Something shifted in Google Ads last week and most Nigerian advertisers have not heard about it yet.
Until now, there was one way to get your ads showing inside AI Mode.
Broad match. Or AI Max. Or Performance Max.
Loose targeting, smart bidding, hand the account over to the machine and pray.
That was the deal. You wanted AI Mode reach? Then give up your control.
What actually happened
On 4 September, Anthony Higman posted on LinkedIn that he was seeing regular Search campaigns with restrictive match types serving inside AI Mode. He said he confirmed it across multiple campaigns on his side.
Barry Schwartz took it to Google. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, confirmed it: “This is a small experiment that recently kicked off.”
Then she added the part that actually matters. Exact and phrase match keywords are eligible to serve text ads in AI Mode, but only where there is explicit and direct user intent.
Read that second sentence again. The door opened, but only a crack.
Why I care, and why you should
Look at the accounts I get sent every week inside the community. SMEs in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt. Monthly ad budgets between ₦50,000 and ₦300,000.
On that kind of budget, broad match is not a strategy. It is a donation.
I have watched a furniture seller in Lekki burn ₦120,000 in eleven days on broad match, and the search terms report was full of people searching “free pallet wood” and “furniture school in Nigeria”. Nobody was buying anything.
Exact match is how small budgets stay alive. It always has been. The problem was that choosing exact match used to mean locking yourself out of where Google is clearly pushing search behaviour.
✅ That trade-off is loosening.
✅ You can keep tight targeting and still get in front of AI Mode users.
✅ Your naira goes further because you are not paying to educate the algorithm.
Now the cold water
Google said “small experiment”. Anthony thinks it is bigger than they are admitting, and he might be right. But “might be right” is not a reason to rebuild your account this week.
Experiments get switched off. I have seen it happen enough times to stop getting excited on day three.
What I would actually do
1. Open your search terms report and filter the last 14 days. If you are seeing traffic you cannot explain, this could be why.
2. Do not move your campaigns to broad match chasing AI Mode reach. That was the old workaround. The whole point of this news is that you may not need it.
3. Leave your exact match campaigns exactly as they are and watch impressions over the next three weeks. If they climb without your bids changing, you are in the test.
4. Write your ad copy for someone asking a full question, not typing three words. AI Mode users type sentences.
This is the second week running that Google has quietly changed how your money gets spent. I wrote about the AI Max auto-upgrade last Thursday. Same pattern. They ship it, they call it small, and your account changes underneath you.
Check your account. Today, not next month.
We break stories like this down every week inside the community. Come argue with me → digitrybe.com/community
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable (4 September 2026), Ginny Marvin via LinkedIn.
