Product changes, rollout status, and official evidence.
Google’s September 2026 Demand Gen Drop lets one tap on an image ad in YouTube Shorts or Gmail open your landing page. Shorts needs 9:16 full-bleed images. What changed, who should care and what to check.
Google’s AI performance insights report is generally available in Merchant Center for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the US. It shows your share of voice in AI Mode and AI Overviews for shopping queries, organic only. Where it is, what it measures and what to do with it.
Google announced Data Strength Uplift on 10 September 2026, a Google Ads metric that counts the additional conversions recovered by your first-party data setup over the past 14 days. What it measures, why a higher number is measurement rather than growth, and what else shipped with it.
Google’s 20 August 2026 update to AI Max experiments adds a multi-campaign budget and ROI-target A/B test, keeps brand and location controls on in both arms, and lets Performance Planner changes apply in one click. What is live, what is still rolling out and how to set a test up.
Google is moving three legacy Search features into AI Max on two different schedules. Text customization and campaign-level broad match are auto-upgraded from September 2026; the Dynamic Search Ads sunset was postponed to February 2027. Dates, what changes in each campaign, and what to check.