Google Expands AI Brief and Adds AI Max Reporting: Control and Transparency for Advertisers

Have you ever felt like you were driving a car without a dashboard? You step on the gas, steer the wheel, but you have no idea what your actual speed is, how hard the engine is working, or whether you are heading in the right direction.

That is precisely how thousands of advertisers worldwide have felt since September 1, 2026, when Google automatically migrated a massive wave of e-commerce accounts to AI Max—an AI-driven advertising system where algorithms independently decide keywords, generate ad copy, and choose landing pages. The shift happened fast, and many felt left behind with countless unanswered questions.

But then, at the DMEXCO conference in Cologne, Germany, Google spoke up. And this time, they did not just talk the talk.

AI Brief: When You Are Allowed to "Talk" to AI in Your Own Language

Imagine you have a super-intelligent ad manager, but that person only speaks English. You want to tell them: "Never mention the price in this ad," or "Focus on female customers, ages 25-35, interested in skincare." But you cannot fully express your nuance in English, and as a result, the message gets misinterpreted or, worse, lost in translation.

That is the exact problem AI Brief solves. First launched at Google Marketing Live in May 2026, AI Brief is a control layer that lets advertisers provide natural language guidelines—not keywords, but contextual instructions regarding their business, target audience, and core messaging.

And at DMEXCO 2026, Google announced a major milestone: AI Brief is officially expanding to seven new languages, including Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

What does this mean? For brands running multilingual campaigns or managing multiple international markets within a single Google Ads account, the language barrier has officially been lifted. Previously, you had to write prompts in English even if your campaign targeted a non-English-speaking audience. That translation gap has now narrowed significantly.

The New AI Max Report: From Obscurity to Total Transparency

If AI Brief is how you "talk" to the AI, the new report is how you "listen" to its response. And this is the part that has the advertising community genuinely excited.

Google has introduced a unified search journey report in Google Ads—where, for the first time, you can see a seamless picture from start to finish:

• The exact search keywords that triggered your ads.
• The specific ad creative that users saw.
• The actual landing page that users visited.

These three data points used to live in three separate reports. To piece them together, you had to open multiple tabs, cross-reference manually, and stitch the story together yourself. Now, everything lives in a single, unified interface.

This is especially critical for AI Max accounts with Final URL Expansion enabled—where the AI can select a landing page different from the URL saved in your ad. Previously, catching those unexpected URL expansions required immense patience and manual cross-referencing. Now, everything is clearly displayed.

Why Timing Matters So Much

Do not dismiss this as a random coincidence. Google did not drop these two features on an ordinary day.

September 1, 2026 marked the milestone when thousands of e-commerce ad accounts were automatically migrated to AI Max. That meant Google’s AI held more control than ever over keyword matching and ad customization. Three weeks later, brands started asking tough questions: "What is the AI doing with my budget? Are those 7% incremental conversions Google promised actually coming from anywhere real?"

Dan Taylor, Google's Vice President of Global Ads, directly announced both features at DMEXCO on September 23. It was a calculated move: building advertiser trust before Q4 budgets are heavily deployed. Because if you do not trust AI Max, you will not pour money into it.

How AI Brief Works in Practice

Let’s look at a concrete example. Suppose you are a fashion brand running campaigns in Japan and Italy. With AI Brief in Japanese and Italian, you can write:

"We are a sustainable fashion brand focused on recycled materials. Our target audience is women aged 28-40 who care about the environment. Never mention price in the ads. Always emphasize the story behind each product."

The AI takes these instructions in their native language, understands the context, and generates ad creatives that align with the spirit you want to convey. No more messages getting distorted through a middle-man English translation layer.

According to Google, AI Brief allows for both positive and negative guidelines—you can say "do this" and "don't do that." The feature also previews ad samples and sample queries before launch, giving you control over the final output quality.

What Does This Mean for Vietnamese Advertisers?

Even though AI Brief has not yet rolled out in Vietnam, what is happening at DMEXCO is a signal that anyone in digital advertising needs to pay attention to.

First, Vietnamese Will Likely Join the Supported Languages Soon

Google expanded from English to seven languages in just four months. This pace indicates that Vietnamese—one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing digital advertising markets—could very well be on the next expansion list. Preparing now makes complete sense.

Second, AI Control Will Become a Competitive Skill

In a world where AI decides most of how ads are displayed, the person who knows how to "talk" to AI—how to give clear directions and set smart boundaries—will hold a massive advantage over those who simply hit auto-pilot and wait for results.

Third, Data Transparency Is an Irreversible Trend

The unified search journey report is Google's promise that they will not leave advertisers "blind" in the AI era. But simultaneously, it sets a higher standard: if you have data in your hands and do not know how to analyze it, you will still lose. Data literacy and interpretation skills will become increasingly vital.

What Is Still Missing?

While these updates are a welcome step forward, there are still gaps advertisers should keep in mind.

According to prior statements from Google Ads representative Ginny Marvin, ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode are currently reported together with other top-of-page ads, without separate performance breakdowns. This means you still cannot pinpoint the exact percentage of traffic coming from AI-driven search surfaces.

Furthermore, while the new AI Max report has been announced, it will roll out in the coming weeks, with full availability details arriving later this year. Those eagerly waiting for granular data right away may need to wait a little longer.

When AI Is No Longer a Black Box

I have spent two decades watching the digital advertising industry change day by day. I remember the days when everything could be controlled manually—you set bids, wrote ads, and chose keywords. Then Google introduced Smart Bidding, Performance Max, and now AI Max. Each time, that feeling of losing control crept back in.

But this time, there is a difference. Google is not just saying "trust us." They are providing tools for you to verify. They are giving you the language to steer. They are swinging open the data doors for you to evaluate yourself.

And as always, the winner is not the one who opposes technology, but the one who learns how to master it.

Have you ever felt helpless when AI Max automatically changed your campaigns without enough data to verify? If AI Brief soon supports Vietnamese, how would you write your first prompt for the AI—and how much do you trust that the AI will truly "understand" you? Share your thoughts below, because in a game where AI is getting smarter, we too must learn to be smarter so we are not left behind!