Should You Use AI Max for Google Ads [my reaction]

If you've opened up your Google Ads dashboard lately, it is highly, highly likely that you've seen a bright, shiny notification telling you to turn on AI Max. And if you turn on AI Max, you'll get rivers of gold flowing into your business account every single day. Now, the reality is, is that for most businesses, AI Max is not a tool that we would recommend that you engage yet. I'm definitely not saying that you should not be leaning into Google's AI features because they are highly, highly important for success with Google Ads, especially in 2026. Now, unless you are a Google Ads like me, you'll probably not watch the latest podcast from Google's Ads team where they went into a deep dive of is your search campaign structure holding back your performance? And one of the main reasons for that is because it goes for 47 minutes. I wanna be clear that what Google shared in this podcast is highly relevant, but what I do wanna point out, and one of my big concerns about this data which Google releases, is that they push these features like AI Max, Performance Max, and even Smart Bidding way too early on businesses, and those businesses then get detrimental results or poor results in their Google Ads campaigns. So this is my problem with a lot of these announcements that Google come up with. It's not actually what they're saying, it's more of the when they recommend for you to apply these into your account. Because the reality is, is that some of these early applications are actually going to do more harm than good and actually go against Google's documentation. Now I'm well aware that most people that are watching this video don't really care about Google's latest features because what they're really, really focused on is how can I use Google Ads to get better results for my business? And that's what we're going to be focusing on in this video. So to save you watching that full 47-minute episode, I'm going to break down to the core 3 learnings that you need to be aware of. And then if you stick around to this end of the video, I am going to take you through a quickfire action plan to make sure that you've got your Google Ads campaign and account set up right for this new AI world that we're going into in 2026. Now I know it's not a new AI world, but it is definitely moving faster in 2026 than what it had previously. Right at the start of this video, I want to be really, really clear on my position because in this extended podcast that Google released, they spoke about the benefits of AI Max, Smart Bidding, and also Performance Max. Now for AI Max, for most businesses, I'm still saying a big no to utilizing AI Max, but it's just where it is in the market yet. I still haven't seen any amazing results from AI Max, and we're still seeing better results from Dynamic Search Ads for businesses that want to go down that keywordless targeting path. I do believe that that will change throughout 2026, so I'm definitely not writing off AI Max, but just in this current form, we're still waiting for some better results. And when it comes to Smart Bidding and Performance Max, they are two very, very powerful tools. But my problem is, is that especially inside of the Google Ads dashboard, they recommend for businesses to use it far too early. So now that you know the position, I want to give you some more context with that. But just in case you are starting with Google Ads and if you want to know an exact process that we use to not only start but also start to Start and Scale with Google Ads so you can see greater success with your campaigns for your business, why don't you follow that link in the description below and you can get access to Start and Scale, which gives you access to my Google Ads optimization checklist, which has been downloaded and is used by over 120,000 businesses and Google Ads professionals. You also get campaign guides, you also get step-by-step tutorials on how to optimize and also set up your campaigns in the right way. You can get all of that for absolutely no cost. All you need to do just follow that link in the description below. All right, now let's talk about the 3 core points of this podcast that was released by Google and how that relates to you and your business. And the first major point was this, that inside of Google Ads, they're definitely shifting their definition of control. This is the biggest thing that you need to learn with Google Ads, especially if you're new to Google Ads and you may be hearing some things in the past about, you know, jump onto Google Ads, it's great to target different keywords, Things have been talking about single keyword ad groups. And one of the main strengths of Google Ads, especially over the first 22, 23 years that Google was operating, was that you were able to specifically target individual keywords that you wanted your ads to appear on. And even if the searcher had used a different order of your search terms, they wouldn't see your ads. It was really, really powerful in what I call keyword sniping, in that you would select a range of keywords, you'd break them up into different ad groups, you would have corresponding ad copies, then going into different landing pages. And along times our common setup was what you would call a single keyword ad group, where you would have inside of a campaign— there was cases we would sometimes have 20, 30, 40 different ad groups all targeting individual keywords. And that was a structure that we saw great success with year after year. And not only