Google today told developers that, starting December 4, 2026, every newly created Performance Max campaign will have image extraction switched on by default, even in accounts where advertisers turned off dynamic images at the account level. The change, published on the Google Ads Developer Blog, applies across the Google Ads API, the Google Ads interface and Google Ads Editor, and leaves a single campaign-level setting as the way to keep landing page images out of ads.

In Short

Google can grab pictures from an advertiser's website and use them in ads, and some advertisers had switched that off for their whole account. From December 4, 2026, new Performance Max campaigns will ignore that account switch and start grabbing pictures unless each new campaign is told not to. If you turned the feature off before, every new campaign now needs its own explicit "no" to keep things as they were.

What Google published

The post, titled "Upcoming changes to image extraction in Performance Max campaigns starting December 4, 2026," is dated Wednesday, October 21, 2026, and signed by Dora Sun of the Google Ads API Team. It is tagged with four labels: assets, google_ads_api, image and performance_max.

Its central sentence is short. According to Google, "starting December 4, 2026, image extraction (GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION) will be enabled by default (OPTED_IN) for newly created Performance Max campaigns across Google Ads interfaces." Those interfaces are named as the Google Ads API, the Google Ads UI and Google Ads Editor.

The next sentence is the one that matters most to agencies and tool builders. Google writes: "Crucially, this new campaign-level default applies even if Dynamic Image Extensions are disabled at the account level (isImageExtractionAdExtensionEnabled)." Until now, the post explains, "campaigns left unset inherited their status from this account-level setting."

So the account switch, which many advertisers may have treated as a blanket refusal, stops governing new Performance Max campaigns on December 4. A campaign created after that date with no explicit instruction will extract images whatever the account says.

What image extraction does

The post gives a one-sentence description of the feature. According to Google, "with image extraction, Google AI scans provided landing pages for high-resolution images to enrich creative assets and expand reach across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps."

That list covers six surfaces. Several of them, such as Discover and Gmail, are feed or inbox environments built around images, where a picture lifted from a product page would sit next to headlines the advertiser wrote.

The post does not explain how Google decides which landing page images count as "high-resolution," whether extracted images are reviewed before they serve, or how they are combined with the assets an advertiser uploaded. It does not say whether advertisers can see or remove individual extracted images after the fact.

Existing campaigns are left alone

Google draws a clear line between old and new. "Existing Performance Max campaigns will retain their current configurations," the post states. The change touches only campaigns created from December 4 onward.

There is one wrinkle. Two dates appear in the text. The opening sentence says the default applies "starting December 4, 2026." The recommended-actions section says that "new Performance Max campaigns created after December 4, 2026 will automatically have image extraction enabled by default." The post does not settle whether a campaign created on December 4 itself falls under the old rule or the new one.

Nor does it say what happens to an existing campaign that has no explicit setting and keeps inheriting from the account. The post confirms such campaigns exist - "if a campaign does not have an entry for GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION, it is currently relying on the inherited account-level setting" - and says existing campaigns keep their configurations. It does not say whether a later change to the account-level setting would still flow through to them after December 4.

The API mechanics

Image extraction is controlled at campaign level through the asset_automation_settings field on the Campaign resource. The post lists two values that matter:

  • Automation type: AssetAutomationType.GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION
  • Status: AssetAutomationStatus.OPTED_IN or AssetAutomationStatus.OPTED_OUT

To keep a new campaign free of extracted images, an integration sets the status to OPTED_OUT in the campaign mutate request. Google's example, in REST JSON, creates a paused campaign named "My Performance Max Campaign" with advertisingChannelType set to PERFORMANCE_MAX and an assetAutomationSettings array holding one entry: assetAutomationType GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION with assetAutomationStatus OPTED_OUT.

The replacement trap

Changing the setting on a campaign that already exists is where code can go wrong. Google says developers send a CampaignOperation update targeting campaign.asset_automation_settings. But, the post warns, asset_automation_settings "is a repeated field." According to Google, "when updating a campaign, providing new settings replaces the entire array rather than merging with existing values."

The practical result: an update that sends only the image extraction entry wipes every other automation setting stored in the same array. Google names TEXT_ASSET_AUTOMATION as one example of an entry that could be cleared by accident, and says developers need to "retrieve and include all other desired AssetAutomationSetting entries" in the update request. A tool that patches one setting at a time without reading the array first could silently reset text automation on a live campaign.

Auditing current campaigns

The post includes a Google Ads Query Language query for checking where accounts stand:

SELECT campaign.id, campaign.name, campaign.asset_automation_settings FROM campaign WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'PERFORMANCE_MAX'

Campaigns that return no GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION entry are the ones still riding on the account setting. For that account-wide switch, Google points to the interface rather than the API. The path it gives is Campaigns, then Assets, then the three-dot More menu and "Account-level automated assets," then the three-dot menu again and "Advanced settings," where a "Dynamic images" control shows On or Off.

The naming is inconsistent across the post. The account-level feature is called "Dynamic Image Extensions" in one sentence, carries the identifier isImageExtractionAdExtensionEnabled in brackets, and appears as "Dynamic images" in the interface steps. The post does not say which API resource, if any, exposes isImageExtractionAdExtensionEnabled to developers; its camel-case form does not match the snake_case field names used elsewhere in the same post.

What developers are told to do

The recommended actions split into two cases. For integrations that want extraction on, Google writes: "No action is needed." For those that do not, the instruction is to "update your campaign creation payloads before December 4, 2026 to explicitly include GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION with asset_automation_status = OPTED_OUT."

That puts the burden on whoever builds campaigns. An agency platform that relied on the account-level switch for clients who had refused dynamic images now has to carry that refusal into every campaign creation call. Users of Google Ads Editor and the web interface are also covered by the new default, though the post's instructions address API payloads and do not describe the matching control in Editor or in the campaign creation flow of the UI.

