Automatically created assets – PPC Land

Automatically created assets are Google Ads headlines and descriptions written by Google AI from landing pages, renamed text customization in AI Max in 2025.
Automatically created assets (ACA) are headlines and descriptions that Google Ads writes on an advertiser’s behalf and slots into responsive search ads and Performance Max campaigns alongside the copy the advertiser supplied. The system reads the landing page, the existing ads and the keywords, generates new lines, and lets the auction decide which combination to show. The feature exists because a responsive search ad (RSA) can hold up to 15 headlines and four descriptions, and many advertisers never filled those slots. Google’s answer was to fill them itself. The name has since been retired: Google now calls the capability text customization, describing it as “formerly known as automatically created assets”, and since September 2026 it operates in Search campaigns only as part of AI Max.
ACA is a campaign-level setting. When it is switched on, Google’s systems draw on three kinds of source material, according to Google’s text customization FAQ: the ad’s final URL and the content on that page, the headlines and descriptions already in the ad group, and the keywords. Early versions extracted snippets from page titles and meta tags. Later versions added generative models grounded in the page content, producing either full sentences or paraphrases that keep the original meaning.
The generated lines join the ad’s pool of eligible assets. At query time, the RSA’s serving system picks the combination it predicts will perform best, mixing advertiser-written and machine-written text in the same ad. Google says generated assets are eligible to serve as soon as they are created, but they are removed if they are predicted to underperform, receive a “Low performance” label, or if the source page changes. Assets are reviewed and refreshed “at least every 48 hours”, according to Google’s Performance Max help page.
Several mechanical details matter in practice:
In the Google Ads API the setting is expressed through the asset_automation_settings field on the campaign. According to Google’s API documentation, the type TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION “customizes copy across all ads in the campaign” and is enabled by default for Performance Max but disabled by default for Search. A sibling type, FINAL_URL_EXPANSION_TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION, writes copy to match landing pages that Google selects dynamically; it cannot be switched off while final URL expansion is active.
On the sell side of this arrangement there is only one operator. Google writes the copy, decides when it serves and decides when to retire it. The buy side, meaning advertisers and their agencies, holds three levers: switching the setting off, removing individual assets, and since 2025, constraining what the model may say.
Google announced automatically created assets at Google Marketing Live in May 2022 as a beta for some advertisers. Opting out at the time meant choosing “Off: Use only assets I provide directly for my ads”, according to Search Engine Land.
On February 27, 2023, Google opened the beta to all advertisers in English, according to a Google Ads announcement. That page carried the feature’s headline performance claim: early adopters saw on average 2% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion in RSA ad groups, based on Google’s internal global data from July 25 to August 20, 2022.
In mid-2023 Google began testing ACA in Performance Max, where it replaced the earlier final URL expansion tab, according to Search Engine Land. In February 2024 Google fully rolled out generative AI in automatically created assets for English-language advertisers in the US and UK. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Product Liaison, wrote at the time that “ACA is meant to supplement, not replace, your existing headlines and descriptions”, according to Search Engine Land.
The rename came with AI Max. Google announced AI Max for Search campaigns as a beta on May 6, 2025, bundling three features: search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion. The implementation guide warned that final URL expansion does not respect pinned headlines. Google’s own FAQ is inconsistent on when the upgrade of ACA into AI Max began, giving both May 26 and May 27, 2025.
The next step was a constraint layer. On September 10, 2025, Google introduced text guidelines, letting advertisers block terms such as “cheap” or competitive claims such as “a better choice than Competitor”. The beta went global on February 26, 2026, allowing up to 25 term exclusions of 30 characters each and up to 40 messaging restrictions of 300 characters each per campaign. Term exclusions cannot block prices; excluding “$” does not stop “less than $50” from appearing.
