The DSA to AI Max Migration Has Been Delayed – Here is What to Test Before the Time Comes

By Lee Moran, Founder of Veritas Digital

Google has suddenly pushed the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max back to 2027. For most advertisers, it is a chance to find out what they are about to lose, before the decision is made for them.

If you run Google Ads, you have probably heard that Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are being retired and folded into AI Max for Search. You may also have heard the deadline moved. Both are true, and the gap between them is where the most useful work now sits.

In June 2026, Google extended the timeline for the automatic DSA to AI Max upgrade, moving it from September 2026 to February 2027. It also restored the ability to create new DSA campaigns from 15 June 2026, reversing an earlier phase-out step. The stated reason was advertiser feedback: teams wanted more time to test, benchmark, and migrate on their own terms rather than being switched over automatically.

That extra time is definitely worth using. Below is what is changing, what parts of DSA you stand to lose, and the testing approach we would run for a client between now and the deadline.

A quick reminder: what DSA and AI Max both do

Dynamic Search Ads work by crawling your website and dynamically generating ad headlines and landing pages based on your page content, rather than from a keyword list. They have long been a useful safety net for catching relevant searches you had not built keywords for and effectively worked as a sweeper alongside fully built out Search campaigns.

AI Max for Search is Google’s replacement. It keeps that crawl and match logic but layers Google’s Gemini models on top, combining your site content with broader, real-time intent signals to generate creative and match a wider range of queries. In Google’s framing, it is the AI-driven evolution of the standard Search campaign.

The important point for planning is that AI Max is not simply DSA renamed. It is a different campaign type with different default settings, different controls, and a different appetite for query expansion.

The two clocks you need to watch

Here is the detail most coverage glosses over. The delay does not apply evenly.

The DSA automatic migration has moved to February 2027. But campaigns using Automatically Created Assets (ACA) and the campaign level broad match setting are still scheduled to auto upgrade in September 2026, on the original timeline. So, depending on how your account is configured, your nearest deadline may be a few months away, not eight months.

Reading the headline as “deadline cancelled” is the fallacy. Every DSA campaign still ends up on AI Max eventually. What you have gained is a window to prepare, and for some account setups that window is shorter than the February date suggests.

What you risk losing in the transition

This is the question worth answering before any migration, manual or automatic. DSA gives you a set of controls and behaviours that AI Max either changes or hands over to Google’s models. The below areas to scrutinise are:

What DSA gives you	What changes under AI Max
Explicit URL targeting – you choose which pages and categories to target via page feeds or “All Webpages”	Final URL Expansion is on by default; Google decides which pages to send traffic to unless you set exclusions
Predictable, narrow query matching	Broader query expansion, surfacing searches you have never targeted – useful, but it needs policing frequently
Custom page feed logic you have built up over time	The automatic migration will not replicate your bespoke feed rules
Negative keyword behaviour you have tuned	Negatives generally carry over, but matching behaviour can shift and needs re-checking after migration
Copy control through your DSA setup	Gemini generates more of the creative; you defend brand voice through newer controls like brand exclusions and text guidelines

None of this is particularly awful. AI Max can find genuinely incremental demand. But the controls that kept your DSA spend efficient do not all transfer cleanly, and the defaults lean towards Google’s automation rather than your guardrails.

The test we would run between now and the deadline

The migration delay exists so you can gather evidence. The disciplined approach is a side by side experiment, not a blind switch over.

• Restore your baseline first. Before anything changes, export your DSA query reports, conversions, CPA, ROAS, and asset performance. Once campaigns migrate, that clean baseline is harder to reconstruct.
• Run AI Max in parallel for four to six weeks. Duplicate your DSA campaign and enable AI Max on the copy, leaving the original running. Compare them on the metrics that matter to your business – CPA, conversion rate, and ROAS – rather than on match type performance in isolation.
• Start Final URL Expansion conservatively. This is where wasted spend creeps in. Begin with it restricted to vetted pages and widen it only as the conversion data justifies it.
• Police the new queries. AI Max will surface searches you have never targeted. Review the search terms report frequently, especially in the first few weeks, and build your negative keyword list early to stop irrelevant traffic. You may even find other languages in this report that you don’t currently target, to monitor very closely.
• Set your brand and copy guardrails before scaling. Configure brand exclusions and text guidelines so Gemini stays inside your brand voice. This is the step most advertisers skip, then complain about the AI generated copy.

Treated this way, the migration stops being something that happens to your account and becomes something you are well in control of.

The Bottom Line

The DSA to AI Max migration has been delayed but not cancelled. Used well, the extra months are an opportunity to benchmark AI Max against your current DSA performance, work out exactly which controls you will lose, and configure the replacements before Google makes the decision for you. Used poorly and the deadline will quickly catch up on you, with an automatic switch over you have not prepared for – with ACA and broad match campaigns moving sooner than the headline date suggests.

If you would like a clear, evidence led read on what your account stands to gain or lose in this transition, this is exactly the kind of work we do at Veritas. We test before we trust, and a human reviews every change before it goes live. You can read more about how we approach paid search on the PPC services page, or skip straight to getting in touch to hear more from us directly.

References

• Google Ads Developer Blog – Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) Automigration Delayed to February 2027 and Campaign Creation Restored
• Search Engine Land – Google delays Dynamic Search Ads migration to AI Max
• Google Ads Help – Frequently asked questions about AI Max for Search campaigns
• Google Blog – Google’s Dynamic Search Ads are upgrading to AI Max
• PMG – Google to Deprecate Dynamic Search Ads Campaigns, Requiring Shift to AI Max