Dynamic Search Ads Sunset: What Malta Advertisers Must Do Before February 2027 (2026 Guide)

Google has confirmed it: Dynamic Search Ads are being retired. From September 2026 you will start seeing in-account notices asking you to upgrade voluntarily, the ability to create new DSA campaigns disappears in January 2027, and anything still running gets force-migrated to AI Max during February 2027. For Malta advertisers who have quietly relied on DSA to cover the long tail of search demand for years, this is not a cosmetic change — it is a rebuild of how your Search account finds customers.

This guide explains what the Dynamic Search Ads sunset actually changes, what AI Max does differently, and the exact sequence Malta businesses should follow between now and February 2027. If you would rather hand the migration to someone who does this daily, our Google Ads Malta team runs these transitions for local advertisers every week.

What Google Announced — The Timeline in Plain English

Google is consolidating several older Search features into a single AI-driven framework called AI Max. There are two separate deadlines, and confusing them is the most common mistake we are seeing right now:

• September 2026 (already happening): Search campaigns using campaign-level broad match or standalone Automatically Created Assets are auto-upgraded to AI Max. Google expects eligible campaigns to finish migrating by the end of September.
• September 2026 onward: In-account notices begin encouraging voluntary DSA upgrades. Nothing is forced yet.
• 15 January 2027: Reminder notices, and the ability to create new DSA campaigns and ad groups is removed.
• 1–28 February 2027: Automatic migration of all remaining Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max. DSA ad group creation is permanently gone.

Google originally planned an earlier sunset and then extended it, which is why you may have read conflicting dates. The extension is a gift — it gives you roughly five months of controlled testing before the switch happens without your input.

What Actually Changes When DSA Becomes AI Max

Dynamic Search Ads worked on a simple premise: point Google at your website (or a set of page feeds), let it match queries to relevant landing pages, and auto-generate headlines. You controlled it with dynamic ad targets, URL exclusions, and negative keywords.

1. Targeting becomes broader by default

AI Max does not just crawl your site for page matches. It combines keywordless matching, broad match expansion, and Google's own understanding of user intent. In practice this means a wider query set than DSA ever served — which is either a discovery opportunity or a budget leak, depending entirely on how tightly you control it.

2. Creative generation is more aggressive

DSA generated a dynamic headline from the page. AI Max can generate headlines, descriptions, and asset variations, and will pull from your landing pages and existing assets to do so. For regulated Malta sectors — iGaming, financial services, insurance, healthcare — auto-generated copy is a compliance risk that needs an approval process, not a checkbox.

3. Reporting structure shifts

Your historical DSA search-terms data does not map cleanly onto AI Max reporting. If you do not export baselines before migration, you lose the ability to prove whether performance improved or degraded. This is the single biggest reason to act in 2026 rather than waiting for February.

4. Brand controls carry over — mostly

Google has said existing brand inclusions and exclusions transfer automatically during in-place migration. "Mostly" is doing real work in that sentence. Verify, do not assume.

Why This Hits Malta Advertisers Harder Than Most

Malta is a small market with unusual search characteristics, and every one of them amplifies the risk of a broader matching engine.

Thin search volume means noisy learning

A Maltese business might see 300–2,000 relevant searches a month for its core service. AI systems learn from volume. With thin data, AI Max takes longer to stabilise and is more likely to wander into loosely related queries while it does. Budget that would have delivered qualified clicks under DSA can evaporate into exploration. If you are running tight monthly budgets, review our approach to paid media in Malta before you let an AI system loose on them.

Bilingual queries create matching chaos

Maltese users search in English, Maltese, and a mix of both, often with Italian brand terms layered in. Broader matching interprets that ambiguity generously. We regularly see Malta accounts pick up irrelevant traffic from the UK, Italy, and North Africa when match types loosen — because the query looks semantically similar even though the intent and geography are wrong.

Geography is not a reliable filter

Malta's population of roughly 550,000 includes a large expat and tourist base, plus significant cross-border commercial interest. Location targeting alone will not save you. You need query-level discipline.

Regulated industries dominate the local economy

iGaming, fintech, and financial services make up a disproportionate share of Malta's advertising spend. These are precisely the verticals where auto-generated ad copy and uncontrolled query matching create MFSA and MGA compliance exposure. A generated headline that implies a guaranteed return or a licence you do not hold is not a performance problem — it is a regulatory one.

Your Migration Checklist: September 2026 to February 2027

Step 1 — Export your baselines now (September–October 2026)

Before anything changes, pull and store:

• Impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, CPA and ROAS by DSA campaign and ad group, for the last 12 months
• Your full search terms report — this is the one you will miss most
• Every dynamic ad target and page feed you use
• Your complete URL exclusion list and negative keyword lists
• Landing page performance, so you know which pages actually convert

Save these outside Google Ads. Once migration happens, reconstructing them is painful.

Step 2 — Audit what DSA is genuinely contributing

Many Malta accounts run DSA as a catch-all that quietly cannibalises brand and exact-match traffic. Before you migrate anything, work out whether DSA is generating incremental conversions or just claiming credit for demand you already had. Segment by query type. If 70% of your DSA conversions come from brand-adjacent searches, AI Max will not fix that — it will scale it.

