Create, Capture, Convert: AI Max and The New Power Search

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The search landscape is undergoing a profound change. For years, search marketing has been about keywords, but that era is ending. This new, AI-driven landscape requires a different strategy. 

This shift is being driven by major platform updates. Microsoft has just launched its own AI Max solution, while Google is preparing for a mandatory transition: starting in September 2026, older features like Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) and Automatically Created Assets (ACAs) will be automatically upgraded to AI Max. This deadline means the time to prepare isn't in the future—it's now.  

We wanted to unpack what this change means, why it matters, and how to navigate it successfully. 

Planning for People, Not Just Platforms 

A key benefit of building campaigns for AI is the ability to leverage your proprietary data. By connecting your first-party data, you can supercharge optimization and help AI identify highly relevant and high-value users online.  

This approach looks beyond just keywords. AI Max analyzes billions of real-time clues to understand people’s motivations and better anticipate their needs. This marks a strategic shift that resonates with the new keywordless theme: it’s less about matching specific terms, and more understanding "who are they, and what do they need?" 

From Capturing Demand to Creating It 

Historically, Search was seen as a tool for reaching people who were already ready to buy. While it still does that well, its role is getting bigger. AI-powered solutions like Demand Gen can now be used to build broad brand awareness, which AI Max is then perfectly positioned to capture as users begin their active research.  

This integration works across platforms: 

• Synergy on Google: Google's Performance Max is excellent at finding new audiences and capturing both upper and bottom-of-the-funnel interactions. AI Max then ensures that when those users inevitably perform a direct search, your ad is perfectly tailored to their exact need. 

• Unique Opportunity on Microsoft: Microsoft's proprietary audience solution offers a unique chance to reach high-value audiences using its own data from services like Bing, Edge, and LinkedIn, connecting you with professionals and consumers you might not find elsewhere. 

To get the most out of this, a change in budgeting is needed. When activating AI Max, we recommend moving away from capped budgets. AI systems need flexibility to explore and find new customer demand.  

While "uncapped budgets" can sound risky, they are a safe and powerful way to unlock growth when anchored to strict Value-Based Bidding strategies (like Target ROAS or Target CPA). This ensures the AI only invests in profitable auctions.  

To start, we recommend proactively increasing budgets by at least 10% for Broad Match campaigns and 30% for Exact/Phrase Match campaigns to give the AI enough room to work.  

Unlocking the Next Level of Growth 

Once your campaigns are running smoothly, there's another level to unlock. 

An advanced Google Ads feature called Smart Bidding Exploration can help you aggressively capture more market share. However, this is an powerful tool shouldn't be rolled out blindly.   

We recommend executing this via a 6+ week Campaign Experiment to cleanly isolate the performance lift from external seasonal noise. This controlled testing has shown powerful results, with campaigns often seeing an average +20% increase in conversions. 

Essential Guardrails for Brand Safety  

Automation is powerful, but it needs human oversight. The following settings are essential to protect your brand when using AI Max: 

• Clear Text Guidelines: Tell the AI what not to say. For sensitive industries, you must  implement Term Exclusions (to avoid unwanted terms like "cheap") and Messaging Restrictions (to set a tone of voice or explicitly block competitor mentions), which is crucial for sensitive industries. 

• Proactive Page Exclusions: When you let the AI choose the best landing page for a user, you must also provide a list of pages to exclude, ensuring traffic only goes to approved, brand-safe parts of your site. 

• Strategic Brand Control: Set rules for when your ads can or cannot appear for searches of your own brand name. It’s important to know that Google allows Brand Inclusion and Exclusion controls at the ad-group level, whereas Microsoft currently only supports them at the campaign level. 

• Continuous Performance Review: Instead of relying on static negative keyword lists, ensure continuous Search Query Report reviews to refine targeting. This should be based strictly on actual performance data (CPA/ROAS) rather than perceived search query relevance. 

• Location Intent Control (on Google Ads): Audit the ‘Location of Interest’ setting. This feature, hidden at the ad-group level, shifts targeting from a user's physical location to their geographical intent. While great for capturing cross-border demand, regional businesses must explicitly configure this to prevent out-of-market spend. 

The Path Forward: A New Era for Search 

This is a new era for search. We strongly advise against waiting for the auto-migration of AI Max. Proactively using Google's Voluntary Upgrade Tool today ensures an exact mapping of historical data and URL controls, preventing an "algorithmic cold start" and safeguarding performance.   

Managing this transition ahead of the mandatory migration deadline—and starting active testing on all platforms—is the best way to set your campaigns up for success.