# What 23 tests reveal about Google AI Max performance

> Enabling all three AI Max features together delivers 40% higher success rates than search term matching alone across 23 tests over 9 months.

Published: 2026-03-13
URL: https://daniliants.com/insights/what-23-tests-reveal-about-google-ai-max-performance/
Tags: google-ads, ai-max, broad-match, search-term-matching, text-customization, url-optimization, roas, quality-score, performance-max, search-bidding-exploration

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## Summary

9-month study of 23 AI Max tests across 16 mature advertisers shows that enabling all three AI Max features simultaneously (search term matching, text customization, URL optimization) delivers 40% higher success rates than search term matching alone. Account-wide rollout is critical - over half of "new" queries at campaign level were already captured elsewhere in the account.

## Key Insight

- **All-in beats incremental:** campaigns using all 3 AI Max features saw 40% higher uplift vs baseline search term matching only. Yet only 50% of tests enabled text customization and just 44% enabled URL optimization - most advertisers are leaving performance on the table.
- **Text customization lifts Quality Score:** average QS improved from 6.8 to 7.3, with ad relevance showing the biggest gain. Headlines were modified far more often than descriptions.
- **Account-level view is essential:** at campaign level, AI Max showed +7% conversion value from never-targeted queries. But at account level, 54% of those queries were already captured by other campaigns - real incremental uplift is ~3% for accounts already running high broad match.
- **DSA conflict:** every successful AI Max test occurred in accounts with low or no DSA adoption. DSA and AI Max likely compete for the same inventory.
- **Brand inclusion lists are now AI Max-exclusive** - another reason to adopt.
- **Search Bidding Exploration (SBE) is a natural companion** to AI Max, and early results suggest hyper-consolidation of account structure may work.
- **Don't judge by match type CPA** - the query reshuffling between campaigns makes campaign-level CPA by match type misleading. Full account impact is the only valid measure.