blog · google ads · timely · 11 min read
Google retires Dynamic Search Ads in September 2026. Here is how to move DSA to AI Max on your terms: the timeline, the settings, the guardrails, and a checklist.
Calyx Core · july 2026
quick answer
Google is retiring Dynamic Search Ads. AI Max reached general availability in April 2026, upgrade prompts are already in your account, and from September 2026 remaining DSA campaigns (along with campaign-level broad match and automatically created assets) will be upgraded to AI Max automatically. Migrating manually before then lets you set URL exclusions, brand controls, and negatives yourself instead of inheriting Google's defaults. The full migration takes about a week of setup and two to four weeks of supervised learning.
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You are reading this inside the voluntary window or after it closed. Either way, the steps below apply; the only difference is whether you configure the guardrails before the switch or clean up after it.
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AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is a feature suite on Search campaigns that consolidates three machine-learning capabilities into one switch, and each maps to something DSA advertisers already know:
Google's data puts the upside at roughly 7% more conversions or conversion value at similar CPA and ROAS for advertisers using all three features together. In the accounts we manage, the gains are real but they are earned in the first month of supervision, not on day one.
one switch, three capabilities
01
Search term matching
Reaches beyond literal keywords, using ads and pages as signal. DSA's core, campaign-wide.
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Text customization
Headlines adapt to the query. The successor to DSA's dynamic headlines.
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Final URL expansion
Routes clicks to the most relevant page. DSA's page targeting, with rules you set.
about 7% more conversions at similar efficiency, earned in the first supervised month
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The September auto-upgrade is designed for continuity, not for your specific account. Migrating yourself buys you four things:
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step 1 · document
Before touching anything, export from each DSA campaign: the search terms report (90 days), the landing pages report, dynamic ad targets and their performance, and all negatives. This baseline is what you will compare AI Max against, and it tells you which page categories and query patterns actually earn money.
step 2 · fix pages
DSA quietly compensated for weak site structure by finding your best pages. AI Max reads your landing pages as targeting input, so pages with thin content, missing titles, or duplicate descriptions now cost you twice: worse matching and worse Quality Score. If your site needs it, do this pass first; our Google Ads for e-commerce guide covers what a page must contain to deserve the click.
step 3 · choose campaign
Two clean options. Fold DSA's job into your existing best Search campaign and enable AI Max there, which concentrates conversion data and suits most small and mid accounts. Or convert the DSA campaign itself via the upgrade prompt, keeping its budget and history separate, which suits large accounts where DSA had a distinct role.
step 4 · configure
step 5 · experiment
Use the one-click experiment to split traffic between your current setup and AI Max. Run it for at least two to three weeks or until each arm has meaningful conversions. Adopt on data, not on the announcement.
step 6 · supervise
Twice a week for the first month: search terms report, add negatives ruthlessly; landing page report, confirm URL expansion respects your rules; ad previews, spot-check the AI-customized text. This month of supervision is where the 7% uplift is either earned or lost.
step 7 · verify
After four weeks, compare against your Step 1 export: conversions, CPA and ROAS, query quality, and where clicks are landing. If AI Max underperforms the old DSA on your money queries, the usual culprits are weak landing pages (Step 2 skipped) or missing negatives, both fixable, and both still your job in September if you wait.
04
Three habits carry over with new intensity. Search term hygiene matters more because matching is broader than DSA ever was. Ad review shifts from writing one best ad to curating the components the system assembles. And landing pages become part of targeting, so every significant page edit is now also an ads decision. What disappears: maintaining dynamic ad target rules and page feeds; that layer is gone entirely.
faq
Automatic upgrades to AI Max begin in September 2026 and complete by the end of that month. After that, new DSA campaigns cannot be created in the interface, Editor, or API. Manual upgrade prompts have been live in accounts since April 2026.
Upgraded campaigns retain their history, and Google configures automatic upgrades to preserve performance continuity. What does not carry over automatically is your judgment: exclusions, brand rules, and negatives are worth setting manually rather than trusting defaults.
For most accounts, yes, provided it is supervised. Google reports around 7% more conversions or value at similar efficiency with the full feature suite. Unsupervised, broader matching can spend more on junk queries than DSA did, so the negative keyword habit matters more, not less.
Yes. Search term matching, text customization, and final URL expansion have separate controls, plus URL exclusion rules and brand settings. Running the full suite generally performs best, but regulated or brand-sensitive advertisers can constrain text customization and still use the rest.
Campaign-level broad match and automatically created assets are part of the same September 2026 upgrade into AI Max. If you run either, the migration steps in this guide apply to those campaigns too.
DSA is not being killed; it is being absorbed into something broader. The advertisers who lose in this transition are the ones who let September happen to them: default settings, no exclusions, no baseline to compare against. The ones who win spend one deliberate week now, documenting what DSA earned, fixing the pages it was compensating for, configuring the guardrails, and adopting AI Max through an experiment they can read.
calyx core · google ads audit
We don't just point out problems, we engineer the systems to solve them. We'll audit your account, migrate it with the guardrails configured, and hand you the before and after comparison.