Google’s new AI Max report will put three things on one screen: the search term that triggered an ad, the creative assets the person saw, and the page on your website where they landed. Google announced it on 23 September 2026 and has not said when it will be available. For a small business running AI Max, it answers a question that matters once AI is choosing the searches, the ad text and the landing page: what did it actually show, and to whom?
The same announcement brought AI Brief, the tool for steering AI Max in your own words, to seven more languages. Read together, the two changes describe how Google expects advertisers to work with AI Max: tell it what you want, then check what it did.
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What Google Announced on 23 September 2026
Google announced two AI Max changes in one short post: AI Brief in more languages, and a new reporting feature. The announcement on the Google blog says the closed beta of AI Brief is coming to Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.
The reporting feature is described as “a single, unified view of the Search ads journey”. Google says it will show what search terms triggered your ads, which creative assets the user saw, and exactly where they landed on your website. The post ends with one line on timing: Google will share additional details and availability later this year.
That line is the first thing to plan around. The report is announced, not available, so a decision that depends on it has to wait or be made with the reports you have today.
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What AI Max Decides for You, and Why the Report Matters
AI Max can make three choices in a Search campaign: which searches an ad matches, what the ad says, and which page it sends people to. Google’s April 2026 post on AI Max turning one describes the third of these as final URL expansion, which uses Google AI to pick the destination for each search.
When one system makes all three choices, judging the result means seeing them together. A search term tells you who the ad reached. The assets tell you what they were told. The landing page tells you what they were offered. The new report is Google’s answer to that need, and it is described as the view that lets you “validate the strategic value AI Max brings to your campaigns”. In our view, it is the view a business owner needs before trusting an automated choice with more of the budget.
What AI Brief Lets You Tell AI Max
AI Brief lets you guide AI Max in your own words, with context on your business, your audience and your key messaging. Google’s April post describes three kinds of guideline, each with an example in Google’s own words.
The Three AI Brief Guideline Types, With Google’s Examples
| Guideline type | What it controls | Google’s example |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging guidelines | What your ads should and should not say | “never mention prices” |
| Matching guidelines | Which searches to capture or avoid | “prioritize searches for healthy pantry staples” |
| Audience guidelines | Who to reach, and the message each group gets | “for people who are health conscious, highlight our clean products” |
Google also says AI Brief shows previews of sample assets and searches, so you can give feedback before you commit. The April post said AI Brief would roll out in English for AI Max for Search campaigns over the following months, and that existing text guidelines move into messaging guidelines automatically when you start using it.
For a business that serves customers in Spanish, the September change matters directly: the brief can now be written in the language the ads run in, once a business has access to the closed beta.
What the New AI Max Reporting Will Show
The new AI Max reporting will show one ad journey at a time: the search, the assets and the landing page, in a single view. That turns the brief into something you can check, and these are the four questions we would bring to it on the day it arrives.
- Did the searches match the ones your brief asked AI Max to capture?
- Did any search appear that your brief asked AI Max to avoid?
- Did the assets say anything your messaging guidelines ruled out?
- Did each landing page fit the search that sent people there?
The second and third questions are the ones a brief exists to answer. If a search you ruled out still appears, or an asset says something your guidelines forbid, the brief needs rewriting before the budget grows.
How to Prepare Before the Report Arrives
The useful preparation is a written brief and a habit of reading results against it, and neither needs to wait for Google. I built a weekly reporting system for my own businesses and use the same one for clients. Reading results against a written brief every week is a habit a business can start before the new report exists.
This is the order we would set it up in.
- Write down what your ads must never say about your business.
- List the searches you want and the ones you do not want.
- Put both lists into AI Brief when your account has access.
- Read results against the brief every week and rewrite what fails.
The first two steps work on paper today, even without AI Brief access. They also make the new report faster to use when it arrives, because you will already know what you are looking for.
What the Announcement Leaves Open
Google has not given a date or a list of eligible accounts for the new report, and AI Brief in the new languages is a closed beta. Until those details arrive, the report is a plan for how AI Max will be checked, and the brief is the part a small business can start on now. We looked at whether the wider channel pays for a small business in is Google Ads worth it for a small business.
Next step: write the one sentence your ads must never say, then book a strategy call and bring it with your current search terms.