Google Marketing Live 2025 featured the promotion of a few “new” features, with Google AI Max for Search being one of the headliners. The speaker, I believe it was Philipp Schindler, who presented it, touted it as using “more advanced reasoning” when it comes to keyword targeting and interactions with customers. Let’s dive a little deeper into what we know about AI Max for Search and how it might affect Google Ads for small businesses and local contractors.
A Shift to Keywordless Targeting
The idea of Google’s AI Max for Search is that rather than just targeting the keyword you specify in the account, Google will expand it to anyone they feel like has or will have in the future commercial intent. From the presentation:
“We can take a search that doesn’t have obvious commercial intent, but still understand that connecting the user to a product or business is the most helpful next step…. and often, that connection is an ad” – Philipp Schindler, Google Marketing Live 2025 event
Google’s representatives kept calling this a revolution in search. Vidhya Srinivasan excitedly said you’d be showing up for search terms “even the ones you couldn’t predict”.
They kept repeating this idea of newness and that the old way was obsolete. Here’s a couple from the presenter Sylvanus Bent:
“The only way to win in the new era of search is with AI-powered campaigns”
“By now it’s clear marketers can’t manually build campaigns, or choose keyword lists anymore.”
The presenters keep saying that the journey has changed for buyers, and maybe if they repeat it enough times people will think it’s true, and if they think it’s true maybe it will justify them operating what they are dangling as the “keywordless campaigns” of the future.
Paid search professionals and marketers have seen this coming for a long time. The writing has been on the wall, as they say, because it’s more profitable for Google and how they’ve been shifting for the past few years. But still, it’s always fun to see how they spin it to justify it and call it better for advertisers and consumers.
But what does that mean for small businesses?
It means your targeting will automatically be expanded as Google pleases, at a cost that Google is happy with.
How much expansion Google does remains to be seen, but you can make predictions from the more liberal broad and phrase matching we’ve been witnessing the past few years.
Keyword Expansions
Let’s work backwards and pretend you’re a parent tasked with putting together a birthday party for your 10-year-old daughter. Say you have a tradition of going all-out for birthday parties, invite lots of friends and family, and as a wealthy suburbanite you’ve got some money to spend on the gathering. Here are a few things you might search for:
- birthday party ideas
- 10th birthday party ideas
- 10th birthday party ideas for girls
- kids birthday party venue
- magician for parties
- clown for parties
- bounce house rental
- catering for event
- indoor birthday party venues
- event rentals
- entertainment for kids parties
- etc
There are a lot of options, right? Now, if you’re a clown for hire, traditionally you would probably just target the “clown for parties” search term and call it a day. Now, what Google is saying, is that they know this person is throwing a party for a 10-year-old, so they might show your ad for more general terms (“birthday party ideas” or “entertainment for kids parties”, perhaps).
Which, traditionally, would be a pretty terrible idea.
What makes or breaks Google’s ability to make this a success is, in this case, its ability to predict how likely the party thrower is of wanting a clown at their party. That’s a pretty niche request, after all, so they’ll need to know something about the user to suggest they have an affinity for clowns.
In the future, Google (and Meta, and any other big tech company for that matter) basically just wants to say “we know what you want, trust us to do what we want to figure out how to drive you the most value.”
-> topics for another day, but that conclusion relates directly to: (1) our focus on effectively measuring and sending to platforms “what you want” by defining event success values accurately and (2) the inherent conflict of interest for Google, who needs to charge as much as possible for each search to maximize their revenue
Expansion Based on User Information
Instead of just a few advertisers vying for the ad slots, Google’s automatic expansion means that, in theory, there could be hundreds vying for those spots. Google then has to choose from a massive number of advertisers to select 3-4 ads that are relevant for a particular user at a specific time. In basic terms, they need to:
- Use previous session searches to understand intent. If the user’s first search was for 10-year-old birthday parties, then a few searches later when they search for “entertainment for birthday parties” Google can show ads that a 10-year-old girl would want at her party, not the 50-year-old man performing the search.
- Understand the styles and preferences of the user. Google already knows everything about you. So when you search “birthday party ideas” they could even know you have a daughter turning 10 soon and display results relevant to that. If that’s too creepy for you, let’s just back up and say that Google probably understands the difference between a Soccer and Pizza Night family and a Horse and Fine Dining family. From past searches and purchase history to demographics and location, they’ve got a ton to work with.
In other words, if you’re a professional clown, Google is going to run your ad on more general, informational searches about parties, but only if they have some degree of confidence that the user would be interested in your services.
If someone searched for “chair rentals” and “table rentals” and then “event rentals”, Google may think it’s a better idea to show an ad for a company that rents out tables, chairs, and other fixtures for events rather than one that rents bounce houses or sno-cone machines.
If you’re a roofing and siding contractor that specializes in metal roofs, Google might be more aggressive with displaying your ad on “roofing contractor near me” if the user had previously been researching metal roofs, and may exclude you altogether if they’re researching vinyl.
Something general like “lawyer near me” is historically a pretty poor search term since it doesn’t specify what kind of attorney the user wants. But if Google knows the user just searched “what is money laundering” then they know to promote attorneys specializing in financial crimes rather than DWI defense.
Google may even understand your style and general aesthetic. If you’re a Chrome user, they have access to past purchases, from the clothing you wear to the pillows on your couch. If that purchase history includes a kitchen full of wine accessories, Google may choose to advertise wine tours if you search for “what should I do for my birthday”. For someone else, it may suggest concert tickets, or a nice restaurant.
The point is: Google’s success with broad match expansion and keywordless targeting is directly related to the data they have on the user and their ability to accurately predict future search and purchase intent.
