Google AI Max: a new era for AI-driven Search Ads
The search marketing landscape is evolving rapidly. Following the introduction of AI Overviews, Google is continuing its revolution with the launch of AI Max, a new type of advertising campaign powered by artificial intelligence. Officially rolled out in beta at the end of May 2025, AI Max aims to rethink advertising on the search network by leveraging Google’s generative AI to automate, enrich and optimise campaigns.
In this article, we explain what AI Max is, how it works, why it is disrupting traditional SEA approaches, and how you can adapt to it right now.
What is Google AI Max?
AI Max is a new generation of advertising campaigns on Google Search. Unlike traditional Search campaigns, AI Max harnesses the power of Gemini, Google’s generative AI, to fully automate:
- Targeting,
- Ad creation (headlines, descriptions, visuals),
- Landing page selection,
- Real-time optimisation based on context and search intent.
The objective? To trigger highly relevant advertisements without relying on traditional keywords, by intelligently analysing user intent signals and the content available on your website.
How does AI Max work?
The principle behind AI Max is based on a keyword-free campaign logic. The AI automatically identifies the best opportunities for distribution by analysing:
- Your website and its pages,
- Your conversion goals,
- Your existing assets (titles, visuals, videos),
- Audience, location, timing and intent signals.
Based on this information, Google dynamically generates:
- Personalised adverts for each search,
- A final URL tailored to the intention,
- A creative combination depending on the platform (Search, Mobile, Local, etc.).
You retain control, of course, through brand, term and geographical exclusions, as well as advanced reporting tools.
What are the results in beta?
Rolled out since May 2025 to a panel of advertisers, the beta version of AI Max is showing very promising results:
- +14% average conversions at the same cost compared to traditional search campaigns.
- Up to +27% conversion value on accounts with well-established exact keywords.
- -31% cost per acquisition (CPA) observed by some major brands such as L’Oréal.
- A significant increase in click-through rate (CTR) on dynamic ads.
These figures confirm the potential of AI to increase performance while simplifying campaign management.
What is the difference with Performance Max?
Although similar in their approach, AI Max and Performance Max (PMax) do not serve the same purposes.
Criterion | AI Max | Max Performance |
| Campaign type | Search (search network) | Multichannel (Search, Display, YouTube, etc.) |
| Targeting | Without keywords (AI intent) | Based on signals and objectives |
| Ad creation | Generative, full AI (Gemini) | Based on assets provided or automatically generated by Google if this is not the case. |
| URL optimisation | AI chooses the landing page | Option to let the selected AI determine the landing page by enabling the final URL extension |
| Main objective | Generate more search conversions | Oriented |
AI Max is therefore specifically designed for Search campaigns, whereas PMax acts in a broader and more cross-cutting manner.
The challenges for advertisers with AI Max
The arrival of AI Max opens up exciting new opportunities for advertisers, but it also requires significant adaptation. On the one hand, the ability to automate ad creation and delivery using artificial intelligence saves valuable time and increases relevance. AI thoroughly analyses user intent, resulting in advertisements that are perfectly aligned with their needs, thereby optimising conversion performance while simplifying campaign management.
However, this increased automation leads to a relative loss of control over the creation and semantic content of adverts. Marketers must therefore ensure the quality and richness of the content on their website, whether it be product pages or visuals, as these are the elements that feed the AI to generate adverts. In addition, it is becoming essential to avoid conflicts or overlaps with other advertising campaigns, particularly traditional Search or Performance Max campaigns, so as not to dilute budgets or blur the message.
Finally, to take full advantage of AI Max, it is necessary to provide well-structured assets that are enriched and adapted to the logic of generative AI, which represents a real challenge in terms of data preparation and flow. It is therefore a transition phase that requires both openness to innovation and methodological rigour.
In conclusion, Google AI Max marks a new milestone in SEA automation. By entrusting the creation and distribution of adverts to artificial intelligence, brands can improve their efficiency, relevance and performance… provided they prepare high-quality content in advance that is well structured and consistent with their business objectives.
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