Google Ads language targeting changes starting September 2026

We're making changes to language targeting for Search, AI Max for Search, and Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads, simplifying campaign management while maintaining a high-quality ad experience.

Effective late September 2026:

  • For Search and AI Max for Search campaigns, the campaign-level language targeting setting will be removed. Search ads will automatically match based on the language of your ads.
  • For Performance Max campaigns, the way language targeting is used will be updated:
    • On Google Search: The campaign-level language setting will no longer be used for ads shown on Google Search. Language matching will function the same as Search campaigns, using the language of your ads.
    • On other channels (like YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail): The campaign-level language setting you select will continue to be used to guide who sees your ads.

In cases where multiple eligible campaigns exist within your account, AI-based ad group prioritization will select the most relevant ad language.

Historically, the language criterion in the Google Ads API allowed you to manually specify target languages for your campaigns. These language criteria will still be returned when querying even though they are not used for targeting. Any mutates to add or update Search campaign CampaignCriterion.language will result in a ContextError.OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CONTEXT error. For Performance Max campaigns, there will be no error as language targeting may be used on other channels.

What should I change for the Google Ads API?

While existing Search and AI Max for Search campaigns will continue to operate without disruption (as their language settings will not apply), we recommend the following code updates:

  1. Stop setting language criteria:
    • For new Search campaigns: Stop including language criteria when creating or updating Search campaigns when sending Google Ads API requests.
    • For existing Search campaigns: You may optionally remove existing language criteria from your Search campaigns for cleanliness, though it is not strictly required as they will not apply.
    • Focus on Ad and Landing Page Language: Ensure your ad creatives and landing pages are clearly structured in the intended languages. Search ads will primarily use these signals, alongside user language preferences, for matching.

Where can I get support?

For technical support issues, please reach out to us using the support form. If you have any questions or want to discuss this post, please reach out to us on our “Google Advertising and Measurement Community” Discord server.

 - Dora Sun - Google Ads API Team

Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 153.0.8003.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome

Take Notes for me for in-person meetings is now available

We know that balancing active participation with note taking during face-to-face discussions can be a challenge. You shouldn't have to choose between staying present in the moment and capturing critical context for later. We’re excited to start rolling out a new way to make Google Meet the home for all of your meetings, expanding beyond just video calls to support your in-person collaboration.



“Take Notes” button in Meet on Web


Take Notes button in Meet on Mobile

Start Taking Notes: Launch a session directly from the Google Meet home screen on web or mobile by selecting the "Take notes" button. Once recording begins, Gemini actively captures notes for your in person meetings.

Review the Artifacts: When your meeting finishes, press the button to conclude audio capture. Gemini automatically compiles a structured notes summary, action items, and complete transcript into a Google Doc, saved directly to Google Drive, and emails the link to you.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be controlled by existing Google Meet notes settings.
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more.

Rollout pace

  • Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains:
    • Android with extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 11, 2026
    • Web with extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting no sooner than August 14, 2026
    • iOS with extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting no sooner than August 31, 2026

Availability

  • Business: Business Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Standard, and Plus
  • Consumer: Google AI Pro, and Ultra
  • Other Editions: Frontline Plus
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education

Resources

HeyGen x Google Cloud: Bringing Avatar IV to TPUs

HeyGen ported their 18B+ parameter Avatar IV video generation model to Google Cloud's Trillium (v6e) TPUs via torchax and XLA, utilizing FSDP and Ulysses sequence parallelism across an eight-chip mesh. To achieve a 1.86x speedup for real-time streaming, the engineering team pipelined exposed all-to-all collectives, aligned sparse attention block sizes to eliminate mask padding, and bypassed softmax serial dependencies using a precomputed Cauchy-Schwarz upper bound. These custom Pallas kernel and compiler optimizations were deployed only after passing rigorous two-tier quality gates to guarantee byte-identical or mathematically equivalent pixel outputs.

Introducing Credentio: Open Source C++ Library for C2PA Content Credentials from Google

Credentio is a newly released, open-source C++ library from Google that allows developers to integrate high-performance, local-first validation of C2PA Content Credentials into their client and server applications. By processing assets entirely locally with a highly optimized memory footprint, the library delivers instant validation verdicts for multi-gigabyte media files without incurring cloud latency, bandwidth costs, or data privacy risks. The library currently features deep manifest parsing alongside configurable trust list integration, and is available now on Google Source with future plans to support full credential generation and embedding.

Use Sheets canvas to visualize data in custom, interactive mini-apps

We’re excited to launch Sheets canvas, a new Gemini-powered capability that transforms your spreadsheets into custom, interactive, read-write applications using simple natural language prompts. It acts as a dynamic visualization layered directly on top of your spreadsheet data, allowing you and your team to work in layouts that best fit your workflows. 

Whether you need to coordinate cross-functional deliverables or present core insights from dense data to an executive team, Sheets canvas can deliver the visual tool for the job. Key capabilities include: 

  • End-to-end creation: Build an advanced visualization with a single natural language prompt without requiring coding, formulas, or third-party tools. 
  • Fully read-write: Changes made in the canvas, such as dragging task cards or adding new entries, instantly update your source sheet. Likewise, any updates to the source sheet reflect in your canvas in real time. 
  • Flexible adjustments: Continue to polish and refine your Sheets canvas by prompting Gemini to make edits to layout, design, functionality, and more. 
  • Familiar sharing tools: Because Sheets canvas is built directly inside Google Sheets, it inherits the same sharing settings as your spreadsheet, making it effortless to collaborate in real time. 
For example, if you’re a financial analyst working out of a budget spreadsheet, you can ask Gemini to “Build an interactive dashboard that helps me analyze how different cost drivers impact a quarterly budget.” If you’re an operations lead overseeing logistics, you can simply prompt Gemini to “Create a custom tracker to visualize regional field assignments.” 

Users can build a wide variety of applications with Sheets canvas. Here are just a few examples:


Kanban board: Group tasks by workflow stage, and drag and drop cards to update progress in real time 


Dashboard: Create a financial forecasting model with dynamic scenario planning


Whiteboard: Conduct a virtual brainstorming session with sticky notes 

Note: This feature is currently only available on the web to accounts with language set to English.

Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 10, 2026 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 31, 2026 

Availability 

  • Business: Business Standard and Plus 
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus 
  • Consumer: Google AI Pro and Ultra Education 
  • Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education AI Add-ons: AI Expanded Access 
Note: Creating and editing Sheets canvases is subject to per-user usage limits. See the Help Center for more information. 

Resources