The second recommendation concerns rights. Google asks developers to "confirm that you own all legal rights or permissions to the images published on your landing pages and allow Google to utilize them for commercial and advertising purposes." The phrasing frames this as something that applies "as with all automated asset features." In practice, it places responsibility for any third-party photography, stock imagery or user-submitted pictures on a landing page with the advertiser, not with Google, even though Google's system chooses which images to lift.

That matters for retailers and publishers whose pages carry licensed imagery with usage limits. A stock licence that covers a website may not cover the same image appearing as an ad on YouTube or Gmail. The post does not address how an advertiser would find out which images were extracted, which is the first step in checking whether any of them were licensed for advertising use.

What the post does not say

Several points are missing.

  • Reason. The post gives no reason for changing the default or for decoupling new campaigns from the account-level setting. It describes the feature as a way to "enrich creative assets and expand reach," which is a description of the feature, not an explanation for the change.
  • API version. No Google Ads API version is named. The field and enum documentation it links to sit under the "latest" reference path, and the post does not say whether campaigns created through older, still-supported versions behave differently.
  • Notice to account holders. The post is aimed at developers. It does not say whether advertisers who switched off dynamic images will be told directly, by email or in the interface, that the switch will no longer cover their new campaigns.
  • Performance data. No figures appear on how often extracted images are used, how they perform, or how many accounts have the account-level setting turned off.
  • Other campaign types. Only Performance Max is mentioned. The post does not say whether other campaign types that read landing pages for assets, such as Search, are affected.

Linked documentation

The post links to the Google Ads API reference pages for the Campaign resource, the AssetAutomationType enum (including its generate_image_extraction entry) and the AssetAutomationStatus enum, where OPTED_IN and OPTED_OUT are defined, as well as to the Google Ads API home page. It also links to Google's "Google Advertising and Measurement Community" Discord server for questions.

A pattern of defaults

The December change follows a run of automated features that Google has switched on by default for existing or new campaigns, each with a different off-switch.

On October 12, 2026, Google Ads began pulling discount offers from advertisers' websites and attaching them as promotion assets on Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets. Enrollment was automatic. The only control named was an "Automated Promotions" setting in the same account-level automated assets area where the Dynamic images control sits - a level that, for image extraction, will no longer govern new Performance Max campaigns.

In March, Google said AI-generated voice-overs would be added to Performance Max videos without a voice track from March 20, 2026, for accounts with video enhancement control on. That feature was also opt-out. In May, Google made the site visits asset official, on by default for eligible accounts, with no self-service toggle; advertisers had to contact a Google representative to turn it off.

Landing page text has gone the other way, at least in the API. When Google Ads API v24.2 shipped in June 2026, it added a LANDING_PAGE_TEXT_GENERATION automation type that requires explicit activation. Text generated from a landing page is opt-in; images extracted from a landing page, from December 4, will be opt-out.

The account-versus-campaign question has come up before. When Google set out the September 2026 migration of broad match and automatically created assets into AI Max, its developer documentation said account-level automated assets such as dynamic sitelinks were not part of that move. Image extraction now becomes a case where a campaign-level default takes precedence over the account-level choice for new campaigns.

Defaults applied by the API have also changed before with little room to undo them. In 2025, Google made Performance Max brand guidelines the API default from v21, with an opt-out available only at creation, because brand guidelines cannot be disabled once a campaign exists. Image extraction is different in that it can be switched on or off later through a CampaignOperation update, subject to the array-replacement caution Google spelled out.

Why it matters for image quality and rights

Google's own image rules have been tightening and loosening at once. In July, PPC Land reported that Google Ads image assets for Search require square imagery of at least 300 by 300 pixels, list rejection categories such as blurry, distorted or poorly cropped images, and are restricted to accounts open for at least 60 days. In October, Google Merchant Center said blurry or pixelated product images would no longer keep products out of ads and free listings, while keeping a 500 by 500 pixel minimum that it plans to enforce from January 31, 2027. Image extraction adds a third path, in which Google's system picks images from a page rather than an advertiser uploading them.

Rights questions around automated imagery are not new either. In February 2024, Google told advertisers that they own the unique images Performance Max generates and that such images carry SynthID watermarks. Extracted images are a different case: they are not generated, they are copied from a page, and their ownership depends on whoever published them. Google's December guidance puts the job of checking that on the advertiser.

For developers, the timing overlaps with a busier release calendar. Google moved the Ads API to two releases a month starting with v26, with four major versions a year. The image extraction change, though, is not tied to a version: it is a server-side default that applies to new campaigns on a fixed date, regardless of which version a tool calls. Integrations have six weeks - from October 21 to December 4 - to add the OPTED_OUT entry where clients want it.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google, through Dora Sun of the Google Ads API Team, affecting advertisers, agencies and developers that create Performance Max campaigns through the Google Ads API, the Google Ads UI or Google Ads Editor.

What: Image extraction (GENERATE_IMAGE_EXTRACTION), which lets Google AI pull high-resolution images from landing pages into ads, becomes OPTED_IN by default for new Performance Max campaigns, even where the account-level Dynamic images setting is off. Existing campaigns keep their configurations. Opting out requires an explicit OPTED_OUT entry in the campaign's asset_automation_settings, and updates replace the whole array.

When: The post was published today, October 21, 2026. The new default starts December 4, 2026.

Where: The change covers Google Ads globally, with extracted images eligible to serve across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. The post names no country restrictions.

Why: Google gives no reason for the change. It describes the feature as a way to enrich creative assets and expand reach, and asks advertisers to confirm they hold the rights for commercial use of every image on their landing pages.