Google Ads AI Max can bring in more enquiries, or more time-wasters. Here's what it does and why it needs careful management, not a set-and-forget setup.
Google's rolled out a new feature called AI Max for Search campaigns. If you haven't heard of it, you're not behind. Most small business owners haven't.
Here's the short version: AI Max hands more control to Google's automation. It can bring in more enquiries. It can also spend your budget chasing people who were never going to book a job.
It's not a bad tool. But it needs a steady hand watching it, not a one-off setup and a hope for the best.
What Google Ads AI Max Changes in Search Campaigns
Think of your Google Ads account as having a driver. Normally, you tell it exactly which streets to drive down, which keywords to bid on, and what to say to people along the way.
AI Max takes some of that control away from you and hands it to Google. AI Max adds more automation to Search campaigns. It widens the net on what searches your ads show up for. It can also write and adjust your ad copy on the fly, pulling wording straight from your website.
That can be useful. A Brisbane physio running ads for "sports physio" might start showing up for "physio for sore knee near me" too, without lifting a finger.
But it cuts both ways. The same widened net can pull in searches that sound related but bring the wrong kind of enquiry. A plumber's account might start chasing people looking for apprenticeships instead of jobs.
The tool isn't the problem. The problem is what happens when nobody's watching it closely enough to tell the difference.
Oh, and Performance Max? That's a different thing entirely. AI Max is an optional feature setting that upgrades a Search campaign you're already running. Performance Max is a standalone campaign type that automatically runs ads across all of Google's networks at once, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, and more. Two different tools doing two different jobs. Worth knowing before someone tells you they're the same thing.
Why This Isn't a Set-and-Forget Feature
Google Ads AI Max is only as good as the information you're feeding it. If your account tells Google that every form fill and every phone tap counts as a "win", the automation will happily go find you more of the cheapest, easiest wins available. Whether they turn into paying customers is a different question.
Burning ad spend?
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This is where most small business owners get caught out. Not because they've done something wrong, but because AI Max changes the game halfway through and expects someone to be paying attention.
Getting real value out of it means constantly checking:
- →Whether the leads coming in are the right leads, from the right suburbs, for the right services
- →Whether the budget is being spent on searches that convert
- →Whether Google's auto-generated ad copy is still accurate, and not quietly pulling outdated claims from an old page on your site
That's not a task most tradies or SMB owners have time for between quotes and jobs. And getting it wrong quietly costs money, week after week, before anyone notices.
The Risk of Doing It Yourself
It's tempting to think of this as a checklist you tick off once. It's not. AI Max is a moving target. What counts as a good lead this month might shift next month as your business changes or Google adjusts how the feature behaves.
A Gold Coast electrician running a "switchboard upgrades" campaign might get a flood of enquiries in week one, feel like it's working, and not notice for a month that half those enquiries are outside their service area. By then, the budget's already spent.
This is exactly the kind of ongoing management an agency exists to handle. Someone needs to be reading the search terms, checking the conversion data means what you think it means, and making the call on when to scale, adjust, or pull back. Guessing your way through it, or setting it up once and walking away, is how good budgets quietly turn into wasted ones.
What Good Management Looks Like
Done properly, Google Ads AI Max management means someone is regularly checking that:
- →The leads coming through are real prospects, not noise
- →Spend is tracking to plan, not blowing out on the wrong searches
- →The automation is being fed accurate signals about what a genuine enquiry looks like for your business
- →Nothing embarrassing or inaccurate is showing up in auto-generated ad copy
If you're already running Google Ads and wondering whether AI Max is helping or hurting, that's worth a proper look. Get a second set of eyes on your account to see what's actually happening.
Don't Set It and Forget It
Your budget controls still matter. Google Ads AI Max can be a genuine win for your business. It can also quietly burn through budget if nobody's keeping watch.
The tool isn't set-and-forget, and it was never meant to be. It needs someone paying attention to the numbers behind the numbers. That's not a weekend project. It's ongoing work.
If you're not sure whether your account is being managed the way it needs to be, that's a fair question to ask. Get a free digital audit and find out whether your ad spend is turning into qualified leads.
At Localsearch, we’ve worked with more than 15,000 Australian SMBs. The accounts that hold up aren’t the ones with the fanciest reports. They’re the ones where the owner can point to a lead and say, “Yep, that turned into a real job.”