Google Ads Extends Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max Migration To February 2027

Google pushed back the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max by five months. If you are running DSA campaigns, the auto-migration deadline is now February 2027, not September 2026. This post covers what changed, what did not change, and the steps to take before the deadline arrives.

Watch the full breakdown above.

What Changed and What Did Not

Google made two adjustments to the DSA migration timeline. First, it restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns on June 15, 2026 after a brief pause. Second, it pushed the automatic migration deadline from September 2026 to February 2027. Google's Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, said the extension came from advertiser feedback asking for more time and from a desire to avoid forcing a migration into the busy Q4 period.

That five-month extension applies only to Dynamic Search Ads. The September 2026 schedule for Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match inside standard Search campaigns did not move. If your accounts use both DSA and ACA, treat those as two separate workstreams with two separate deadlines.

• June 15, 2026. New DSA campaign creation restored in the Google Ads UI, Editor, and API.
• September 2026. Automatically Created Assets and campaign-level broad match still auto-transition to AI Max on this schedule.
• January 2027. New DSA campaign creation ends for good.
• February 2027. Auto-migration of remaining DSA campaigns begins. Anything still running gets converted to AI Max, and in some cases to Performance Max or an AI-powered Search campaign, with the AI Max features enabled by default.
• New Search campaigns. AI Max is now on by default. If you want to opt out, you need to do it manually during setup.

Google also said it would roll out voluntary, mostly one-click upgrade tools over the following weeks. Those tools are built to preserve your historical reporting and campaign learnings, so when AI Max wins your tests, you can move on your own schedule without losing the data trail. That is the path Google recommends over waiting for the automatic switch.

What This Means for Your Campaigns

As Corey puts it in the video, this is a delay, not a pause on all AI Max changes. The extension gives you roughly seven months to audit your DSA campaigns, pull a clean baseline, and run isolated tests before auto-migration starts.

The key reason Google pushed the deadline back is that a lot of advertisers asked for more time. They were running DSA successfully and wanted the chance to test AI Max properly before being forced over. If your DSA campaigns are performing well, you do not have to rush. But waiting for auto-migration in February 2027 means Google controls the timing and the structure of the switch, and remaining campaigns can land in Performance Max rather than a clean AI Max Search campaign, which gives you less control over how everything maps across.

There is also a simpler way to read this, and it is how Corey frames it: when Google starts phasing out a feature, that is usually the signal to start learning the replacement. DSA is on its way out, AI Max is the path forward, and over time AI Max should outperform what DSA is doing today. So unless your DSA campaigns are absolutely crushing it, the smarter move is to start testing now on your own timeline. That gives you control over campaign structure, bidding strategy, URL setup, negative keywords, and reporting continuity.

If you are managing Google Ads accounts with active DSA campaigns, start by inventorying which campaigns and how much spend currently sit in DSA. That is the surface that migrates automatically if you do nothing.

How AI Max Compares to Dynamic Search Ads

AI Max picks up where DSA leaves off. Inside a standard Search campaign, you can turn on AI Max and get text customization, Final URL expansion, and search term matching that works similarly to what DSA was doing with dynamic ad targets and page feeds.

The difference is that AI Max can expand more broadly than a traditional DSA setup. Corey notes in the video that the same junk queries you see with DSA, where you get irrelevant traffic mixed in with the good stuff, can still show up with AI Max. In his own Google Ads Consulting test, DSA pulled hundreds of impressions against a handful for keyword targeting, and the clicks were a mix of relevant terms and off-target ones. Negative keywords matter just as much here, maybe more, and account-level shared negative lists plus a weekly search terms review are the main levers for keeping spend honest.

Google says the full AI Max feature suite, search term matching plus text customization plus Final URL expansion, delivers an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS, compared to using search term matching alone. That is Google's own number, measured across its advertiser base. Whether it holds for your specific account depends on how clean your setup is and how well you manage query quality over the first few weeks.

For more on how bidding strategies interact with AI Max features, that guide covers Smart Bidding and how Google's automated systems make decisions during the learning phase.

A Phased Migration Plan Before February 2027

You have a roughly seven-month window from June 2026 through January 2027 to move on your own terms. Use it in stages rather than flipping everything at once.

Set a clear stop rule before you start: if CPA climbs more than 20% for more than two weeks, pause the rollout and review your landing page choices and negative keyword lists. Do not wait and hope it corrects itself.

One more housekeeping item: if you create DSA campaigns programmatically through the Google Ads API or automation tooling, those paths stop working when new DSA creation ends in January 2027. Update them before then, not in the last week.

For lead gen accounts in particular, make sure enhanced conversions are active and that you have offline conversion imports from your CRM running before migration starts. If the platform shows conversion volume going up but your sales team says lead quality dropped, that is not a win. Read the conversion tracking setup guide if you need to get that infrastructure in place first.

Question to Answer:

Should I migrate my DSA campaigns before February 2027, or wait for the auto-migration?

Migrate before February 2027. Waiting for the auto-upgrade means Google controls the campaign structure, bidding setup, and transition timing, and your campaigns can be converted to Performance Max instead of a clean AI Max Search campaign. A manual migration lets you choose how the new campaign is built, set the right URL rules, and review performance before the required cutover. If your DSA campaigns are crushing it right now, you do not have to move today. But use the seven-month window to test, not to ignore the deadline.

Source: Read the AI Max announcement on Google Ads Help