AI is changing the way we use the internet and Google Ads is no exception. With different AI tools available across multiple platforms, many businesses are asking, “Should you create Google Ads with AI?” This is a loaded question that can’t be answered by just a “yes” or “no,” but instead would say there are both pros and cons. As a Paid Search Specialist working in Google Ads for almost six years, I’ve experienced firsthand where AI can make Google Ads much simpler, but also where it falls short and can just make things even more difficult. 

How Can You Create a Google Ads Account With AI? 

Google offers a variety of automation options to create Google Ads with AI. But it’s important to remember that AI is a learning technology, so Google is of course going to encourage you to use as much of their AI automation options as possible – whether it would actually benefit your account or not. Here are some ways to create Google Ads with AI that Google will suggest when you first start setting up an account: 

Campaign Creation via Google Ads Setup Wizard 

Google’s AI-guided setup walks you through campaign creation, automatically recommending campaign types, bidding strategy, and even budget based on your goals. This should be heavily reviewed as some bid strategies can cause ridiculously high cost per clicks and daily budgets that will cause your monthly budgets to be much higher than you want to spend. 

Keyword Research and Selection 

Google’s AI recommends keyword themes based on your website or business category and auto-generates keyword lists with suggested match types. Be careful here – Google will typically suggest using broad match, but if you’re on a tight budget, strongly consider phrase or exact. Broad match uses AI to decide if a search is relevant enough to a broad-match keyword instead of the actual words used in the search. Google isn’t accurate every time, so you can get clicks from search terms that sometimes have no similarities to your keyword. 

Ad Copy Suggestions 

Once you have established your campaigns, ad groups, and keywords, Google will suggest creating your ads, including headlines, description lines, and determining landing pages for your ads. This is convenient because coming up with ad copy can be very time-consuming, and Google typically pulls relevant data from your website. However, if you’re trying to highlight a specific service or product, you’ll need to edit the ad to better suit your specific needs. 

Sooo, Should I Create a Google Ads Account With AI? The Pros and Cons 

AI is not a magic bullet, but it can be a powerful tool when used correctly. The key is to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a breakdown of what AI can do for your Google Ads campaigns.

The Pros 

• Faster setup — Google will come up with campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads, and assets 

• More recommendations — Google can give you optimization recommendations that you might not have known about otherwise 

• Budget and bidding automation — Google can determine the best budget and bidding strategy for your campaigns to be at a competitive level

• Performance Max — Easy to set up and is one of the most automated campaign types

The Cons 

• Lack of control — AI-driven setup often prioritizes automation over customization—so you may not get to choose specific keywords, placements, or audience segments if you rely too heavily on AI. 

• Overreliance on broad match — Broad-match keywords can bring in very low-quality or even completely irrelevant search terms that could end up spending a large portion of your budget.

• Generic ad copy — Auto-generated headlines and descriptions often lack nuance, brand voice, or emotional appeal—especially for businesses with a unique tone or niche offering.

• Hidden data with PMax campaigns — With campaigns like Performance Max, AI controls placements, targeting, and bids behind the scenes. That means limited insight into where your ads are showing, or what’s really driving results.

Our Advice: Use a Professional Google Ads Team – Not DIY & AI 

While AI is a powerful assistant, it cannot replace the strategic thinking and human creativity of a professional team. Here are the benefits of having a digital marketing company on your side:

Benefits of Having a Digital Marketing Company on Your Side 

• Dedicated Professionals: You get a team of dedicated professionals with years of experience helping you make the best decisions within your budget and goals.
• Custom Strategy: We build a strategy based on your specific needs, not a one-size-fits-all approach that Google often takes.
• Focus on ROI: We focus on producing the best return on investment (ROI) for your set budget, while Google will often push you to increase your budget without guaranteeing an increase in the quality of traffic.
• Authentic Creativity: A digital marketing company brings unique creativity to your Google Ads account, making your ads and assets more authentic and more likely to be clicked.
• Advanced Tracking: We can specify and track the exact touchpoints and conversions you want on your website, which can be difficult to set up on your own.
• Comprehensive Optimization: We use and customize all available tools, both AI and manual, to optimize your account for maximum performance.
• Full Transparency: A digital marketing company will be able to answer any questions you have about your account and performance, providing complete transparency.

How AI Has Changed Google Advertising and What the Future Holds 

AI has fundamentally shifted the landscape of Google Ads from a primarily manual platform to one driven by automation and machine learning. This change affects everything from how campaigns are created to how ads are served and measured. The future of Google advertising is a partnership between human strategy and AI efficiency.

Google’s Performance Max (PMax):  

Performance Max (PMax) is a prime example of this AI-first approach. It’s a goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to serve ads across all of Google’s channels—including Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover—from a single campaign. PMax is a significant departure from traditional campaign types because it relies heavily on Google’s AI to:

Automate Bidding and Targeting: 

PMax uses AI-powered Smart Bidding to optimize bids in real-time, focusing on the auctions most likely to lead to conversions based on your goals. It automatically finds new customer segments and places your ads where they’ll be most effective.

Generate and Optimize Assets: 

You provide a wide variety of creative assets (headlines, descriptions, images, and videos), and Google’s AI automatically generates ad variations and determines which combinations perform best. In some cases, it can even automatically create new assets by pulling content directly from your landing pages.

Provide Holistic Insights: 

Instead of siloed reports, PMax offers a unified view of your campaign performance across all channels. While this provides a high-level overview, it comes with a drawback: limited transparency and control. Advertisers can’t see detailed placement data or specific search queries as easily as with traditional campaigns. This lack of granular data makes it difficult to manually pinpoint which specific placements are driving results.

AI-Powered Bidding Strategies:  

Google Ads’ AI-powered bidding strategies like tCPA (Target Cost Per Action) and tROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend) use machine learning to automatically adjust bids in real time. tCPA aims to get as many conversions as possible at or below your target cost per action, while tROAS focuses on maximizing revenue relative to ad spend. These strategies analyze signals like device, location, time of day, and user behavior to predict conversion likelihood and set optimal bids for each auction. 

Automatically Created Assets (ACAs):  

Google is creating automatic assets in Google Ads, like headlines, descriptions, and sitelinks, by using AI to pull from landing pages, existing ads, and other content. This helps advertisers scale faster and potentially improve ad relevance. However, it’s a clear example of why AI needs human oversight. Automatically generated assets may not always match brand voice, strategy, or compliance standards, so marketers must review and refine them to ensure accuracy and effectiveness. 

AI-Generated Ad Copy & Imagery:  

AI tools like Jasper and Copy.ai help generate ad copy quickly by using prompts to create headlines, descriptions, and variations tailored to different audiences. Similarly, Google’s own built-in features can now generate ad text, images, and even product visuals directly within Google Ads. These tools speed up the creative process, but they still require marketers to edit and refine the outputs to ensure brand consistency and compliance. 

Create Google Ads That Work With Us 

AI can be a powerful tool in managing your Google Ads account. Streamlining bidding, expanding reach, and generating creative assets faster than ever. However, it shouldn’t be fully relied on, as automation lacks the nuance, strategy, and brand understanding that a dedicated marketing team provides. The best results come from combining AI’s efficiency with human expertise to guide strategy, refine messaging, and ensure campaigns align with business goals. Reach out to us today.