Migrating from Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max: What Changes
Dynamic Search Ads are being retired. Google's replacement is AI Max — a more powerful but less transparent system. Here's what you need to know before migrating, and how to do it without a performance cliff.
- What DSA does that AI Max replaces — and improves on
- The key differences between the two formats
- The step-by-step migration process
- What to watch in the first 30 days after migrating
Google announced the deprecation of Dynamic Search Ads as a standalone format in 2026. DSA functionality is now being absorbed into AI Max for Search Campaigns. If you're currently running DSAs, you'll need to migrate — either proactively now, or when Google forces it.
The good news: AI Max is more capable than DSA. The risk: it's also more aggressive and less transparent. Migrating correctly means extracting what worked in your DSA campaigns and giving AI Max the guardrails it needs to perform.
Google confirmed that Dynamic Search Ads will no longer be available as a standalone campaign type after Q3 2026. Existing DSA campaigns will be automatically migrated to AI Max settings if no action is taken. Manual migration gives you control over the timing and setup — automatic migration does not.
DSA vs AI Max: side-by-side
| Feature | Dynamic Search Ads | AI Max |
|---|---|---|
| URL targeting | Page feed or website crawl | Full site + AI-selected URLs |
| Ad copy | Auto-generated headlines, manual descriptions | Fully AI-generated from assets |
| Query matching | Crawl-based, content-matched | Semantic AI matching — broader |
| Negative keywords | Supported | Supported (more critical) |
| URL exclusions | Page feed exclusions | URL exclusion settings |
| Reporting | Search terms visible | Search terms partially visible |
| Asset control | Descriptions editable | Full asset library approach |
Step-by-step migration process
- Audit your current DSA performance. Pull 90 days of data. Note your top-performing URL targets, average CPA, and best-converting search term categories. This is your performance baseline.
- Export your DSA negative keywords. These are critical. Your DSA campaigns have accumulated negatives that protect you from irrelevant traffic. AI Max needs them even more than DSA did.
- Build your asset library. AI Max requires a full library of headlines (15+) and descriptions (4+). Review what worked in your DSA ad copy and feed those into your asset library.
- Configure URL exclusions. In your new AI Max campaign, add URL exclusions for pages you don't want to serve ads to — thank-you pages, cart pages, internal tools, privacy policy.
- Apply negative keywords from DSA. Import your full negative keyword list before the campaign goes live.
- Set your bidding strategy. Start with Maximise Conversions for 2–3 weeks, then move to Target CPA once you have 30+ conversions through the new campaign.
- Run both in parallel for 2 weeks. Don't immediately pause DSA. Run both campaigns simultaneously to validate that AI Max is picking up the volume and conversion rate before you switch off DSA.
- Pause DSA, monitor AI Max weekly. Once AI Max hits parity with DSA performance, pause the DSA campaign and increase AI Max budget.
Migrating without exporting DSA negative keywords first. DSA campaigns often have hundreds of accumulated negatives built up over months of search term review. Forgetting to transfer these means AI Max will repeat the same mistakes DSA made early on — showing ads for irrelevant queries you already solved.
Don't wait for Google to auto-migrate you. Manual migration with proper negative keyword setup, URL exclusions, and a parallel testing period is always going to outperform an auto-migration. Do it now on your terms, not Google's timeline.
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