If you’re running Dynamic Search Ads for your business, Google just moved your deadline. DSA campaigns are being phased out in favour of AI Max for Search — Google’s own description is “the next generation of Dynamic Search Ads” — and while the company pushed the full sunset back to February 2027 after advertiser pushback, auto-upgrades for campaigns using Automatically Created Assets and broad match start as early as September 2026. If you sell online in India, that’s right before Diwali and Big Billion Days spend ramps up, which makes this a bad moment to let Google flip the switch for you.
1. What AI Max for Search actually changes
Dynamic Search Ads worked by crawling your website and matching search queries to your page content. AI Max keeps that but adds real-time intent signals from well beyond your site — Google’s own account managers describe it as identifying “untapped search queries” that your landing pages never mentioned. It’s less “match my page text” and more “guess what this searcher actually wants and see if you’re a fit.”
Do this: before you touch anything, export your current DSA search terms report. You’ll want it as a baseline to compare against once AI Max is live, because the query mix is about to shift.
2. The auto-upgrade timeline, and why waiting is the wrong move
Google’s stated numbers: campaigns using the full AI Max feature set see roughly 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS compared to plain search-term matching. That’s a reasonable trade — but only if the upgrade happens on your terms, with your brand and location controls set up first. Left to the automatic migration, it’ll happen on Google’s clock, and for a lot of advertisers that clock lands during festive-season prep, right when budgets are least forgiving of a rocky transition.
Do this: use the voluntary upgrade tool (Google has been rolling it out to DSA advertisers this month) rather than waiting for the forced switch. Migrating now gives you weeks to test before Big Billion Days and Diwali spend kicks in — see our Amazon & Flipkart festive-season prep checklist for the broader timeline this sits inside.
3. Lock down your controls before you flip it on
Because AI Max searches beyond your crawled content, the guardrails matter more than they did with plain DSA. Google’s advanced controls now cover brand exclusions, location targeting, and text customisation guidelines — all worth setting deliberately rather than leaving on defaults. Skip this step and you risk your ad copy or targeting drifting into territory you didn’t sign off on, especially if you sell a mix of products or serve specific cities.
Do this: set brand exclusions first if you don’t want AI Max bidding on your own brand terms or a competitor’s, then narrow location targeting to the cities or regions you actually serve before expanding.
4. Test with a one-click experiment before committing budget
Google’s upgrade flow includes a one-click experiment option that runs AI Max alongside your existing DSA setup on a split of traffic, rather than forcing a hard cutover. This is the single best way to see whether the promised conversion lift shows up for your account specifically — industry-wide averages rarely tell you what’ll happen with your own search terms and margins.
Do this: run the experiment for at least two to three weeks before the festive rush, so you have a real read on performance while you can still adjust — not after ad spend has already tripled for the season.
5. Where this fits with the rest of your AI-driven ad stack
AI Max isn’t happening in isolation. Meta rolled out its own AI-driven ad assistant around the same time (see our breakdown of Meta’s AI Business Assistant), and the pattern across both platforms is the same: less manual keyword and audience management, more automated systems making calls that used to be yours. That’s not automatically bad, but it does mean your job shifts from picking keywords to setting the boundaries the AI operates inside — brand safety, budget caps, and which conversions actually count.
Do this: audit your conversion tracking accuracy before scaling any AI-driven campaign type, on Google or Meta. If the AI is optimising toward the wrong signal, more automation just means more budget spent chasing it faster.
The bottom line: Dynamic Search Ads aren’t disappearing overnight, but the campaigns most likely to auto-upgrade first — those on Automatically Created Assets and broad match — will start shifting in September 2026, weeks before India’s biggest online shopping season. Migrating voluntarily now, with your controls set and a proper experiment run, costs you an afternoon. Getting force-migrated mid-festive-season with default settings could cost you a lot more than that.
Need help with this? Get in touch with Techqueto — we build and grow websites for 100+ brands across India and the UAE.