Google adds new AI Max testing and planning tools

Google is expanding AI Max for Search campaigns with new testing and planning capabilities designed to help advertisers understand the impact of changing budgets, ROI targets and campaign settings before committing to them.

The updates include multi-campaign A/B testing, experiments that support brand and location controls, and new Performance Planner capabilities.

What’s new. Starting in September, advertisers will be able to test different budgets and ROI targets across multiple Search campaigns in a single A/B test.

The feature builds on Google’s existing one-click AI Max experiments and is intended to give advertisers a clearer view of what happens to overall business performance when they scale campaigns.

Testing gets more flexible. Google is also removing a potential obstacle for advertisers that depend on tighter campaign controls.

AI Max experiments will support tests with brand and location controls enabled, allowing advertisers to measure AI Max’s impact without having to remove those guardrails for the experiment.

That could make AI Max testing more practical for businesses with strict requirements around which brands or geographic areas their campaigns can target.

Performance Planner expands. Google is also adding more functionality to Performance Planner, allowing advertisers to forecast how changes such as bidding or budget targets could affect existing campaign performance.

Advertisers can then apply Google’s suggested changes directly to their campaigns with one click, shortening the path between forecasting a change and implementing it.

Why we care. Multi-campaign experiments could be particularly useful for understanding the incremental impact of increasing budgets or changing ROI targets at a broader account level. Support for brand and location controls also means more advertisers can test AI Max while maintaining some of the restrictions their businesses require.

Bottom line. As Google pushes AI Max further into Search campaign management, it’s also building out the experimentation and forecasting tools advertisers need to evaluate its impact before making larger changes.