Microsoft Advertising is retiring Predictive Matching as a separate targeting option and merging it into Search-term matching inside AI Max. The company added notices to several help-document pages describing the shift, per Barry Schwartz’s report for Search Engine Roundtable. Microsoft has not confirmed when the change takes effect, only that it “will happen at some point.”
Predictive Matching was only available to advertisers running conversion-based automated bidding, so the shift narrows to a subset of accounts rather than the whole platform.
The move is consolidation, not removal. A separately named control is being absorbed into a larger automated bundle, the same direction Google has pushed its own matching and bidding tools for years. Each consolidation like this leaves one fewer lever an advertiser can isolate and measure independently.
Advertisers who relied on Predictive Matching should document how its contribution currently appears in conversion reporting now, before that performance data merges into AI Max and becomes harder to separate out.
Barry Schwartz reported the change for Search Engine Roundtable on Friday, July 31, 2026.