Is that some kind of revolutionary AI capability new in the past year? No. They’re just selling it as one. They’ve had this kind of data forever, and they’re using the AI revolution to sell it.
User Research Funnels
To build on that, marketers and salespeople have long understood the concept of the consumer journey. The research method, length, tools, and tactics certainly evolve over time. If we compare it to ten years ago, people are using AI search, Instagram, and TikTok to search more and more (especially younger people).
“We know consumer journeys are getting more complex.” – Nicky Rettke
I mean, are they? Are people more complexed and nuanced in their journey than they used to be?
The truth is, users have always researched their purchases. It’s not new. Search professionals would build top of funnel campaigns that target people during the research phase (typically with lower CPCs), nurture them through the purchasing process, and then pay more for users with commercial intent. Again, not new. That’s the job.
Users have been watching videos for over a decade, researching on social media, and using other networks to research purchases for a long time. That’s not a new or more complex journey. If anything, people these days have shorter attention spans and the path to purchase is even shorter than it was a decade ago. They trust making large purchases and commitment using only their mobile device, so less cross-device complexity.
They used terms like “Keywordless Bidding” and “Smart Keyword Exploration” and tried to talk about change an innovation when in the end, Google’s AI Max for Search is just the same old thing they’ve been doing for years: it’s just Broad Match. Or maybe to be more precise, BROOAAAAAD Match. A rose by any other name, or lipstick on a pig – whichever analogy you prefer based on your feelings about broad match targeting.
So are consumer journeys getting more complex? Maybe in the sense that they aren’t just using Google. Maybe it’s harder for Google to understand the journeys now because more frequently there are searches taking place off Google’s flagship engine, although in many cases they can seek to understand the journey through Chrome and Android data.
Presenting a Pain Point as an Opportunity
Presenters are this year’s Google Marketing Live event emphatically shared and framed some data like they thought it was amazing and a huge opportunity for advertisers:
“75% of shopping queries are broad” – Nicky Rettke
“1 in 5 Lens Searches show Commercial Intent”
We can agree those numbers mean the commercial intent is relatively low, right?
The quotes above were presented like opportunities for advertisers. In reality, they are, and long have been, pain points for Google’s profitability. Google is trying to tell us “Most people aren’t searching for products – what a great opportunity!” when what they really mean is “Most people aren’t going to convert – how can we still get advertisers to spend money on these keywords?”
It isn’t completely disingenuous. As shown in the examples above, done correctly Google can help push these users towards a purchase by presenting them with relevant ads.
Still, Google has been executing their playbook for this over the past several years. Their newest advancement is launching a nebulous solution like AI Max for Search (basically a renamed Broad Match ideology). They’ve also been pushing broad match for years, redone attribution to put more value on top of funnel searches, gotten rid of transparent bidding, and continually reduced advertisers’ ability to understand pricing.
All totaled, it definitely does swing towards the disingenuous (as you would be naive not to expect from a publicly traded, Big Tech corporation).
Between confusing keyword options, endless settings, and rising costs, it’s no wonder local roofers, plumbers, and HVAC pros either give up or hand it off to expensive agencies. The problem? Most agencies are still trying to manage Google Ads like it’s 2016 – and charging like it. They just aren’t accepting that Google’s evolution is cutting them out.
Why PPC Assist is the Future
We’ve seen this coming for years. This is just Google’s next step in taking away PPC manager’s ability to effectively and strategically pull levers to maximize performance. As Google leans in to AI Max for Search, there’s just less and less for PPC Specialists to do on the day-to-day management front. That’s why we created PPC Assist. We can provide expertise and guidance to maximize your results without the high management fees of the past.
PPC Assist is a lean, low-cost ad management solution that works with Google’s modern automation tools, not against them. Built for today’s algorithm-driven advertising, our style allows AI Max to do its thing: capture more leads with less oversight — and less money out of your pocket.
Traditional Ad Management is Losing Relevance
Let’s be real — Google Ads has changed.
What used to work — obsessing over keyword lists, exact match targeting, and manual bids — is now less effective thanks to automation features Google actively recommends using. Not only recommends, but has celebrated in this year’s GML2025 event (and events in the past).
Here’s what most traditional managers are hanging on to:
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Limit keyword reach with outdated match types
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Disable or avoid smart bidding and AI tools
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Spend hours micromanaging what Google can now optimize in real time
Google has built its entire platform around machine learning, broad match keywords, and smart bidding algorithms. Trying to manually override those tools will hurt performance and wastes your money. They might not come out and say it, but it’s very easy for Google to put accounts who don’t use their “best practices” at a disadvantage.
AI Max for Search: Let the Algorithm Work for You
Instead of relying on manual optimization and bloated agency fees, PPC Assist’s approach, likely through AI Max in the near future, will continue to leverage Google’s automation to:
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Target buyers at every stage of the funnel
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Automatically adjust bids for the most valuable clicks
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Expand reach through broad match and smart learning
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Deliver results with little to no day-to-day management
As always, we’re here to make sure you stay on target, innovate, and update strategies as they become advantageous. But we don’t want to charge you for what you don’t need. Our focus is always on providing expertise in the right amounts at the right times to provide you with the best, most cost-effective results.
Stop Fighting the Algorithm — Work With It
The hard truth is that micromanaging Google Ads no longer gives you an edge. It usually holds you back. If you’re still paying high, active management agency rates in 2025, you’re probably paying more than you need to.
You don’t need to become a Google Ads expert. You don’t need to pay an agency 20%, or even up to 50%, of your ad spend. You just need a setup that’s aligned with how the system actually works, optimizing your budget to drive value for your business, not just traffic.
Ready to get started? Schedule a call today or request a free evaluation of your Google Ads account!
