Three major brands report significant performance marketing gains after adopting Google’s AI-powered advertising  tools, according to a new Think with Google report by Oliver Borm, Google’s Director of Search Ads Product Strategy (EMEA).

The findings reveal what AI-powered performance marketing can deliver.

BYD Spain, UK sweets retailer PickandMix.com, and Lufthansa Group each deployed AI-driven Search solutions and recorded improvements of as much as 24x across revenue, leads, and return on ad spend.

The numbers are compelling. But what do they actually mean for performance marketers still running traditional keyword strategies? Let’s examine each case.

BYD Spain: 25% more leads, same budget

BYD Spain credits its success to targeting long-tail keywords peculiar to AI-powered search behaviour, instead of relying solely on predefined keyword lists. They implemented AI Max for Search to move beyond traditional keyword targeting. The campaign, according to Íñigo Trasmonte, the brand’s marketing and PR manager, generated 25% more leads and 26% more conversions without any increase in investment.

Lufthansa: 66% fewer campaigns, 24% ROAS lift

Lufthansa Group, working with a performance marketing agency partner, adopted AI Max for Search to replace manually structured destination campaigns. The airline streamlined its campaign count by 66% while delivering a 24% lift in ROAS and a reduction in cost per click. Mathilde Buisson, Lufthansa Group’s Head of Digital Commerce Customer Acquisition, said the approach allowed the brand to capture longer, more specific search queries such as “three-day weekend getaway Amsterdam with flights” — that traditional keyword strategies would have missed.

PickandMix.com: 24x revenue increase

PickandMix.com, operated by a three-person team, launched three AI-powered Performance Max campaigns alongside one manual Search campaign. The brand recorded a 24x increase in revenue, a nearly eightfold uplift in average ROAS, and a 10x increase in daily website traffic. Founder William Hale said the shift eliminated hours of daily manual campaign work, freeing the team to focus on growth strategy and European expansion plans.

‘AI unlocking previously unreachable demand’

According to Borm, AI Max for Search is unlocking billions of net new queries that advertisers were not previously reaching. New AI-powered Search experiences, he said, are responding more closely to real-world customer intent and reducing manual work.

The three cases span a lean ecommerce operation, a regional automotive brand, and a global airline. This suggests that the performance gains from AI-powered Search tools are not limited to large marketing budgets or specific industries.

ANALYSIS…

Why These Results Are a Warning Sign for Marketers/Businesses Still Running the Old Playbook

The numbers from BYD Spain, PickandMix.com, and Lufthansa are striking. But to understand why they matter beyond three brand case studies, you need to look at what is happening to search itself and why the traditional performance marketing model was already running out of road.

Is Your Keyword Strategy Broad Enough to Capture New Search Demand?

Search engines are no longer keyword-matching systems; they are intent interpretation engines, requiring AI SEO techniques such as entity optimization. In Borm’s words: Search has transformed from “a library of information into an engine of intelligence.”

This is the context in which AI Max for Search and Performance Max are operating — and the context that is forcing performance marketers to rethink how they capture demand.

AI search is shifting focus from short keyword phrases to understanding the intent behind queries, as users now ask complete questions rather than simple search terms. The implications for paid search are that ads built around rigid keyword matches are increasingly misaligned with how people actually look for products and services.

A broad keyword strategy in 2026 should account for long-tail, conversational, and intent-rich queries, moving beyond high-volume terms that traditional keyword planners surface. If your keyword list was built around what you assumed customers would search for rather than what they are actually searching for, it is too risky.

The scale of the shift is visible in data sources. According to Ahrefs, 46% of queries triggering Google’s AI Overviews are long-tail queries of seven words or more. To illustrate this is Lufthansa, a global airline that replaced thousands of manually structured destination campaigns with AI-driven intent matching. Instead of targeting a generic phrase like ‘flights to Amsterdam,’ AI surfaced demand as ‘three-day weekend getaway Amsterdam with flights.’ That’s  a longer, more specific, higher-intent version of the same query.

Of course, this is not to say targeting short queries is no longer valuable. Rather, the conclusion here is that short keywords alone are not enough and brands that rely exclusively on them are leaving a significant share of intent-rich demand on the table.

The Changing Nature of Performance Marketing in 2026

Taken together, these three cases point to a shift in what performance marketing expertise is actually for. The brands in this report are not using AI to replace their marketing teams, but using it to change what those teams spend their time on.

BYD Spain is now using AI-surfaced long-tail query data to inform its website content and organic strategy. PickandMix.com is focused on trend tracking and international expansion. Lufthansa is sharpening landing page messaging based on real intent signals. In each case, the human role has moved from managing campaign mechanics to directing what the AI learns from and acting on the insights it surfaces.

For performance marketers, this is both the pressure and the opportunity. The technical execution layer — keyword management, bid optimisation, creative iteration — is increasingly automated. What remains irreplaceable is the strategic judgment of knowing which signals matter, which insights to act on, and how to direct AI tools toward the right business outcomes.

Oliver Borm puts the stakes plainly: “AI isn’t just transforming campaigns – it’s reshaping careers. And the year ahead offers a great opportunity to lead it.”