From 1 September 2026 Google is automatically upgrading Search campaigns that use automatically created assets or the campaign level broad match setting to AI Max. The migration runs through the month. There is no opt out switch. The only way to avoid it was to turn those two settings off before the first, and the only thing left to do now is set the brand and location controls that come with it.
The short version
- Two settings trigger the upgrade: automatically created assets, and broad match set at campaign level. If your account has neither, nothing happens to it this month.
- Campaigns with automatically created assets come out the other side with search term matching and text customisation switched on. Campaigns with only campaign level broad match get search term matching alone.
- Brand inclusions and exclusions carry over automatically. Everything else about how the campaign finds queries changes.
- In a bilingual market this matters more than it does elsewhere, because search term matching expands into Arabic and English variants you never chose.
What is actually changing on 1 September?
Google is converting eligible Search campaigns to AI Max in place, between 1 and 30 September 2026. AI Max is the bundle of query matching and creative features that Google has been rolling out through the year. The three parts that matter are search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion.
Only two things put a campaign in scope. The first is automatically created assets, the setting that lets Google write headlines and descriptions for you from your landing pages. The second is broad match applied at campaign level rather than to individual keywords.
Google has published the detail on the Google Ads blog. Dynamic Search Ads were originally part of the same September move and have since been pushed back to February 2027, so if your account still runs DSA you have time. You will not be able to create new DSA campaigns after this month.
What do the campaigns look like afterwards?
It depends on which setting pulled the campaign in, and this is the part most accounts get wrong because they assume both paths are the same.
| What the campaign had before | What it gets after migration | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Automatically created assets | Search term matching and text customisation | Google both finds new queries and rewrites your ad text to match them |
| Campaign level broad match | Search term matching only | Query expansion, but your headlines stay as written |
| Brand inclusions or exclusions | Carried over unchanged | The one control that survives the move intact |
| Final URL controls | Preserved | Final URL expansion is not forced on the broad match path |
| Neither trigger setting | No change this month | Standard keyword campaigns are untouched |
Why does this land harder on UAE accounts?
Because search term matching is a language problem before it is a budget problem.
A Dubai account is usually running English keywords against an audience that searches in English, Arabic, and a transliterated mix of the two. When Google expands your matching, it expands across all of that. We have watched accounts pick up Arabic queries that were technically related and commercially useless, and English queries aimed at a completely different emirate. The spend looks fine at campaign level. The search terms report is where you see it.
The second issue is text customisation, and it is the one that should worry clinics most. Text customisation means Google rewrites headlines to match the query. Healthcare advertising in the UAE is regulated, and the wording you were approved to use is not a suggestion. An automatically generated headline that promises a result, or names a treatment in a way your licence does not cover, is a compliance problem before it is a performance problem. We have written separately about why Dubai clinic ads keep getting rejected, and this adds a new way to trip the same wires.
What should you do this week?
Four things, in this order.
Check which campaigns are actually in scope. Open each Search campaign and look for automatically created assets under the asset settings, and for broad match at campaign level rather than per keyword. Most accounts we audit have one or the other switched on without anyone remembering doing it.
Set your brand controls before the migration reaches you, not after. Brand inclusions and exclusions carry over, so anything you set now survives. If you sell a category where competitors bid on your name, this is the control that keeps the expanded matching from spending your budget on them.
Turn on the location controls and write your text guidelines. These are new with AI Max and they are the closest thing to a steering wheel you get. For a clinic, the text guidelines are where you keep the regulated wording intact.
Then watch the search terms report daily for two weeks. Not weekly. The whole risk of this change sits in queries you did not choose, and the report is the only place they appear.
A mistake we made: when campaign level broad match first arrived we switched it on across a UAE fashion account on a Thursday and did not look again until the following Tuesday. By then roughly a fifth of the week’s spend had gone to searches for a similar sounding brand that we did not stock. Nothing in the interface flagged it, because the click through rate was healthy and the conversion rate was merely bad rather than zero. We now treat any matching change as a daily check for the first fortnight, which is exactly what we are doing through September.
If you are not sure which of your campaigns are in scope, send us the account and we will tell you before the migration reaches them, along with what we would set on brand and location controls first. Book a growth call, or see how we run Google Ads accounts.
Frequently asked questions
There is no opt out control. The only way to keep a campaign out of the migration was to switch off automatically created assets or campaign level broad match before 1 September 2026. Campaigns that use neither setting are not affected.
Not this month. Only campaigns using automatically created assets or broad match applied at campaign level are being upgraded. A campaign running exact and phrase keywords with your own written assets is untouched.
The DSA sunset was moved to February 2027, so existing DSA campaigns keep running for now. You cannot create new ones after September 2026, and Google recommends upgrading voluntarily while you still control the setup.
Yes. Brand inclusions and exclusions carry over automatically into the AI Max configuration. This is why setting them now is worth doing, because they are the one control that transfers without you having to rebuild it.
It should be careful rather than worried. Text customisation rewrites headlines to match queries, and healthcare wording in the UAE is regulated. Use the new text guidelines to fix the language you are approved to run, and review generated headlines before they accumulate spend.