywords and consolidate them into account-level shared lists applied across all campaigns.
• Mine your search terms reports from the last 6 to 12 months for recurring waste patterns to seed those shared lists.
• Run a side-by-side experiment: keep a DSA campaign running while you test AI Max for Search on comparable traffic, and benchmark the difference on your own account.
• Set brand inclusions and exclusions deliberately, deciding now whether competitor and brand traffic belongs in scope.
• Switch location settings from "presence or interest" to "presence" across affected campaigns.
• Map which landing pages should and should not receive traffic, then configure final URL expansion rules and page exclusions to match.
• Audit conversion tracking end to end and confirm the model would be optimising to real revenue, not soft or duplicated actions.
• Book a standing weekly slot to review the search terms report and update negatives. Put it in the calendar now so it survives the migration.

Where to go next

If you want a second pair of eyes on your account before the AI Max migration lands, we can help. Book a call and we will pressure-test your account structure and exclusions against what AI Max is about to change. Or start with a free growth audit and we will show you where your Search spend is most exposed and what to lock down first.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google AI Max?

Google AI Max is a setting for Search campaigns that turns on AI-powered expansion of your matching. It uses keywordless search term matching to find relevant queries beyond your keyword list, can automatically create and customise text assets and headlines, and can use final URL expansion to send clicks to the most relevant page on your site. It is designed to find more converting queries than your keywords alone would reach.

When is the DSA to AI Max migration now happening?

Google has delayed the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max for Search from September 2026 to February 2027. DSA campaign creation returned on 15 June 2026, new DSA creation ends in January 2027, and automatic migration of remaining DSA campaigns begins in February 2027. Dates can still move, so confirm against Google's official announcements.

Will AI Max increase wasted spend?

It can, if you migrate without controls. Because the matching is expansive by design, AI Max will find queries to spend on, including informational, competitor, and wrong-geography searches you would never deliberately target. With a negative keyword governance system in place, those queries are excluded before they drain budget.

How do AI Max negative keywords work?

Negative keywords still apply under AI Max and remain your main lever for controlling what it matches to. The most reliable approach is account-level shared negative keyword lists applied across campaigns, combined with brand exclusions and a weekly search terms report review so you can add new negatives as the model surfaces queries you did not anticipate.