Google’s AI performance solution, Performance Max (PMax), has officially crossed the one-million advertiser mark. Additionally, the company is supporting those advertisers with new reporting tools and capabilities.
In a blog post published today, Google announced the million milestone and that it’s rolling out new reporting updates for PMax, including deeper insights into channel performance, asset-level metrics, and search term visibility. According to Google, these changes are meant to be a direct response to advertiser feedback, addressing questions around transparency and control. This is happening as the industry increasingly turns to AI to power media buying and ad placements.
See Google’s blog post for more information and details. You can also see a post about the new updates from Google’s ads product liaison, Ginny Marvin, here:
Why This Matters:
Since its debut, PMax—which gives advertisers access to the full stack of Google’s O&O channels, like Search and Search Partners, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Display, and Maps, powered and optimized by AI—has delivered powerful automation, but with limited visibility into where and how ads are served.
This isn’t necessarily a Google-specific issue as marketers have voiced ongoing frustration with the “black box” nature of AI-powered performance tools, in general, as they naturally want to see which channels drive results, where their ads are appearing, and gain a clearer overall view to optimize more effectively.
These new updates work to respond to that as advertisers will soon get access to:
- Channel-level performance data, including impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs
- Asset-level reporting across PMax, Search, and Display campaigns
- Search term insights on par with what’s available in Standard Shopping and Search campaigns (rolling out now, in fact)
For Google, taking steps toward transparency with PMax also helps with the current regulatory climate given some of the heat around AI and adtech.
Experts React:
Mike Ryan, Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce, who has really become one of the foremost experts on PMax, seemed to react positively about the updates in a few posts on X. See one here, plus this:
Our Take:
As the industry continues to talk up agentic AI and embrace AI-powered tools more broadly, the tradeoff and tension between automation and control is interesting. Relying on AI often means ceding some degree of control, of course, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get data on how decisions were made. (Or at least what the decisions were, ultimately.) Trusting the system assumes the AI is pulling the right levers on your behalf.
Right now, there’s still a trust gap, even if performance is strong. This move by Google is a step toward bridging that a bit. It also signals a broader shift in how AI-enabled automation is evolving in ad platforms: efficiency and performance don’t have to come at the expense of advertiser or user transparency. These updates give Google a stronger narrative to counter skepticism around PMax, especially with marketers who’ve been hesitant to fully adopt it or who’ve been critical.