The final step was compulsion. New legacy ACA configurations were blocked from August 3, 2026 across the interface, Editor and the API. From September 1, 2026, with rollout running through September 30, campaigns with ACA enabled were migrated into AI Max with text customization and search term matching on and final URL expansion off. The API exposes the migration timestamp in campaign.aca_migration_date_time. Once the legacy setting is disabled it cannot be re-enabled; opting back in requires AI Max.
Copywriting in paid search has gradually moved from the advertiser to the platform. Expanded text ads gave way to RSAs, which let Google assemble ads from parts. ACA went further by letting Google write the parts. With the September 2026 migration, the ability to have Google write copy is now tied to accepting broader query matching, since the upgrade switched on search term matching by default for the ACA cohort. Advertisers who wanted only the copy now receive the targeting expansion with it.
The same pattern is spreading. Microsoft Advertising fully launched auto-generated assets for RSAs in September 2023, reporting a 9.4% increase in click share and an 8.3% rise in click-through rate in early results, according to PPC News Feed. Microsoft later rolled out AI Max to all accounts globally on August 19, 2026, with text customization as one of its three settings.
The central complaint is control. Joshua Zurawski, an account specialist at agency JumpFly, wrote in February 2024 that ACAs “simply aren’t reliable enough to be trusted”, citing redundant, irrelevant or nonsensical lines, according to JumpFly. Because the setting applies at campaign level, one switch affects every RSA in the campaign. Paul Rooney, a PPC consultant, told Search Engine Land that generated ad copy “definitely needs to be checked”.
Regulated advertisers face a sharper problem. Pinning lets an advertiser fix a disclaimer to a headline position, but final URL expansion does not honour pins, which is why Google itself advises advertisers with legal pinning needs not to enable it.
Performance evidence is mixed. Google’s figures for ACA alone were a 2% conversion lift in 2022. For AI Max as a whole, Google claimed 14% more conversions at launch, later revised to an average of 7% at general availability in April 2026, excluding retail advertisers. Independent tests have been less kind: Ezra Sackett of Monks found 99% of AI Max impressions produced zero conversions across roughly 30,000 search terms in August 2025. These figures measure the whole AI Max bundle, so the effect of text customization alone remains unpublished.
There is also a homogenisation concern. When many advertisers draw on the same model, copy can converge; Davang Shah argued that shared language models push outputs towards a mean, as covered in PPC Land’s reporting on the September upgrade. Language coverage is also disputed. PPC Land’s 2024 report listed eight supported languages, while Google’s current FAQ describes generative text customization only for advertisers with English assets. The difference likely separates extraction-based assets from generative ones, but Google has not stated this explicitly.
The legacy name is now effectively historical. New API versions released after September 1, 2026 remove the legacy entities, while older versions keep them until they sunset around September 2027. Automation in Performance Max continues to widen beyond text: from December 4, 2026, Google will turn on image extraction by default for new Performance Max campaigns, using the same asset_automation_settings field. Because the field is repeated, an API update that sets image extraction without restating TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION can clear the text setting. Google is also retiring the 50% Display budget split for Search campaigns in February 2027, where Display Expansion already assembles responsive display ads from search assets without advertiser work.
Who: Google built and operates automatically created assets; Microsoft Advertising runs an equivalent. Advertisers and agencies running responsive search ads and Performance Max decide whether to use it, and since September 2026 Google has moved ACA users into AI Max.
What: A campaign-level setting under which Google generates headlines and descriptions from landing pages, existing ads and keywords, serving them alongside advertiser copy. It is now called text customization.
When: Announced in May 2022, opened to all English advertisers on February 27, 2023, given generative AI in February 2024, renamed in May 2025 and migrated into AI Max from September 1, 2026.
Where: Google Ads Search campaigns, through AI Max, and Performance Max, with the setting exposed in the Google Ads API as TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION.
Why: Google says machine-written copy improves query relevance and reduces manual work. Critics point to weak control over messaging, modest and self-reported gains, and the bundling of copy generation with broader query matching.
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