AI Max for Shopping Is Not Performance Max With a New Name

Merchants keep asking why their Performance Max playbook stopped working after switching
to AI Max for Shopping. Three concrete mechanical differences explain most of it.

1. Product feed weight went up

Title quality, product type hierarchy, and custom labels now carry more direct weight in who
sees which product. A generic or SKU-only title has a bigger downside than it did before.

2. Negative keywords are actually enforced

Performance Max had well-documented cases where negatives were inconsistently applied across
an account. Early AI Max data shows more consistent enforcement — which also means old negative
lists that "didn't seem to matter" suddenly do.

3. Creative generation is now explicit policy

The July 2026 Terms of Service update formally states the system can generate and test ad
creative combinations from your feed and assets. This behavior existed under Performance Max
too, it just wasn't documented as clearly.