Step 3 — Test AI Max on one campaign (October–November 2026)

Do not migrate everything. Pick one mid-budget, non-critical campaign and upgrade it voluntarily. Run it for four to six weeks alongside your untouched DSA campaigns. You are looking for:

• Query quality — are new search terms actually relevant to Malta buyers?
• CPA drift in the first 14 days versus weeks 3–6
• Whether auto-generated copy passes your brand and compliance review
• Lead quality downstream, not just lead volume

That last point matters more than anything in the dashboard. A 30% drop in cost per lead is worthless if the leads do not close. If you are not tracking lead quality back to revenue yet, that gap needs closing before migration — it is central to how we structure lead generation in Malta.

Step 4 — Tighten your controls (November–December 2026)

Broader matching demands tighter guardrails. Before the forced migration:

• Rebuild negative keyword lists at account level, not just campaign level
• Add negatives for neighbouring markets — Italy, UK, and generic international terms
• Set brand inclusions and exclusions explicitly rather than relying on carry-over
• Audit every URL exclusion; stale exclusions from 2023 may no longer cover the right pages
• Confirm conversion tracking and Enhanced Conversions are firing correctly — AI Max is only as good as the signal you feed it

Step 5 — Migrate deliberately (January 2027)

Move your remaining campaigns on your own schedule in January, in batches, with a week between each. Do not let February decide for you. Migrating manually means you are watching when performance shifts, instead of discovering it in a month-end report.

Step 6 — Review at 30, 60 and 90 days

Compare against the baselines you exported in Step 1. Judge AI Max on 90-day performance, not week one. Early volatility is expected; sustained CPA inflation past day 45 is a problem that needs intervention.

Should Malta Advertisers Resist AI Max or Lean Into It?

Neither. The migration is not optional, so resistance costs you the preparation window without changing the outcome. But uncritical adoption is equally wrong.

The advertisers who will win are the ones who treat AI Max as a system that needs excellent inputs rather than one that replaces strategy. That means clean conversion data, accurate value signals (send revenue, not just form fills), strong landing pages, and negative keyword hygiene. Google's automation amplifies whatever signal you give it — including bad signal.

For most Malta businesses the practical answer is a hybrid: let AI Max handle discovery and the long tail, keep tightly-controlled exact-match campaigns for your highest-value terms, and hold the two accountable separately. That structural thinking is exactly what a proper growth strategy for Malta businesses is meant to deliver — channel decisions that survive a platform change.

What to Do This Month

If you do nothing else in September 2026, do these three things:

1. Export your DSA search terms report and baseline metrics. It takes twenty minutes and it is irreplaceable later.
2. Check whether your account has already been auto-upgraded for broad match or Automatically Created Assets. Many advertisers have been migrated without noticing.
3. Pick one campaign to test AI Max voluntarily. Learning on your terms beats learning in February.

Frequently Asked Questions

When exactly are Dynamic Search Ads being removed?

In-account upgrade notices begin in September 2026. The ability to create new DSA campaigns and ad groups is removed on 15 January 2027. Automatic migration of all remaining Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max runs from 1 to 28 February 2027. Separately, campaigns using campaign-level broad match or standalone Automatically Created Assets were auto-upgraded from 1 September 2026.

Will my Dynamic Search Ads performance drop after migrating to AI Max?

Expect volatility for roughly two to four weeks as the system relearns. Whether performance settles higher or lower depends almost entirely on your inputs — conversion tracking accuracy, negative keyword coverage, landing page quality, and whether you send conversion values rather than just conversion counts. Accounts with clean signal typically recover and then exceed their DSA baseline. Accounts with weak tracking tend to see CPA inflate and stay inflated.

Can I stop the automatic AI Max upgrade in February 2027?

No. The migration is mandatory for remaining DSA campaigns. What you can control is the timing — by upgrading voluntarily between September 2026 and January 2027, you choose when the change happens and can monitor it closely, rather than having it applied during a single month alongside every other advertiser.

Does AI Max work for small Malta advertising budgets?

It can, but it needs more care. AI systems learn from conversion volume, and Malta's thin search volume means slower learning and a longer unstable period. If you are spending under roughly €1,500 a month, consolidate into fewer campaigns so each one accumulates enough conversion data to exit the learning phase, and keep negative keyword lists unusually tight to stop exploration spend leaking into irrelevant queries.

What should regulated Malta businesses do about auto-generated ad copy?

iGaming, fintech, financial services, and healthcare advertisers should build an explicit review step into the migration. Audit every auto-generated headline and description before and after upgrading, use asset-level controls to restrict what AI Max can produce, and ensure your landing pages contain only compliant claims — since generated copy draws from page content. Where MGA or MFSA rules apply, treat generated assets as advertising material requiring the same sign-off as anything your team writes manually.

Get the Migration Handled Properly

The Dynamic Search Ads sunset is a genuine risk for Malta advertisers who have leaned on DSA for years — but it is a manageable one if you use the window Google has given you. Export your baselines, test deliberately, tighten your controls, and migrate on your own schedule.

If you want a second pair of eyes on your account before February 2027, get in touch about a Google Ads migration audit. We will benchmark your current DSA performance, flag the query and compliance risks specific to your vertical, and build the transition plan.