In the last weeks before Black Friday, the big ad platforms are switching one AI feature after another on by default. Not as a new button you can try, but as a setting that stays on unless you turn it off.

On their own these are small changes. Together they mean your ads in November may look different from the ones you built, with images and copy you did not choose. Exactly in the weeks when you spend the most.

I've put on a list what changes per platform, what it means for a small shop or service business, and what I would check now.

Meta: product browsing has been on since October 28

Meta told advertisers that from October 28, 2026 it would add "product browsing" to ads that are already running. When someone taps your ad, they may first see a product page inside Facebook or Instagram, with suggestions. Your website comes after that. The text of the notice was published by PPC Land and MediaPost. I could not find a public Meta Help Center page.

If you did not opt out before October 28, it is probably on now. You switch it off per ad in the Advantage+ creative and destination settings.

Other Advantage+ creative enhancements are running too, such as automatically adjusted copy, translations and images. On October 22, Adweek (summarised by PPC Land) described advertisers pulling ads offline because Meta had added AI edits that nobody at the company had made.

Meta: new terms from November 20

Meta's new Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms were due to take effect on October 30. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters on October 23 that the date is now November 20, PPC Land reports. According to PPC Land, the text says Meta's AI features may make mistakes and that the advertiser carries the risk. I have not been able to read the final text myself, so treat this as what has been reported.

For me the lesson is simple: if you are responsible for what the AI does with your ad, you want to know which AI features are on.

Google: videos and images from your own site and socials

Performance Max (PMax) is going the same way.

Sourced videos. According to Google Ads Help, this setting is on by default for all new PMax campaigns and may already have been switched on automatically in some existing ones. Google then finds videos on your landing page, your linked YouTube channel and your social media, and adds up to 10 per asset group. Those videos go to a Google-owned YouTube channel with your logo and business name. The feature is rolling out in stages, so you may not see it yet.

Images from your landing page. On October 21 Google announced on the Google Ads Developer Blog that from December 4, 2026 every new PMax campaign may use images from your landing page by default. Even if you switched that off at account level. Existing campaigns keep their setting. PPC Land set out the details. Whoever enables this confirms, according to Google, that they hold all rights to those images for use in ads.

Text customisation and automatic expansion to other pages of your site are also on by default in PMax, according to the Google Ads API documentation. That is not new, but it belongs in the same check.

I wrote earlier about Google Ads pulling discounts from your site on its own. This is the same pattern.

OpenAI: ChatGPT Ads rewrites your ads

Advertising in ChatGPT? Then, according to the OpenAI Help Center, "creative enhancements" have been switched on automatically since late October, for new and existing campaigns. They can change headlines and descriptions, resize images, translate and even change the landing URL, without you seeing each variant in advance. If you do not advertise in ChatGPT, this does not affect you now. It does show where things are heading.

A setting that is on unless you turn it off is, in November, a decision someone else makes for you.

What this means for a small business

I see three risks.

Your brand. If your business runs on a clear story, a consistent visual style or a carefully chosen tone, you do not want a system making its own variants of it. Certainly not with videos from your Instagram that show customers or staff. Whether those people ever agreed to appear in ads is something an algorithm cannot know.

Your rights. Many sites use stock photos or images from a photographer. A licence for your website does not always cover advertising. Google explicitly puts that responsibility on you.

Your measurement. A tap that stays inside the Meta app never reaches your site. Ads Manager may then show more conversions while GA4 and your shop do not. In ecommerce tracking that answers one question I wrote: look at what actually sold. In November that gap will probably grow.

Am I against all these features? No. For a shop with a clean product feed and strong own imagery, some of them can work well. But then I want to switch them on deliberately, test on one campaign and know when it started. Not find out in December.

Where to start

Take one hour, ideally this week, and go through each platform:

  1. Meta: open your running ads and check under Advantage+ creative and destination whether product browsing and the other creative enhancements are on. Switch off what you did not choose yourself.
  2. Google: open each PMax campaign, go to Asset optimization and check whether Sourced videos, landing page images and text customisation are on. For Sourced videos, check which sources are approved.
  3. Build it into your process: every new PMax campaign after December 4 gets images from your site by default, so make the opt-out a fixed step when you create one.
  4. Note the date of every change, so you know in November why numbers shift.
  5. Set a baseline before Black Friday: the number of real orders in your shop next to what Meta and Google report.

Not sure what is switched on in your account, or want someone to look before the busiest weeks of the year? Mail me. You can read how I work on my services.