By the Mayab Media Team
If AI Max is on in your account, and since September 1 there's a good chance it is, you've been paying for clicks you didn't choose. That's not automatically bad. But until now, it was hard to see which clicks were yours and which were the AI's. That's starting to change.
First, how you got here
On September 1, 2026, Google began upgrading Search campaigns that used automatically created assets or the campaign-level broad match setting to AI Max. Search Engine Roundtable published Google's email back in August. Campaigns with automatically created assets got search term matching and text customization switched on. Campaign-level broad match campaigns got search term matching. No opt-in needed.
So plenty of advertisers are running AI Max without ever having made that decision.
What's new in the report
PPC Land reported on October 25 that the AI Max report, now called "Search terms and ad combinations," shows four new source columns:
- Search term match source: whether the query came from AI Max expanded matches or from landing pages and URL inclusions.
- Landing page source: whether the landing page was advertiser-provided.
- Headline source: same idea, for the headline that served.
- Description source: same, for the description.
A few honest caveats. The columns were seen in one live account (a car wash, with data from September 13 to October 12, 2026). Google hasn't formally announced them, and its AI Max reporting help page didn't name them as of October 25. In the sample, the headline and description columns only ever said "Advertiser provided," so we don't yet know exactly what label appears when Google writes the text or picks the URL. PPC News Feed first reported the view on October 19, and it was shared on LinkedIn on October 13.
You might not have the columns yet. When you do, they're worth more than almost any other report in the account.
Why this is a money report
AI Max has a mixed record in independent tests. PPC Land's earlier coverage cites one 2025 analysis where 99% of roughly 30,000 AI Max-activated search terms got zero conversions, and another advertiser who reported a cost per conversion of $100.37 under AI Max versus $43.97 for phrase match. Google, for its part, claims an average 7% more conversions or conversion value at similar CPA or ROAS when the full suite is on.
Both can be true at once. AI Max can find some great new queries and waste money on a long tail of junk. The only way to know which is happening in your account is to split the traffic by source and look at cost per result for each bucket. That's exactly what these columns make possible.
Your weekly AI Max review, step by step
- Confirm which campaigns have AI Max on. Check campaign settings for search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion. Write down what's on where. Don't assume.
- Open "Search terms and ad combinations" and add the source columns. If they're not there yet, use the existing match type and AI Max views for now and check again weekly.
- Split the data into two buckets. Bucket A: your keywords and your URLs. Bucket B: AI Max expanded matches. Export to a sheet if that's easier.
- Compare cost per conversion between buckets. Use at least 30 days. If Bucket B's CPA is within your target, AI Max is earning its place. If it's way worse, it's not.
- Mine the winners. Any AI Max query that converts well should become a real keyword in a tightly themed ad group. Now you control the bid, the ad and the page.
- Kill the losers with negatives. Queries with spend and no conversions, or obviously irrelevant intent, go on your negative list. Check the same terms weekly, because AI Max keeps finding new variations.
- Check landing page routing. If final URL expansion is on, look at which pages AI Max is sending people to. Your blog post about "history of car washes" shouldn't be getting paid traffic. Use URL exclusions for pages that never convert.
- Decide per campaign, not per account. Brand campaigns and tightly budgeted lead gen campaigns often do better with search term matching off. Bigger, mature campaigns with strong conversion data may handle it fine.
Our take
We're not anti-AI Max. We're anti-unmeasured AI Max. Turning on broad automation and never looking at where the money goes is how small accounts bleed out slowly.
These source columns are the first time the report directly answers the question that matters: "Did I pay for this click, or did the AI?" Once you can answer that, the decision gets easy. Keep what works, cut what doesn't, and promote the winners into keywords you own.
If you got auto-upgraded on September 1 and haven't looked since, block out an hour this week. Two months of data is plenty to make a call.
Takeaway: Split AI Max traffic by source, compare CPA honestly, and turn the winners into your own keywords.
Want us to check how this affects your account? Book a free audit.
