With AI Max, Google takes another step toward fully automated search advertising. During this year’s Friends of Search event, significant attention was paid to AI Max in Google’s session. Less reliance on keywords and greater trust in AI: that is the core of the proposition. But how does this promise compare to reality?

Search is no longer just Google, but a behavior-driven, cross-platform playing field. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are replacing the static results pages that dominated over the past two decades.