The paid media landscape shifted twice this week, so let’s get into it.
Google has announced that Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) will be automatically upgraded to AI Max for Search by the end of September, while Meta has unveiled “One Click CAPI” alongside AI-powered enhancements to the Meta Pixel. For brands investing serious budget into digital performance, these aren’t routine product updates. They mark another decisive step away from manual control, keyword-led targeting, and human-configured tracking, towards automation, keywordless technology, and AI-driven decision-making at scale.
Here’s what’s actually changing, why it matters, and what your teams need to be doing about it now.
Google: The end of DSAs, the rise of AI Max
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just another product sunset. DSAs have been a paid search staple for years. They worked by leveraging landing page content, based on URLs that advertisers manually selected, to identify new search terms and target queries outside of standard keyword bidding. Useful, but ultimately still tethered to the pages you pointed it at.
AI Max for Search goes considerably further. It introduces intent-based targeting powered by three core capabilities working in tandem. Search term matching uses AI to analyse your website content, existing ad assets and keywords, then matches your ad to the most relevant query. Final URL expansion identifies the best landing page to direct traffic to based on what the user is actually searching for. And text customisation dynamically generates ad copy, drawing on your existing ads, assets, landing page content and generative AI.
In short, Google is no longer simply reading your website to find queries. It’s interpreting user intent, choosing where to send people, and writing the ad…all in real time.
Why this should be on your radar
The shift to AI Max has real strategic implications for how brands manage, govern, and get the most from their paid search investment.
Data quality is now the foundation of everything. With AI making more of the targeting and creative decisions, the quality of signals you feed it becomes absolutely critical. Conversion tracking, consent mode, enhanced conversions are all more important than ever. They’re the raw material the algorithm learns from. Poor signals in means poor learnings out, and that means wasted budget.
There’s genuine scale opportunity here. The way users search is evolving rapidly, particularly in this AI era. Keywordless targeting can find new demand faster and expand reach well beyond traditional keyword strategies. But that same capability can introduce inefficiencies if left unchecked.
Control looks very different now. The old world of PPC was governed by keywords, bids, and segmentation. The new world requires a different toolkit: strong audience signals built from historical performance and first-party data, robust data infrastructure, quality ad assets, and well-managed exclusion strategies.
Those exclusion levers matter more than ever. Through AI Max, advertisers can deploy negative keywords to block irrelevant queries, brand exclusions to prevent ads appearing on your own or competitors’ terms, URL exclusions to stop the algorithm targeting irrelevant pages, and ad text guidelines to define messaging restrictions, tone of voice, and terms that cannot appear in your ads. The principle is straightforward: you set the boundaries, Google operates within them.
We’ve already put this to the test
With the search landscape evolving at pace, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve, but equally important to test new features in controlled environments. At Found, we’ve been doing exactly that. Through our work with Newmarket Holidays, we tested AI Max in a controlled A/B split, and the results speak for themselves: a +14.94% boost in ROAS. It’s a case study we’re proud to have published with Google, and it reinforces a point we keep coming back to, AI Max can unlock efficiency and growth, but it can also introduce waste if left unchecked. The responsibility doesn’t sit with AI to lead performance. It sits with us to guide it effectively.
Meta: one click CAPI and smarter pixel tracking
On the Meta side, this week brought the introduction of One Click CAPI, a streamlined way to implement Meta’s Conversions API directly from Events Manager, removing much of the server configuration and technical complexity that has historically made CAPI adoption a barrier for many brands. Alongside this, Meta has added AI-powered enrichment to the Pixel, which automatically pulls in product and page-level information so Meta’s systems have richer signals to work with for campaign optimisation.
The underlying philosophy mirrors what’s happening at Google. Both platforms are moving towards matching users with the content and experiences they’re most likely to engage with, rather than relying purely on demographic or keyword-based targeting. Better data in means better decisions out, and both platforms are now making the infrastructure to support that increasingly accessible.
For brands, the takeaway is the same across both channels: the quality of your data, your tracking setup, and your first-party data strategy are no longer just a media team concern. They’re a board-level priority.
The Found take
These updates reinforce a pattern we’ve been tracking for some time. The platforms are consolidating control around their AI systems, and the role of the advertiser is shifting from operator to strategist. That’s not a threat, it’s an opportunity, provided you have the right foundations in place.
Strong conversion data. Clean audience signals. Clear brand guardrails. And the strategic expertise to know when to let the algorithm run and when to rein it in.
That’s the new playbook. And at Found, it’s one we’re already executing.Want to talk about what these changes mean for your brand? Get in touch with our Paid Media team.
