What's the advantage of adopting Performance Max alongside Search campaigns?

The advantage is that it uses AI to drive conversions across the entire Google ecosystem. A Search campaign captures people who are actively searching. Performance Max extends the same goal across YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, Maps and Search itself from one campaign, so the advertiser also reaches people who would convert but are not typing a matching query right now. Running the two together is the recommended pattern rather than replacing one with the other: Search keeps precise control over high-intent queries, and exact match keywords identical to a query still take priority, while Performance Max finds incremental demand elsewhere. The advertiser's job is to supply strong assets, audience signals and accurate conversion data, then let the campaign allocate budget to whichever surface is producing conversions at the target efficiency.