Google beefs up Performance Max with more AI

Google is putting a little more AI in its AI.

The company’s previously announced generative AI advertising tools, which can generate images and text for digital ads, will begin rolling out Tuesday to all advertisers in the US within Performance Max, the company’s AI-powered advertising tool.

Performance Max, which began as a pilot in 2020 and has been described by AdExchanger as “the blackest black box” of all of Google’s advertising products, automates many of the traditional buying methods for buyers, who can load their campaign and brand assets as well as information like budget into the tool before Google blasts them across its entire portfolio of owned media, including YouTube, Search, and Maps.

In an example shared with reporters, the new Performance Max AI features rolling out this week can scan a brand’s website before generating digital assets, keywords, and headlines for ads, which can then be modified with prompts like theming for the Thanksgiving holiday. Any AI-generated ad will contain an invisible watermark, indicating that it was created by AI.

The new functionality will only be available within Performance Max and come at no cost to advertisers. Any images generated or suggested by the tool can be saved and used elsewhere, even off of Google ads.

The tools are designed to help advertisers create engaging ad copy and creative to help scale campaigns.

For the last several months, Google and other tech giants have been on a bit of a generative AI kick, mentioning the tech in every earnings call and injecting it into seemingly every product they can. In May, Google announced a generative AI overhaul for Search.