Google Ads has quietly added two new options to Performance Max’s asset optimization settings — “Landing page images” and “Sourced videos” — and one of them may already be running on your campaigns. The new “Sourced videos” control, which lets Google pull videos from your social channels and landing pages into your ads automatically, appears to be switched on by default for advertisers who have it.
The change was first spotted by advertiser Reva Minkoff, who shared a screenshot of the new settings on LinkedIn on October 21, and was picked up in detail by Search Engine Land on October 22.
Here is the part advertisers are reacting to: in the shared screenshot, the Sourced videos toggle is on while Landing page images and the other visible optimization settings are off. Minkoff reports that Sourced videos is enabled automatically, which means campaigns could already be drawing in videos the advertiser never manually supplied.
What Landing Page Images Does
Landing page images sits under the Image optimization section of the Asset optimization settings. When enabled, it allows Google to take images from an advertiser’s own website and use them as creative assets in Performance Max campaigns, without the advertiser uploading them one by one.
For advertisers with large product catalogues or image-rich sites, the appeal is obvious: Google can reuse product photography and site visuals automatically instead of waiting for someone to build an asset library. But the same automation is the risk — the control decides which of your site’s images are advertising-worthy, so a review of what lives on your pages is worth doing before you leave the toggle on.
What Sourced Videos Does
Sourced videos is the more consequential of the two. It sits under Video optimization and allows Google to source videos “from other channels” — according to the advertiser who spotted it, that includes social media, the campaign’s landing pages and linked YouTube channels.
The feature also changes the math on video volume. Minkoff reports that Google can automatically add up to 10 sourced videos to an asset group, compared with the five-video manual upload limit described in the original LinkedIn post. Performance Max requires video assets — and if you do not supply any, Google will already generate one for you — so Sourced videos gives Google’s systems a much bigger pool of real advertiser footage to work with instead of synthesized clips.
Each new feature has its own toggle, and Google’s interface also carries a labelling note: ads that use image or video assets touched by these features will be labelled as created or edited with AI when shown in the European Union, India and New York state in the US. Text assets on matters of public interest get the same treatment in the EU.
Why It Matters
The immediate consequence is a settings audit. Performance Max advertisers should open the Asset optimization section of their campaigns and check whether Landing page images and Sourced videos are enabled, review the content Google may now access, and confirm they actually hold the usage rights for any video that could be pulled in. A social clip produced for an organic audience may not be cleared for paid distribution, and a landing-page video made for a different context may not survive inside an ad.
The deeper shift is Google’s continuing push toward creative autonomy. Asset optimization already lets Google AI rewrite ad copy through Text customization, expand final URLs, and enhance images and videos. Sourcing creative from the web on top of that moves the advertiser one step further from choosing what represents their brand — and each step makes the opt-out check, not the setup, the job that keeps campaigns honest. Advertisers who want manual control can switch the relevant options off.
Background
Performance Max has been the testing ground for Google’s automation-first advertising for several years, with Google steadily adding AI-powered controls that generate, enhance and now source creative assets. Earlier this month the site covered Google’s tests of ads inside AI Mode and its automated promotions rollout, both signs of the same direction: more of the campaign assembled by Google’s systems, less uploaded by hand.
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