The AI Max auto-upgrade window is open right now. Between September 1 and 30, 2026, Google is automatically converting a specific slice of Search campaigns to AI Max, and if you run Google Ads the first question to answer this week is not “how do I use AI Max” — it is which of my campaigns is Google about to change without asking. The answer is narrower and more specific than most of the coverage implies, and getting it right tells you exactly where to spend your attention before the month ends.
Two features trigger the upgrade, and only two: the campaign-level broad match setting and Automatically Created Assets. Google emailed advertisers on August 5, 2026 to confirm that campaigns running either of those get converted to AI Max for Search starting September 1. A campaign that uses neither is left alone this month. This post is the scope diagnostic: how to tell, in your account, which campaigns are in scope, and what to do with the ones that are before the window closes.
The trigger is a setting, not your keywords
The most expensive misunderstanding in this rollout is thinking that broad match keywords put a campaign in scope. They do not. Using broad match at the keyword level — the individual match type you set on a keyword — does not trigger the automatic upgrade. The trigger is the campaign-level broad match setting, which is a different control entirely: a campaign setting that overrides your keywords and makes the whole campaign behave as broad, regardless of the match types you assigned. One is a per-keyword choice; the other is a per-campaign switch. Only the switch triggers the upgrade.
This distinction is the whole game for scoping. A campaign packed with deliberately broad-matched keywords, with the campaign-level broad match setting off and no Automatically Created Assets, is not in scope and will not be auto-upgraded in September. Conversely, a campaign built on tidy exact and phrase keywords can still be in scope if someone left Automatically Created Assets on. You cannot judge exposure by glancing at your keyword match types. You have to check the two settings. If you are still deciding how to use match types deliberately in the first place, the broad, phrase and exact decision for 2026 is the companion read — but for the September window, the setting is what matters.
How to check which campaigns are in scope
Go campaign by campaign, or faster, use Google Ads Editor to review every campaign's settings at once. For each Search campaign, check two things. First, open Settings and look for the campaign-level broad match toggle in the keyword or match-type section; if it is on, the campaign is in scope. Second, check the asset settings for whether Automatically Created Assets is enabled; if it is, the campaign is in scope independently of the broad match setting. A campaign qualifies for the upgrade if either is on, so you are looking for campaigns where at least one of the two is switched on.
Build a simple list as you go: campaign name, broad-match-setting on/off, ACA on/off, and monthly spend. The spend column is what turns the audit into a priority order. An in-scope campaign spending a few dollars a day can wait; an in-scope campaign that is your biggest spender is where you act first, because the matching change lands on the largest budget. This is the same triage logic as any hidden wasted spend audit — sort by cost and work top-down — applied to a deadline instead of an open-ended cleanup.
What the upgrade actually does to your traffic
When a campaign upgrades to AI Max, its matching widens. AI Max layers AI-driven query expansion on top of your existing keywords, matching searches it judges related to your keywords and landing pages rather than staying inside the match types you set. This is the documented behaviour of the format, and it is the same loosening that has advertisers reporting that AI Max changes what shows up in their reporting. The practical result: queries the campaign never matched before start arriving, and some of them will be waste your old negative list was never sized to block.
The search terms report does not disappear — AI Max campaigns still report the queries that triggered your ads, so your search terms report review stays the primary control surface. What changes is that the report gets wider and slightly fuzzier, because AI-mediated matching means a reported term can reflect Google's read of intent rather than the literal words typed. The mechanics of how automatically-generated assets ride along with that expanded query set are covered in how AI Max automated assets inherit query expansion, which is worth reading alongside this if your in-scope campaigns qualified through ACA rather than the broad match setting.
Prep the in-scope campaigns, or opt them out
For every in-scope campaign you have two clean choices. Opt out by turning off the triggering feature — switch off the campaign-level broad match setting, disable Automatically Created Assets, or both — and the campaign drops out of scope and is left as it is. Or keep the upgrade but prep for it: export the current search terms report, turn the recurring zero-conversion waste into negatives, and set a tighter review cadence for the weeks after the switch. The one option that costs you money is the third one: leaving a high-spend campaign in scope and unwatched while its matching quietly widens.
If you are keeping the upgrade, build the containment as a shared negative list rather than scattering negatives across campaign settings, so it travels with you and stays auditable — the scope choices are laid out in how to structure negative keyword lists. And prefer upgrading one low-spend campaign manually first, watched daily for a week, before the rest flip: it tells you how much your specific account expands under AI Max, because tightly-themed accounts barely move while loosely-themed ones see a real influx. That single controlled test is worth more than any general prediction about how much AI Max will widen your traffic.
After the window: the audit that confirms it worked
Once a campaign has upgraded, the search terms report is where you confirm the prep held. In the first two weeks after the switch, review it more often than usual — weekly at minimum, more for high spenders — and watch specifically for query themes the campaign never showed before. Those are expansion's fingerprints. Each new waste theme goes straight into the shared list you built, tightening the containment while the newly-expanded matching is still settling. Relax the cadence back to normal once the query set stabilises and stops surprising you.
The full post-switch sequence — what to re-audit, which negatives to re-check, how to tell expansion waste from normal variance — is laid out in the post-AI Max migration negative keyword audit and the AI Max migration search terms checklist. And if you still run Dynamic Search Ads, note that those are on a separate clock: DSA is not force-migrated until February 2027, so it is not part of this September window. For everything that is — campaign-level broad match and ACA — the work is the same and it is doable this week: find the in-scope campaigns, decide keep or opt out, and put the negatives in place before Google widens the funnel for you.