PMax ignores your image opt-out on new campaigns from Dec 4

If you switched off dynamic images for your Google Ads account to keep control of your creative, that switch stops covering new Performance Max campaigns on 4 December 2026. From that date, every new PMax campaign pulls images from your landing pages unless the campaign itself says no.

What Google announced

A Google Ads Developer Blog post on 21 October 2026 says image extraction (GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION) becomes opted in by default for newly created Performance Max campaigns in the API, the Google Ads UI and Google Ads Editor. Until now, a campaign that did not set it inherited the account-level Dynamic Image Extensions setting. From 4 December, the campaign default wins even when the account-level setting is off.

With image extraction, Google’s AI scans your landing pages for high-resolution images and serves them as creative across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Existing campaigns keep their current configuration. The change applies to campaigns created on or after 4 December.

What we checked

The API reference still describes the old behaviour. Read today, the AssetAutomationType reference says GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION “defaults to account level Dynamic Image Extension control value”. If your developers work from the reference, it tells them the account switch is enough. After 4 December, it is not.

Image extraction was the last PMax automation that followed an account switch. The same reference gives a default for four other automations it ties to Performance Max: text customization, final URL expansion text, enhanced YouTube videos, and image enhancement (AutoCrop and AutoEnhance). All four are on by default. From 4 December, image extraction joins them. Every PMax asset automation with a documented default then starts switched on, and each one is an opt-out per campaign.

The opt-out can break another opt-out. asset_automation_settings is a repeated field. An update replaces the whole list, it does not merge. Google’s own warning: send only the image entry and you clear the others, such as TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION. Google does not say what a cleared entry falls back to. The reference gives “opted in” as the PMax default for text customization. If you opted out of text customization and a script then sends only the image opt-out, read the campaign back and check that text customization is still off.

The read

Your landing page is now ad creative by default. The AI change here is not a new format. It is that Google’s model decides which of the images on your pages become ads, on six surfaces. That includes images you may not want in an ad: stock photos licensed for web use only, partner logos, customer photos, a promotion that ended. Google’s post repeats that you must own the rights to every image on those pages. The legal exposure follows the default.

Campaign creation date becomes a variable. A PMax campaign created on 3 December and one created on 5 December can run with different creative pools, even in the same account with the same settings screen. A restructure, a relaunch or a new campaign for a test after 4 December changes the creative and the structure at once. If the new campaign does better or worse, you cannot tell which change did it.

The reporting gap is a finding. Google documents an “Automatically created” label in the Source column for its generated text assets, in the asset group report and the Combination Report. The API has the same distinction (ADVERTISER against AUTOMATICALLY_CREATED) on asset group assets. Neither the post nor the help pages say whether extracted landing-page images get that label. Until you have seen it in your own report, assume you may not be able to separate their results from the images you uploaded.

What to do

1. Audit now. Run Google’s query, SELECT campaign.id, campaign.name, campaign.asset_automation_settings FROM campaign WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'PERFORMANCE_MAX'. A campaign with no GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION entry is relying on the account switch. Record which ones, and the account-level setting, before 4 December.
2. Change the creation path before 4 December if you want images off: add GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION: OPTED_OUT to every new-campaign payload, template and Editor workflow, with every other automation entry you want to keep.
3. Mark 4 December in your reporting, and after it, check the asset group report of one new campaign for images you did not upload and for how their Source column reads.

Marking the date tells you when the creative changed. It does not tell you what the change did to results. A new campaign against an old one compares two campaigns, not two creative policies. Only a comparison where one group gets the change and a matched group does not separates the two, which is what a holdout test is for.