TL;DR
- The Google Ads API Team said on 12 October 2026 that the API moves to two releases a month starting with v26, up from the monthly cadence adopted last year.
- There are still four major releases a year; every other release is a minor version adding only non-breaking features, and each minor sunsets with its parent major.
- Google's tentative table lists majors v27 (January), v28 (April), v29 (July) and v30 (October) for 2027; by RA's count of that table, 2027 has 17 minors, 21 releases in all, including a December v30.3 that may be skipped.
- Tentative 2027 sunsets: v23 in February, v24 in May, v25 in August and v26 in November 2027; Google says all dates are estimates.
Google will ship two Google Ads API releases a month starting with version v26, the Google Ads API Team announced on the Google Ads Developer Blog on 12 October 2026. The number of major releases stays at four a year, every release in between is a minor version that adds only non-breaking features, each major remains available for one year, and sunset schedules are unchanged. In practice, tools built on the API can pick up new Google Ads features sooner without being pushed into more frequent migrations.
What Google announced on 12 October 2026
The announcement, published on the Google Ads Developer Blog and signed by Anash P. Oommen of the Google Ads API Team, is short. It opens with a reminder that Google moved the Google Ads API to a monthly release schedule last year, so that developers could reach features already available in the Google Ads interface faster. The new step doubles that pace to two releases per month, beginning with v26.
Google framed the change around automation. The post describes "a new agentic era where speed and agility are paramount" and says the faster cadence gives automated agents and workflows near-instant access to new features. That framing matters for advertisers because the API is what sits underneath most of the tooling they rely on without thinking about it: reporting connectors, bid and budget tools, feed and catalogue platforms, CRM integrations that upload offline conversions, and the newer AI agents that read or change campaigns on a user's behalf.
The post sets out five rules that govern the new schedule:
- Google will still ship four major releases per year.
- All other releases are minor releases that add only new, non-breaking features.
- Each major release stays available for one year after its release.
- Sunset schedules are unchanged, so developers will not need to migrate more often.
- Each minor release sunsets together with its parent major version.
Communication changes as well. Google's release blog posts and YouTube live events move to twice a quarter, each covering the main updates across several releases at once. To follow individual releases, Google tells developers to add the Google Ads API release notes page to their saved pages, which notifies them whenever the page changes.
Why the major and minor split is the part to understand
The headline number, two releases a month, sounds like more work for anyone maintaining an integration. Google's rules point the other way. By Google's definition a minor release adds only new, non-breaking features, which means code written against a major version should keep working when a minor version of that same major ships. Breaking changes, the ones that force engineers to rewrite queries, rename fields or rework logic, are left to the four majors.
The sunset rule reinforces this. Because a minor version retires on the same date as its parent major, moving from v26 to v26.2 does not buy any extra time. Both stop working when v26 is sunset. The real migration calendar is therefore still set by the majors, exactly as it was under the monthly schedule. What the faster cadence changes is how quickly a newly launched Google Ads feature can become available to tools, and how many release-note entries an engineering team has to read to know whether something useful has arrived.
For a team that only needs stability, the practical reading is simple: pick a major, stay on it until its sunset approaches, and treat minors as optional. For a team that wants new features early, minors are the delivery channel, and the release notes page becomes the thing to watch.
The tentative release schedule through 2027
Google published a tentative schedule for the rest of 2026 and all of 2027. It lists one major release per quarter, each followed by a run of minor versions. The table below groups each major with the minors Google listed for it, using the projected months exactly as given in the post.
| Major version and its listed minors | Projected launch | Projected sunset |
|---|---|---|
| v26 (minors v26.1 to v26.3) | October 2026; minors October to December 2026 | November 2027 |
| v27 (minors v27.1 to v27.4) | January 2027; minors February to March 2027 | February 2028 |
| v28 (minors v28.1 to v28.5) | April 2027; minors April to June 2027 | May 2028 |
| v29 (minors v29.1 to v29.5) | July 2027; minors July to September 2027 | August 2028 |
| v30 (minors v30.1 to v30.3) | October 2027; minors October to December 2027 | November 2028 |
Google attached three caveats. Every date is an estimate and may change, and Google says it may add or remove releases or switch a release between major and minor. The December minors, v26.3 and v30.3, may be skipped because they fall in the holiday season. And v27 has fewer minor versions than the other 2027 majors because its launch falls in the January holiday period.
Google does not give a yearly total. RA's own count of Google's table for calendar 2027 gives 21 listed releases: four majors and 17 minors, a total that includes v30.3, which Google says may be skipped. By the same count, from February through October 2027 the schedule shows two releases in every month, with one each in January, November and December. That is the concrete meaning of "two releases a month", and it is a plan rather than a commitment.
The 2027 sunsets are the dates that force work
The same post carries a tentative sunset schedule for 2027. These are the dates on which code still calling an old version stops working, and they are the ones to put in a project plan. As with the release schedule, Google describes them as estimates, and it repeats that minor versions such as v23.x sunset with their parent major.
| Version (including its minors) | Projected sunset |
|---|---|
| v23 | February 2027 |
| v24 | May 2027 |
| v25 | August 2027 |
| v26 | November 2027 |
The nearest deadline is v23 in February 2027, roughly four months after the announcement. Any integration still on v23 or one of its minors needs to move to a newer major before then. The rhythm after that is one sunset per quarter, which lines up with one new major per quarter. A team that upgrades once a year to the newest major will stay inside the window; a team that skips upgrades entirely will hit a hard stop at some point in 2027.
