Google adds A/B tests to AI Max Search

Google is adding multi-campaign A/B tests to AI Max for Search, letting advertisers compare budget and ROI-target changes across multiple campaigns, with the rollout scheduled for September 2026, according to Google’s announcement. The update also adds brand and location controls to experiments and lets Performance Planner apply recommended bidding or budget changes in one click. For operators, the concrete shift is measurement: automated campaign expansion now comes with a vendor-built test harness, so teams should evaluate incremental return rather than accept a black-box efficiency claim alongside the archive’s analysis of AI intent monetization.