On GNOME with power-profiles-daemon, I wanted the power profile to switch between power-saver and performance based on AC power or battery. The solution is to let udev react to POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE changes and call powerprofilesctl directly.

Put the following rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-power-profile-switch.rules:

$ sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-power-profile-switch.rules >/dev/null <<'EOF'
# AC plugged in
SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ATTR{type}=="Mains", ENV{POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE}=="1", ACTION=="change", RUN+="/usr/bin/powerprofilesctl set performance"

# On battery
SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ATTR{type}=="Mains", ENV{POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE}=="0", ACTION=="change", RUN+="/usr/bin/powerprofilesctl set power-saver"
EOF

Reload udev and trigger the change:

$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
$ sudo udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=power_supply

Unplug and plug the AC adapter back in, then check the active profile:

$ powerprofilesctl get