Search ads keep growing as control shifts to the model
In its second quarter results reported on July 22, 2026, Alphabet said search advertising revenue rose 17% to $63.3 billion. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said AI Max is opening billions of previously unmonetized searches to ads. For advertisers, the real story is not the revenue line, it is where control has moved.
Quarterly results and the scale of AI Max
Alphabet's second quarter revenue rose 24% to $119.8 billion. Total advertising revenue grew 14% to $81.6 billion, with Search and other up 17% to $63.3 billion and YouTube ads up 13% to $11.1 billion. Google Network declined 1% to $7.3 billion. On the earnings call, executives said AI Max has reached 500,000 advertisers and that AI Mode, the AI-powered search experience, has passed one billion monthly active users. AI Max has been out of beta since April 2026.
The figures, the claims and the migration calendar
According to Schindler, advertisers using AI Max or Performance Max see on average 15% more conversions or conversion value on Search at a similar return on ad spend, and Gemini integration has improved shopping ad relevance on complex queries by roughly 20%. Google's own announcement cites a different measure: campaigns running the full AI Max feature set (search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion) see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost per acquisition or return.
Three dates matter on the calendar. In September 2026, campaigns using automatically created assets and the campaign-level broad match setting begin upgrading to AI Max automatically, and the option to create new Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaigns closes. The automatic migration of existing DSA campaigns has been pushed to February 2027. The investment behind all this keeps scaling: capital expenditure reached $44.9 billion in the quarter, and full-year 2026 guidance was raised to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion.
The keyword list is losing its old power
Searches are getting longer and closer to spoken language. Google matches those queries on intent rather than exact-match keywords, which turns a pool of previously unmonetized searches into inventory. For advertisers this cuts both ways. Reach widens, while visibility into which query triggered which ad narrows. Control moves off the keyword list and onto product data, ad copy and the landing page. Campaign performance is decided less by the match type set in a dashboard and more by the quality of the raw material handed to the system.
What it means for businesses in Türkiye
The practical conclusion for businesses in Türkiye is that protecting a budget no longer runs through trimming a keyword list. What decides the outcome is the accuracy of titles, descriptions, categories and stock data in the product feed, ad copy that genuinely offers different variants, and a landing page that says the same thing as the query. Conversion measurement is equally critical: the system learns what to optimize only from correctly configured conversion signals, and with gaps in measurement the model runs at the wrong target. On timing, two preparations are worth making: reviewing campaigns that use automatically created assets and broad match before September 2026, and exporting search term and conversion data on DSA accounts ahead of the February 2027 migration. As automation grows, negative keyword hygiene, brand protection and reporting discipline matter more, not less.
The UNALSOFT take
Our reading is clear: as ad platforms hand control to the model, the difference comes from the quality of the data and the story you feed it, not from dashboard craft. Product feed, ad copy, landing page and conversion measurement form a single chain, and if one link is weak, automation multiplies that weakness quickly. That is the order we work in through our ad management service: measurement and content infrastructure are prepared before a campaign goes live, and automation is built on top of that ground.
Automation runs on good data.
Let's review your account's product feed, measurement and landing pages together.