The AI Takeover: 6 Must-Know Updates from the Google Ads Demo Slam
If you were watching the Google Ads Demo Slam last week, you’ll know the drill: AI was, once again, the undisputed star of the show.
Near enough every single product update included it in some way.
Here are the six most interesting updates that will define your strategy in 2026:
1. AI Controls: More Power, More Control (Honest!)
Google is pushing AI deeper into campaign management, but these tools now come with more guardrails to appease the experienced marketer.
AI Max:
The new AI Max feature feels like the next logical step to bring more AI-powered expansion to your existing campaigns without much effort. The focus is on adding incremental reach without forcing a major restructuring and, crucially, without compromising control or transparency.
Ads Adviser:
Equally valuable is Ads Adviser, an AI adviser right within Google Ads that helps you build, optimise, and fix problems. It can draft entire campaigns, offer tailored optimisations for bids, budgets, and creatives, and even troubleshoot disapproved ads for you. What’s not to like? The best part is that the Ads Adviser doesn’t make changes by itself; it always asks for your approval, shifting the conversation from manual tweaks to strategic approvals.
2. Budgets & Audiences: Looks who’s back
The next wave of automation focuses on solving common pacing problems while bringing back a beloved targeting feature.
Total Campaign Budgets:
Total Campaign Budgets are a welcome relief for marketers managing short-term promotions (3–90 days). This tool maximises performance within a fixed budget, handling peaks and troughs automatically (AI again), without requiring constant manual tweaks. This feels MUCH easier than trying to pace multiple high spend campaigns over a short period. This will make Black Friday planning a lot more straight forward.
Lookalike audiences:
After the phasing out of Similar audiences a couple of years ago, we’re glad to see the return of Lookalike Audiences (testing now, coming officially Q1 2026). This is a smarter, more unified way to scale campaigns based on first-party data, offering relevant reach with breadth options from 2.5% to 10%, similar to Meta. This requires clean first-party data and budgets allocated to awareness across Display and YouTube. The features are also available through DV360.
Yet another strong reason to put some focus on first-party data strategies.
3. Connected TV (CTV): The Living Room Revolution
The most exciting takeaway is Google’s renewed, aggressive push into Connected TV. They are simplifying the buying process to unlock premium, non-skippable video inventory, without the need for media buying tech stack.
Non-Skip 3-way Mix:
The Non-Skip 3-Way Mix feature streamlines video advertising dramatically. You can now upload 6-second, 15-second, and 30-second non-skippable CTV assets into one campaign, and the AI does the rest, optimising the mix based on the "living room experience." This seems like a straightforward way to drive awareness across multiple platforms with video.
CTV Network:
This is supported by the new CTV Network in Google Ads, which promises access to premium inventory with unmatched reach, including the ability to run Brand Lift Studies. This is a big step forwards for Google Ads. If they can deliver on the "premium" promise and simplify the buying process, this is a massive win anyone looking for top-of-funnel impact.
A More Powerful Arsenal, Not People Replacement
The overarching message from the Google Ads Demo Slam is that AI is playing an ever-bigger role in campaign setup, management, and success. But rather than replacing the PPC specialist, these tools are adding incredible depth to their arsenal. AI handles the complexity and the monotonous tasks—the bid adjustments, the budget pacing, and the creative shuffling—freeing the specialist to focus on higher-level strategy.
The value of the human PPC expert isn't diminishing; it's simply changing. Your strategic, creative, and ethical oversight is now more critical than ever. Mastering these new tools doesn't just make you more efficient; it elevates your role.
If you missed it the full video is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEBxAHQR4is
