What are Auto-Generated Image Assets in Microsoft Ads?
Auto-Generated Image Assets is a campaign-level feature in Microsoft Performance Max campaigns.
When enabled, Microsoft automatically pulls visuals from your ads, landing pages, or business domain, and uses these images in your campaigns. In some cases, imagery may even be fetched from broader asset recommendations using generative AI.
Microsoft lets Copilot and Asset Recommendations suggest or generate image assets based on your webpage, domain, and existing ad assets. This is part of their broader asset generation tools for creating creative visuals at scale.
Why should I turn it off?
Auto-generated visuals can introduce several risks to your creative consistency and campaign performance:
Mismatch with brand style. Automated visuals may not align with your brand's visual identity, making ads look off-brand or generic.
Quality control issues. Some images pulled may be low-res, poorly cropped, or not optimised for your ad formats.
Reduced creative oversight. You might lose the opportunity to select imagery purposefully designed for messaging or emotional impact.
Reporting opacity. If visuals are generated behind the scenes, it's harder to track which image drove performance, complicating creative optimisation.
Inventory risk. In some cases, automatically generated images may not meet platform or editorial standards, increasing the risk of disapproval or poor asset-level compliance handling.
How does this Improvement work?
Opteo scans your campaigns and flags those that have Auto-Generated Image Assets enabled.
We show when the feature was first detected - for example: “This campaign was first found to be pulling in image assets automatically 35 days ago.”
When you apply the Improvement, we disable Auto-Generated Image Assets for the campaign, ensuring only visuals you select or upload manually are used.
When is Auto-Generated Image Assets most harmful?
Brand campaigns, when image style and tone need precise alignment with brand identity.
High-stakes visuals, if your creative messaging relies on specific images or compositions (e.g. product overviews, emotional storytelling).
Strict compliance campaigns, in industries that face stricter review may risk non-compliant visuals being generated.
Performance optimisation, when you need to know which creative variant worked best. Generative assets muddy the results.
When might it be useful?
Campaigns short on assets. Auto-generation can fill gaps, especially if you lack uploaded imagery.
Rapid scaling. Generating multiple image variations fast can help test performance quickly across formats.
Low-risk awareness campaigns. Where visual precision is less critical and volume matters more.
If you’d rather keep this setting on, you can choose to dismiss the Improvement in Opteo.