Microsoft Advertising begins rolling out AI Max, to phase out Max CPC bids by Oct. 1

August 22, 2026 · mediapost.com

On Friday, Microsoft Advertising released an "Agentic Playbook" laying out a 90-day structure for marketers preparing for AI agents that shop on behalf of humans: the first 45 days for building product feeds and checkout readiness, the next 45 days for using that data to optimize content. A day earlier, on Thursday, Microsoft began rolling out AI Max, its full suite of automated search features, to all accounts, optimizing performance across Copilot Search and Bing. AI Max matches searches beyond a campaign's fixed keyword list using intent and contextual signals, writes and tests new ad text pulled from a campaign's existing assets and website content, and selects the strongest combination of keywords, text and landing page at auction time, sending each click to whichever page on the advertiser's site best fits the search. Google Ads campaigns imported into Microsoft Advertising carry over automatically once AI Max is active. Microsoft also said Thursday it will remove Max CPC bid caps starting October 1 to push advertisers toward conversion-based and other automated bidding targets; existing Max CPC campaigns keep their caps for now, and portfolio bid strategies plus several other bidding types will retain the option.

Campaigns still relying on Max CPC keep functioning as before for now; the weeks before October 1 give bid managers a window to test conversion-based and portfolio strategies ahead of the control's removal from new setups. Google Ads imports that land automatically in AI Max campaigns hand keyword lists, ad text and landing page choices to the algorithm, changing what a media buyer edits day to day. Bain & Company's forecast, agentic commerce could take 15% to 25% of U.S. ecommerce by 2030, gives Microsoft's 90-day playbook, built around clean product feeds and checkout readiness, a concrete deadline for retailers to start the groundwork early.