Written by Admin Alex · Fact-Checked by M.Ali · Info Verified September 2026
We review and update this article regularly as new information becomes available.
TL;DR: Google has started automatically migrating legacy Search campaign features, Campaign-level Broad Match and Automatically Created Assets, to its AI Max system throughout September 2026, with Dynamic Search Ads campaigns getting a longer runway before automatic migration hits in February 2027. Advertisers can no longer create new legacy campaigns of these types as of August 3, and Google says existing brand inclusions and exclusions will carry over automatically.
If you run Google Ads and haven’t looked at your account settings this month, now’s the time.
Google quietly started auto-migrating legacy Search campaign features to AI Max, its newer AI-driven campaign structure, throughout September 2026. This isn’t a suggestion advertisers can ignore until they feel like dealing with it. It’s happening automatically, on Google’s timeline, whether an account manager has reviewed the change or not.
What’s actually getting swapped out
Three legacy features are affected. Campaign-level Broad Match, the older keyword-matching setup many advertisers built entire campaigns around, is being phased out. Automatically Created Assets, or ACA, is losing its legacy version. And Dynamic Search Ads, the format that generates ads automatically from a site’s own content, is getting folded into AI Max on a separate, longer timeline.
As of August 3, 2026, advertisers already lost the ability to create new Campaign-level Broad Match or legacy ACA campaigns at all, through the Ads interface, Ads Editor, or the API. That door closed before most marketers even noticed it was closing.
The actual dates that matter
September 1 through 30, 2026 is when automatic migration of Campaign-level Broad Match and ACA campaigns is happening. Dynamic Search Ads advertisers get more breathing room. In-account notices encouraging voluntary upgrades started this September, reminder notifications go out January 15, 2027, and automatic DSA migration hits between February 1 and 28, 2027, after which new DSA ad groups can no longer be created at all. Support for the older API versions handling these legacy features is expected to disappear around September 2027.
Google’s own framing calls this “another major step” toward AI-driven Search campaigns, which is corporate speak for: this isn’t optional, and it isn’t the last change coming either.
What actually carries over, and what doesn’t
There’s at least one piece of good news buried in here. Existing brand inclusions and exclusions, the settings advertisers use to control whether their ads can appear alongside or exclude specific brand terms, will carry over automatically during the migration. That’s a real relief for anyone who’s spent time fine-tuning those settings and dreaded rebuilding them from scratch.
What’s less clear is how much campaign performance shifts once AI Max takes over targeting and asset generation that a human previously controlled more directly. AI Max campaigns hand more decision-making to Google’s own automated systems, which some advertisers have found genuinely improves results and others have found makes performance harder to diagnose when something goes wrong.
What to actually do about it
Google’s own recommendation for DSA advertisers, the group with the most runway, is to review accounts before automatic migrations begin rather than waiting for the February deadline to arrive. That’s reasonable advice for Campaign-level Broad Match and ACA users too, except their window already closed faster. Anyone still running those campaign types should be checking account notifications right now, not next month.
Bottom Line: Google has been pushing advertisers toward AI-driven campaign management for years, and this migration makes that shift mandatory rather than optional for a meaningful chunk of the Search Ads ecosystem. The advertisers who come out ahead here are the ones auditing their accounts before the automatic switch flips, not the ones who find out about it from a change they never approved.
