Google Ads Performance Max AI Features: 2024 Changelog for Marketers

Performance Max went through more substantive changes in 2024 than in any prior year. Google pushed AI-generated asset creation deeper into the campaign setup flow, gave advertisers more levers to constrain what the system generates, and began surfacing explanations for automated decisions that had previously been invisible. For practitioners managing accounts day-to-day, many of these changes altered default behaviors — meaning campaigns that were set up before certain effective dates may now run differently than intended.

This record organizes those changes chronologically, with a plain-language note on what each one actually means for account management. It is a reference document, not a news summary — the goal is that you can return to it when auditing an account and know exactly which behaviors changed and when.

Q1 2024 Changes

Automatically Created Assets (ACA) Enabled by Default for New Campaigns

Google changed the default state of Automatically Created Assets for new Performance Max campaigns from opt-in to opt-out. Any campaign created after this rollout completed had ACA enabled unless an advertiser explicitly turned it off during setup.

What this means in practice: Google's system will generate headlines, descriptions, and image assets by pulling content from your landing pages, existing ads, and other signals — without requiring you to provide them manually. The generated assets run alongside any human-supplied assets in the asset group.

Brand Exclusions Extended to Performance Max

Google added the ability to exclude specific brands from triggering your Performance Max campaigns. This had been a persistent gap: before this change, there was no reliable way to prevent PMax from serving on branded search queries for competitors or even your own brand if you were running a separate branded campaign.

The exclusion operates at the campaign level, not the account level. You specify brand names in a list; Google matches against them using its own brand detection. The matching is not exact-keyword matching — it uses semantic understanding of brand identity, which means it catches common misspellings but also occasionally flags unintended queries. Practitioners running branded and non-branded campaigns in parallel should treat this as a required configuration step, not an optional one.

Q2 2024 Changes

Search Themes Added as Audience Signal Input

Search themes let you specify up to 25 search terms per asset group to guide where PMax focuses its traffic. Unlike keywords in standard campaigns, these are signals — not hard constraints. Google uses them to inform the system's targeting decisions but can and does serve beyond them when it predicts a conversion is likely.

The practical difference from audience signals based on custom segments: search themes are query-intent oriented rather than audience-profile oriented. If you know the specific search language your converting customers use, this input type tends to produce tighter initial targeting during the learning phase.

Asset Group Performance Labels Expanded

Google expanded the performance labels applied to individual assets within asset groups. Previously, assets received one of four labels: Best, Good, Low, or Learning. The May 2024 update added a fifth state — "Pending" — to distinguish assets that haven't yet received enough impressions to be rated from assets that have been rated Low.

This sounds minor but has a real operational implication: before this change, a Low-rated asset and a newly-added asset looked identical in the interface. Practitioners were either prematurely removing assets still in the data-gathering phase or leaving genuinely underperforming assets in rotation. The Pending label makes that distinction explicit.

Q3 2024 Changes

Generative AI Image Creation in Asset Groups

Google introduced in-platform image generation for Performance Max asset groups, powered by its own image generation model. Advertisers can enter a text prompt and generate up to four image variants for review before adding them to an asset group.

The generated images are subject to Google's content policies and go through an automated review before being eligible to serve. Google also applies SynthID watermarking to generated images — an invisible digital watermark identifying them as AI-generated.

• Images of real, identifiable people cannot be generated through this tool.
• Brand logos and trademarked elements must be added separately — the generator won't incorporate them.
• Generated images can be edited in the same interface before being saved to the asset group.
• The feature requires a Google account with billing set up; it is not available in test accounts.

Smart Bidding: Seasonality Adjustments UI Redesign

Google moved seasonality adjustments from the Tools menu into the campaign-level settings for Performance Max, making them more discoverable. The underlying behavior — allowing advertisers to tell Smart Bidding to expect a temporary conversion rate shift — did not change.

The relevance here: seasonality adjustments are one of the few direct inputs practitioners have into Smart Bidding's conversion rate expectations. Many accounts with promotional calendars (flash sales, holiday peaks, product launches) were underusing this feature because it was buried. The new placement puts it in front of account managers at the campaign level where they're more likely to find it.

Explanations for Automated Asset Changes

Google added a change history explanation layer for Performance Max campaigns. When the system automatically modifies asset rotation, pauses an asset, or shifts budget allocation between asset groups, the change is now logged with a brief explanation in the campaign change history.

Before this, automated changes appeared in the change log with no rationale — making it difficult to distinguish system-initiated changes from changes made by other team members or automated rules. The explanations are high-level (e.g., "Asset paused due to low performance") but give account managers a starting point for diagnosis.

Q4 2024 Changes

Video Asset Requirement Enforcement

Google began enforcing a stricter stance on video assets in Performance Max. Campaigns without a video asset in an asset group now have Google auto-generate a video from the available image and text assets. This had been the behavior previously, but the auto-generation was inconsistent and often produced low-quality outputs. The October 2024 change made auto-generation the guaranteed fallback, with the generated video clearly labeled as system-created in the asset group.

Profit Optimization Goal Added to Smart Bidding

Google began testing a profit-oriented bidding signal for Performance Max, allowing advertisers to pass cost-of-goods data to the bidding system so it could optimize for margin rather than raw conversion value. This is distinct from ROAS targets — it requires the advertiser to pass product-level cost data, typically via a supplemental feed or conversion value rules.

At launch, this was available only to select retail advertisers with active Shopping feeds and sufficient conversion history. The feature was not broadly accessible through the standard Google Ads interface by end of 2024.

Customer Acquisition Goal: New Customer Value Mode

Google updated the Customer Acquisition Goal in Performance Max to add a "New customer value" mode alongside the existing "New customers only" mode. The distinction matters: "New customers only" restricts the campaign from bidding on returning customers at all, while "New customer value" allows the campaign to serve to both new and returning customers but assigns a higher value to new customer conversions, letting the bidding system naturally prioritize them without hard exclusions.

For most advertisers, "New customer value" mode is less restrictive and tends to maintain better volume while still skewing acquisition toward new customers. "New customers only" mode can cause significant volume drops for accounts with large returning-customer audiences.

Summary Table: 2024 PMax AI Changes at a Glance

What These Changes Mean for Account Audits

If you're auditing a Performance Max campaign that was built or last reviewed before 2024, there are three high-priority settings to verify against this changelog:

1. ACA status. Check whether Automatically Created Assets is on or off. If the campaign was created after February 2024 and the team didn't explicitly disable it during setup, it is almost certainly on. Review what the system has generated against brand guidelines.
2. Video assets. Check whether each asset group has a human-supplied video. If not, a system-generated video is currently running on YouTube placements. Pull the asset group view and look for assets labeled 'Auto-created'.
3. Brand exclusions. If the account runs separate branded campaigns, verify that brand exclusions are configured on PMax to prevent overlap. Campaigns built before February 2024 won't have this set by default.