would you target keywords, you'd also go in and target different audiences, blocking out different audiences, adding in bid adjustments to different times and locations and devices. And success with Google was very much the way that we could easily explain it, is you had a whole heap of dials and you'd kind of just adjust those different keywords, adjust the bids. And that was the process for success, is that you're making all these granular adjustments in order to get the right keywords to the right audiences, to the right demographics at the right time. And that was one of the core benefits of Google Ads. You had the ability to really, really have laser focus on what keywords you wanted your ads to show on, but also what type of people you wanted your ads to be showing on. And I 100% agree with Google that that manual granular lever approach to optimizations is not as successful, and in many cases it'll be detrimental to your account if you continue down that path, especially in 2026. So for success with Google Ads, it's moving from manual levers and more looking to strategic inputs, with the main strategic input being your conversion data. And I would even go as far as to say that in 2026, your account structure and the conversion data that you're feeding into your Google Ads account is more important than any individual keyword targeting that you can roll out within your campaigns. And you may be asking, why is that? And the reason is, is because the second main point of this video really goes into how keyword targeting inside of Google Ads has moved from raw keywords to inferred targeting. For so long inside of Google Ads, Google would target the keyword that you actually entered. It makes sense. And the first campaign that I set up was for our villa resort in Bali. So we would have keyword targets, one-bedroom villa Seminyak, and people would literally have to search those keywords. And if they had any extra words in them or if they had it in the wrong order, our ads would not show. Whereas that is now completely shifted, whereas Google now targets the meaning or the intent of the keyword that you're targeting. And the way that Google explained it inside of their podcast is that keywords are no longer rigid triggers anymore, but they are rather signals that guide the AI. So keywords have long stopped being the strict matching and are now more signals of intent. Signals is this new word which has been coming into Google Campaigns more and more, and I expect it'll come into Google Ads. More and more throughout 2026. The first time we heard about this thing with signals was when they launched Performance Max campaign. The difference between a signal and a targeting is essentially the signal's kind of like a loose recommendation to Google to, hey, go check out there. But then if Google doesn't find any data, they can go far beyond that signal in order just to find conversions for your business. This is one thing I do agree with Google, and I've even faced some pushback for people saying, why would I recommend broad match keywords? And the reason for why I am a big believer that all businesses businesses need to start using broad match keywords in 2026 is because Google has essentially created this environment that we need to do it. Let me explain. In case you're unaware, you would have been seeing that Google has started rolling out AI overviews and AI mode, and it is quickly growing in its adoption. In fact, there's some data from SEA Interactive that has shown over a 12-month period from October 2024 through to October 2025, the click-through ratios when Google was showing the AI overviews dropped from 14% in 2024 down to just above 6% in 2025. So the change is real. Take-home message being that for continued success with Google Ads, you need your ads to be able to appear in AI overviews and AI mode. And guess what? There is only 3 ways that your ads can appear in AI overviews and AI mode, and that is if you use AI Max, Performance Max, or Broad Match. Now, I've already mentioned in this video that for most businesses, AI Max is not something we would recommend. Once again, yet I do believe that will change in the future. Also, Performance Max, you should not be using that until you're already seeing at least 30 conversions a month. So that's leading to if you're starting with Google Ads, you need to start leaning into broad match. And I do want to spend a little bit of time here because this is where I differentiate with Google because I wholeheartedly believe that Performance Max, smart bidding, and broad match are powerful tools for businesses to use inside of Google Ads. The problem is, is that Google's own documentation, especially around smart bidding, highly recommends that you need to be getting at least at least 30 conversions a month before you start switching on to smart bidding. And if you want to start utilizing tools like Target CPA or Target ROAS, that number climbs up to 50. That is something that we still see inside of Define Digital Academy with all of our students and members. We are still recommending that framework because that's the data we are seeing inside the accounts that we actively manage. And this is then my problem, is that Google is recommending for businesses to start with Performance Max, which locks you into smart bidding, which goes against that rule of 30 conversions a month. So you can see there That's my problem with the messaging from Google. I wholeheartedly believe that you need to be using Performance Max, but it shouldn't be the starting