Google and Meta are asking advertisers to hand them the bids, the targeting and, since this year, the text and visuals of the ads. Since 1 September, Google has even forced AI Max onto thousands of Search campaigns. We have been running pay-per-click campaigns for 26 years, the first ones on GoTo.com, before Google AdWords existed. Our position fits in one sentence: a platform paid on ad spend cannot at the same time be the one deciding the spend, and an agency exists to hold that role.
The facts
- AI Max for Search promised 14% more conversions in beta, in May 2025. At the end of the beta, in April 2026, Google brought the claim down to 7% on average, on internal data that excludes retail (PPC Land). Since 1 September 2026, campaigns using campaign-level broad match or automatically created assets have been switched to AI Max with no opt-out (Google Ads Developer Blog).
- The Google Ads terms of service were rewritten on 1 July 2026, for the first time in about eight years: automation becomes the default, and the responsibility for reviewing, approving or removing any automatically generated campaign rests with the advertiser (Search Engine Land).
- At Meta, a Business Insider investigation among eight advertisers and agencies documented visuals altered by the platform's AI: a bicycle with two handlebars in an ad for the retailer REI, a nightgown replaced by a shirt and trousers, men added to a campaign aimed at a female audience. Meta answers that verification rests with the advertiser, in line with its terms of service (our analysis).
A platform that decides, measures and bills
With Performance Max or Advantage+, the advertiser delegates to the platform the choice of placements, audiences and, increasingly, the content of the ads. The same platform then measures the result and sends the invoice. In any other purchase, a client would keep at least one of those steps.
The revenue model explains the direction taken. Google and Meta are paid on advertising spend. One euro more is one euro of revenue for them; for the advertiser, it is only worth something if a customer comes out at the end. The teams at these platforms may sincerely believe they are making advertisers' lives easier. Their revenue structure still pushes them towards budgets that grow.
Since 1 July 2026, that way of working is written into the contract. Google rewrote the Google Ads terms of service for the first time in eight years. Automation becomes the default setting, and the responsibility for reviewing, approving or removing an automatically generated campaign rests with the advertiser. The platform makes the decisions, the advertiser answers for them.
Promises revised downwards, safeguards delivered afterwards
AI Max is the most recent layer of automation on Search campaigns. In beta, in May 2025, Google announced 14% more conversions. At the end of the beta, in April 2026, the claim was brought down to 7% on average, on internal data that excludes retail. Independent measurements point the same way. Across more than 250 e-commerce campaigns analysed by Smarter Ecommerce, the median effect on return on ad spend is nil and the cost per acquisition rises by 16%. A Monks study counted 99% of impressions without a conversion across around 30,000 search terms triggered by AI Max. We detailed the gap between the AI Max promise and the field back in August.
Google nonetheless switched every campaign built on broad match or automatically created assets over to AI Max from 1 September, with no way to refuse. The control tools arrived after the product: text guidelines in September 2025, natural-language instructions in April 2026, the exclusion of the partner network in Performance Max as a limited test at the end of July 2026.
Another change went more unnoticed. Since 17 August, on budget-limited campaigns, the cost-per-acquisition target entered by the advertiser becomes the value the algorithm actively seeks. Google gives the example itself: an account that was getting its conversions at 5 euros with a target set at 10 will see its cost rise towards 10. We described the mechanism in the end of miracle CPAs. The price is adjusted by the party that bills it.
Ads altered without the brand's approval
Ad content is the latest ground opened to automation. Google rewrites headlines and descriptions, Meta alters visuals. A Business Insider investigation among eight advertisers and agencies showed the effects at Meta: a bicycle with two handlebars in an ad for the retailer REI, a shirt and trousers in place of a nightgown, men added to the visual of a campaign aimed at a female audience. Meta answered that verification rests with the advertiser, in line with its terms of service. The agencies interviewed describe features switched on automatically and a bug that switches them back on after they have been turned off. A quality control dashboard exists, reserved for large advertisers who ask for it.
An ad commits the brand, its prices, its mandatory notices and its tone. A visual in which the product has been replaced by another is published in the advertiser's name without a single person from the company having seen it.
What an agency does in this context
We are not calling for a return to manual bidding. Automated bidding outperforms a human on a growing share of tasks and we use it every day. The question is one of mandate: who reviews the machine's choices, and in whose interest. Our answer, as an SEA agency in Luxembourg, comes down to four practices.
Settings. Budget per campaign, exclusions, areas, languages, negative queries, the partner network cut off when it brings nothing. Every default setting is reviewed, because it was chosen by the platform.
Arbitration. Automated recommendations are read one by one before being applied or declined, and the decision is tied to the client's real conversions, the ones in the CRM, the ones that become appointments and sales. On the Primagaz France account, the cost per appointment was divided by three by setting aside the optimisation that looked most obvious from the platform's point of view.
Content control. No generated headline, no retouched visual goes live without someone who knows the brand having approved it. On the accounts we manage, automatic rewriting features are switched off and checked again after every platform update, because they sometimes switch themselves back on.
The memory of decisions. Which recommendation was declined and why, which budget was kept despite a negative signal, which campaign was stopped. Google knows an account's bids and queries. The history of these decisions belongs to the advertiser, and an agency that documents it builds an asset the platform does not have.
A question to put to any agency, ours included
AIxH is a Google Partner agency and our consultants are certified on the five Google Ads environments. That badge attests to a skill verified by Google. It says nothing about where the agency stands when the platform pushes a setting. An agency that applies every recommendation to maintain its partner score serves the platform first. Before entrusting an account, ask to see the list of recommendations declined on a real account, and the reasons for each refusal.
AIxH's view
The platforms will keep automating, and part of that movement makes campaigns better. The interest of the party that bills the spend does not move. Our Google Ads agency in Luxembourg applies that observation to every account: settings reviewed, recommendations arbitrated on real conversions, content approved before it goes live, decisions documented. If your campaigns run on Performance Max or Advantage+, or were switched to AI Max on 1 September, a first conversation is enough to measure what the machine changed and what deserves to be taken back in hand.
