What Is Changing with DSA and AI Max in September 2026 and February 2027?

Google has set two separate dates for moving older Search campaign settings to AI Max. Knowing which one applies to each of your campaigns tells you how long you have to prepare, and acting before your date gives you more control over how the change affects your traffic, spend and leads.

According to Google’s announcement, updated on 11 June 2026, campaigns using automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting begin auto-upgrading to AI Max in September 2026. The Dynamic Search Ads sunset and auto-upgrade was moved later, and begins in February 2027.

What exactly is moving in September 2026?

Google says that campaigns using automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting continue to be auto-upgraded to AI Max starting in September 2026.

Dynamic Search Ads are not part of that date. Google originally planned to upgrade them in September too, then moved their timeline to February 2027. If your Search campaigns use either of the two settings above, check the notifications in your account now.

What is changing for DSA campaigns from February 2027?

Google’s announcement says the Dynamic Search Ads sunset and auto-upgrade begins in February 2027. It also describes what the upgrade does: campaigns containing dynamic ad groups move to standard ad groups, with their settings and data ported into AI Max, all three AI Max features (search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion) switched on, and legacy URL controls preserved.

That gives DSA advertisers several months of notice, and the preparation below is worth doing well before the deadline.

Why this matters for your budget and leads

DSAs were commonly used to capture long-tail and category-level traffic without building out every keyword. AI Max expands that scope, and wider query matching means you will show for terms you have not seen before, some of which will convert poorly.

Say a service business spends £4,000 a month on DSA, with the campaign tightly scoped to specific service pages. After the auto-upgrade, search term matching and final URL expansion are both switched on, so the campaign can match queries and send traffic to pages the original setup never reached. If the negative keywords have not been reviewed for that wider matching, the same £4,000 starts buying clicks on queries that convert worse, and the cost per lead rises while the spend stays flat.

Accounts of any size can see disruption, but the effect is sharpest where the DSA page targets were very specific, where exclusions were doing most of the work of keeping traffic relevant, or in campaigns contributing meaningful volume to an account with a hard cost-per-lead target.

How do I know which of my campaigns are affected?

Log into Google Ads and check the notifications in your account. Google says you will receive notifications there before the transition begins.

Search campaigns with automatically created assets enabled or the campaign-level broad match setting switched on fall under the September 2026 date. Dynamic Search Ads campaigns fall under the February 2027 date.

Google’s announcement does not say whether a Dynamic Search Ads campaign that also uses automatically created assets moves at the earlier date. If you have one, check the notifications against that campaign in your account rather than assuming either way.

Google describes the DSA campaigns being upgraded as campaigns containing dynamic ad groups, so check the ad groups inside your Search campaigns for any dynamic ad groups.

What to check before your upgrade runs

Work through these before your relevant deadline. If your campaigns fall under the September 2026 date, the upgrade may already have run by the time you read this, so use the same list to check the upgraded campaign against what it was doing before.

1. Export your current DSA settings

Before anything changes, download the full campaign settings including:

• Auto targets (which pages and categories are included)
• Excluded URLs and page-feed exclusions
• Negative keywords at campaign and ad group level
• Location targets and bid adjustments
• Audience segments attached to the campaign

This is your baseline. If the upgrade does something unexpected, use these to reconstruct the original targeting.

2. Review your negative keyword lists

AI Max uses broader query matching than classic DSA. A negative keyword that was working well in your old structure may need to move up to the account level or be added to a shared list that applies to the upgraded campaign. Go through your search terms report for the last 90 days and identify the worst-performing queries. Add anything that should never trigger to a campaign-level or account-level negative before the upgrade runs.

3. Confirm your URL exclusions carry over

Google says upgraded DSA campaigns keep their legacy URL controls. Once the upgrade has run, check the excluded URLs and page-feed targets on the campaign against the export from step 1, and re-enter anything that is missing.

4. Check your conversion tracking is solid

AI Max optimises toward the conversions you tell it about. If your conversion tracking is incomplete, firing late, or counting the wrong events, the AI will learn from bad data and your campaign will optimise toward the wrong outcomes. Fix this regardless of the upgrade; the transition makes it more pressing. The article on Google Ads Measurement 2026 covers what to check and set up first.

5. Set a target CPA or ROAS before the upgrade

AI Max needs a bidding signal to know what it is aiming for. If your DSA was running on Maximise Conversions without a target, AI Max may spend aggressively while it learns. Setting a target CPA or target ROAS before the upgrade gives the AI a constraint to work within. Use your actual cost-per-lead or ROAS data from the last 60 days as the starting point. The Breakeven ROAS Calculator gives you a quick number to work from if you are not sure where to set that target.

6. Review your ad copy and asset inputs

AI Max builds on the ads and website content you give it, and Google switches text customisation on for upgraded DSA campaigns and for campaigns using automatically created assets. Before the upgrade, check that your ads, sitelinks and structured snippets reflect your current offers and landing pages, and look at text guidelines, one of the controls Google lists for steering what AI Max writes.

What AI Max does differently from DSA

Google switches final URL expansion and text customisation on for upgraded DSA campaigns, so which pages receive traffic and what the ads say are the first things to review once the migration completes.

Should you upgrade now or let it run?

Google’s announcement does not mention an opt-out, and Dynamic Search Ads are being sunset either way. Google recommends upgrading to AI Max now to keep full control of your campaign setup, and for DSA it provides upgrade tools that port your historical settings and data into standard ad groups. The choice is whether the auto-upgrade runs on an account nobody has prepared, or whether you prepare the account, or upgrade it yourself, so the upgraded campaign is set up the way you want it.

If your DSA was performing well and you have clean conversion tracking, prepared negative lists, and a clear target CPA, the upgrade is likely manageable. If your DSA relied on specific page targets or heavy exclusion logic, or had messy conversion data, you need to fix that before your account’s upgrade runs.

For accounts where DSA is a significant source of lead volume, do a Google Ads audit before the upgrade completes. An audit will surface how much of your current DSA traffic is converting, which query patterns are wasting spend, and whether your bidding signals are clean enough for AI Max to work from.

After the upgrade: what to watch in the first 30 days

Once AI Max is switched on for your upgraded campaigns, watch these metrics weekly.

• Search terms report: Look for new query categories that were not appearing before. If unfamiliar query types are spending without converting, add them to your negatives immediately.
• URL report: Check which pages AI Max is targeting. If it is sending traffic to pages that were excluded in your DSA setup, re-enter those exclusions.
• Cost per lead vs baseline: Compare your CPL for the first two weeks against your 60-day DSA average. A sustained rise with no sign of improvement is a signal to pull the target CPA tighter. Do it promptly rather than waiting for the month-end review.
• Impression share and query volume: AI Max may increase impressions significantly. Higher impressions with flat conversions means the system is expanding into low-intent territory.

The accounts that need to act now

Some accounts can take this upgrade in their stride with a few hours of preparation. Others are in a more difficult position.

You need to act urgently if:

• Your DSA campaigns are one of your top two or three sources of leads
• You use automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match and have not yet checked your upgrade notifications
• You have never audited your negative keyword lists
• Your conversion tracking has known gaps or fires on non-conversion events
• You are on a fixed monthly budget with a hard cost-per-lead ceiling that leaves no room for the learning phase to spike CPL
• You manage the account yourself and are not in the habit of checking campaign notifications inside Google Ads

If you are managing a larger account or one where DSA has been left running without review, it is worth having someone look at it before the upgrade runs. You can see how we approach that at our Google Ads agency UK page.

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