The month-level precision is worth noting. Google gives months, not days. Anyone planning a migration should treat the start of the listed month as the safe deadline and check the official sunset dates page, which the post links to, for exact days as they are confirmed.
What changes for tools, connectors and scripts
Reporting connectors and third-party tools
Most advertisers never call the Google Ads API directly. They use a dashboard connector, a bid management platform, a feed tool or an agency reporting stack that does it for them. For these users nothing changes on 12 October. The question to put to each vendor is which major version the tool runs on today and when it plans to move off v23 and v24. A vendor that adopts minors quickly may also surface new Google Ads features sooner, but that is the vendor's choice, and Google's post makes no promise about third-party adoption.
In-house code and custom integrations
Teams that maintain their own code, such as a script that pulls Google Ads data into a warehouse or a service that uploads offline conversions from a CRM, have the most to gain from reading the rules carefully. Staying on a major until close to its sunset is a valid strategy under the new schedule. Adopting a minor only when it carries a feature the team needs is also valid, because minors are additive. What the post does not cover is how client libraries for each programming language will track the faster cadence; that is a detail to confirm in the library documentation rather than assume.
AI agents and automated workflows
Google explicitly ties the change to agents. An AI tool that reads account data or makes changes through the API can only use a feature once that feature is exposed in a released API version. Shorter gaps between releases shorten the wait between a feature appearing in the Google Ads interface and an agent being able to use it. The post does not name specific agent products or say which features will ship first.
Google Ads scripts and Ads Editor
The announcement is about the Google Ads API only. It does not mention Google Ads scripts, Google Ads Editor or any other product, so it is not safe to read the new cadence into those tools. Anyone who depends on them should follow their own release notes.
What the post did not say
A short announcement leaves gaps, and the gaps are as useful to list as the facts:
- It does not list the features planned for v26 or any later version.
- It gives months, not exact launch or sunset days.
- It does not change the one-year availability of each major, and it does not offer any extension for older versions.
- It does not say whether any individual minor will contain a particular feature, only that minors are non-breaking.
- It does not describe how client libraries or developer tooling will follow the new pace.
Google's own caveat covers the rest: releases may be added, removed or reclassified between major and minor. A plan built on this table should be checked against the release notes page every quarter.
What this means for Thai marketers
There is no Thailand-specific element in the announcement. The schedule is global, and it applies equally to a Bangkok retailer pulling Google Ads data into a dashboard and to a regional brand running bid automation through a third-party platform. The work for Thai teams is the same as anywhere else, and it is mostly an inventory exercise.
- List every tool that touches the Google Ads account through the API: dashboard connectors, bid tools, feed platforms, CRM conversion uploads and any AI assistant with account access.
- For each one, find out which major version it uses and who is responsible for upgrading it.
- Put the four 2027 sunset months, February, May, August and November, into the team calendar with a buffer before each.
- Decide who reads the Google Ads API release notes, since the blog and YouTube summaries now arrive only twice a quarter.
Measurement deserves a specific mention. If an offline conversion upload or a reporting pipeline breaks at a sunset, the damage shows up as missing conversions and misleading reports, which in turn mislead Smart Bidding. Checking these pipelines before each sunset is cheaper than diagnosing a sudden drop afterwards, and it fits naturally into a wider analytics and tracking review.
FAQ
When does the Google Ads API start releasing twice a month?
The two-releases-a-month cadence starts with version v26, which Google projects for October 2026. Google's tentative schedule shows v26 and v26.1 both in October 2026, followed by v26.2 in November and a possible v26.3 in December that may be skipped for the holidays.
Will I have to migrate my Google Ads API integration more often?
No, Google says sunset schedules are unchanged, so developers will not need to migrate more often. There are still four major releases a year, each available for one year, and every minor version retires on the same date as its parent major.
Which Google Ads API versions sunset in 2027?
Google's tentative 2027 sunset schedule lists v23 in February 2027, v24 in May 2027, v25 in August 2027 and v26 in November 2027. Minor versions such as v23.x sunset with their parent major, and Google describes all of these dates as estimates that may change.
Do I need to do anything if I only use Google Ads through the interface?
Not directly, because the change affects software that calls the Google Ads API rather than the Google Ads interface itself. It is still worth asking the vendors of any connector, bid tool or feed platform you use which API version they run and how they will handle the 2027 sunsets.
Is this change specific to any country, including Thailand?
No, the release and sunset schedule is global and the announcement contains no country-specific terms. Thai advertisers and agencies follow the same version dates as everyone else.
Keeping the plumbing ahead of the schedule
The faster cadence is mostly good news: new Google Ads features can reach tools and agents sooner, and the migration calendar stays where it was. The risk sits in the integrations nobody owns, the connector set up years ago or the conversion upload that quietly runs every night. Mapping those now, against the February, May, August and November 2027 sunsets, keeps a version change from turning into a reporting gap. If you want a second pair of eyes on how your account, tracking and tools fit together, our Google Ads management team can help you plan the work.