off point. When you start with Google Ads, what you want to be doing is you want to be having some extra control to build up that conversion data, and then you can lean into the AI which Google is giving us. All right, and point number 3, and this is something else that I wholeheartedly believe in, is that Google was really, really pushing that you need campaign consolidation. Essentially what they was meaning is that, remember how I said before you would have one campaign with up to, you know, 10, 20, 30, even 40 different ad groups. For me, that is not a successful structure inside of Google Ads. And in fact, it's highly detrimental. When we survey all the accounts that we manage inside of Google Ads through our different programs, I can't think of any campaigns that we have more than 4 or 5 ad groups in an individual campaign. And quite often it's only 2 or 3 ad groups inside of that campaign. And the reason for that is you want to be thinking about it like this, is that because your keywords are now much broader, in the type of search terms that they will trigger your ads, you don't need as many ad groups as what you did previously. And the other side of that is, remember that talk we're having before about moving across to Smart Bidding and utilizing the AI features inside of Google Ads? You're going to get much faster data loops by consolidating down your campaigns and your ad groups so that you can get in and get more data in through your individual campaigns so you can utilize your campaign smart bidding. So for success with Google Ads, what we're really pushing and what I really recommend inside of your Google Ads account is that you really want your Google Ads account to really meet your core business needs. And what I'll be saying with that is before you start to think about setting out your Google Ads campaign structure that's going to be best for you, you want to really be thinking about what is the core drivers for your business. And most businesses have different tiers of products or services. They have those products or services which are their really highly core profitable and volume products, and you want to have them in a campaign grouping. And then you'll have another collection of products or services which may not be as profitable, or they just may not have as much volume. It makes sense to break them out. This is going to look different for each individual type of business, but what we really try to get to when we're working with businesses with their Google Ads campaigns and their strategy is really looking at matching their core products or services with their individual target markets. So what you want to be thinking about, and the way that I really, really gauge this for success with Google Ads is you always want to be thinking about what is the least amount of campaigns that I need in order to see success with Google Ads. You will need some different campaigns inside of your account structure, and there are some really valid reasons for having different campaigns. And it could be that you want to be targeting different locations. And another reason for having different campaigns is that if you have some really, really different product metrics for different products or services, say for example, you have a product which may have a lower search volume, but a super high profit margin, it makes sense to have that into a separate campaign. But the main messaging I really want you to understand is that especially in 2026 with Google Ads, more campaigns doesn't automatically mean more success. In most cases, we have found by consolidating account structures and merging ad groups together and potentially even shutting down some campaigns and merging campaigns together, we are seeing much better success with Google Ads, but more importantly, inside of that individual business unit. So as promised, let me give you some really quick take- action items. And the first one is if you've got any low-volume campaigns— and what I mean by that, if you've got any campaigns that are getting less than about 20 or 30 clicks a day and they're also getting less than 30 conversions a month— you need to really be thinking about, can I move that campaign into another campaign group, or how can I expand out that campaign in order to get more volume running through that campaign? The second thing you want to be thinking about is the total account structure. If you've got 10 campaigns, what is the potential to maybe merge 2 or 3 of those different campaigns? As As you go through each different campaign, you want to be thinking about what is the purpose for this campaign. Am I just duplicating some different keyword targeting, or can I bring some keyword targeting inside of multiple campaigns into one campaign so that I can get more data and volume running through that campaign for better results? And finally, if you're only using exact match and phrase match, I would start to look to do some testing around broad match keywords. And of course, if you are going to start testing with broad match keywords, you do need to make sure that you're doing it in the right way.. And if you would like to know more about that subject, I want you to go through and watch this video right here. Thank you for joining me. My name is Aaron Young from Defined Digital Academy. And remember, if you want to get started and scale so you can get those frameworks for how we not only set up but optimize our Google Ads campaigns, go through and watch that link below. I'll see you in this video right now. See ya.