Google began rolling out a generative AI report in Search Console on 3 June 2026. It counts how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, but shows no clicks or queries, so read it page by page next to the main Performance report.
Search Console's new generative AI report shows how often pages from your site appeared in Google's AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, device and date. It counts impressions only. There are no clicks, queries or positions in it yet, so on its own it tells you that Google showed your page inside an answer, not whether anyone visited, called or bought.
Google announced the report on 3 June 2026 and began with a test group, a subset of website owners in the UK, before a global rollout. If it has not reached your account yet, the staged rollout is the likely reason, not a fault with your site. When it does arrive, treat it as a visibility signal and read it alongside the click data you already have.
- Google announces the generative AI performance reports
- 3 June 2026
- Google announces the generative AI performance reports
- Impressions. No clicks, CTR, queries or position yet
- 1 metric
- Impressions. No clicks, CTR, queries or position yet
- monthly users of AI Overviews, according to Google
- 2.5 billion+
- monthly users of AI Overviews, according to Google
- of visits with an AI summary included a click on a cited source (Pew, 2025)
- 1%
- of visits with an AI summary included a click on a cited source (Pew, 2025)
01
What Google actually launched
The announcement came from Google's Search Ecosystem and Search Console teams on the Search Central blog. It added dedicated views of impressions in generative AI features on Search, naming AI Overviews and AI Mode as examples, plus a separate report for AI features in Discover. Google was clear that this data already sits inside the overall Performance report, under the Web search type, so your totals do not change. The new report pulls the AI share out where you can see it.
On the same day, Google said it was testing a Search Console setting that lets a site opt out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority published a conduct requirement that gives publishers the right to such controls.
19 May 2026
AI Mode passes one billion users
At Google I/O, Google says AI Mode has one billion monthly users a year after launch, and lets people continue from an AI Overview straight into AI Mode.
3 Jun 2026
Report and opt-out control announced
Search Console gains AI impression reports for Search and Discover, and Google starts testing an AI opt-out with a subset of UK site owners. The CMA publishes its conduct requirement the same day.
22 Jul 2026
Billions of clicks a week, says Google
Sundar Pichai says Google has brought AI Overviews and AI Mode together into one Search experience and now sends billions of clicks a week to websites through its AI features.
Aug 2026
Still rolling out
Google said it would test the reports with a subset of sites before rolling them out globally, so not every property has them yet.
02
What the report shows, and what it leaves out
Google lists five things the report includes. Anything else is either in the main Performance report, mixed in with regular results, or not available.
| Data | What it tells you | In the report? |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | How often a URL from your site appeared in an AI feature | Yes |
| Pages | Which of your URLs Google used in AI answers | Yes |
| Countries | Where those appearances happened, India included | Yes |
| Devices | Whether your AI visibility is mostly mobile or desktop | Yes, Search only |
| Dates | Trends, and whether a content change moved anything | Hourly to monthly |
| Clicks and CTR | Whether the appearance sent a visitor | No |
| Queries | Which questions triggered the appearance | No |
| AI Overviews vs AI Mode | Which of the two features showed you | Not described |
03
Why the numbers look better than they are
An AI impression means Google showed a link to your page inside an AI feature. It does not mean the reader noticed your name, read your text or wanted to visit. Google says its AI features show a wider and more diverse set of links than classic results, and that AI Overviews and AI Mode may use different models and techniques, so the links they show vary; we look at why the two cite different pages separately. A page can collect impressions in both without anyone paying attention to it.
Independent research suggests the gap between being shown and being visited is wide. Pew Research Center found that when an AI summary appeared, people clicked a cited source in about 1% of visits and a regular result in 8%, against 15% when no summary appeared. Google argues that the clicks which do happen are higher quality, with visitors more likely to spend time on the site. Either way, judge AI visibility by what it does to enquiries, not by the impression count.
04
How to read it next to your click data
Because the AI report has pages but no clicks, the useful analysis happens page by page. Export AI impressions by page for the last few weeks, then pull clicks for the same pages and dates from the main Performance report. On the click side, compare the same weeks last year too: Google's own troubleshooting guide suggests a year-on-year comparison and a 16-month view to rule out seasonal dips.
Then sort each page into one of three groups.
- Shown in AI answers, clicks steady or rising. The page is doing its job. Keep it current and protect whatever makes people click through, such as prices, booking or a tool.
- Shown in AI answers, clicks falling. The answer is probably satisfying the searcher. Add what a summary cannot give: your price range, availability, a calculator, local proof or a clear next step.
- Not shown in AI answers at all. Check the page is indexed and eligible for a snippet, then rewrite it to answer one question plainly near the top. These pages are your content roadmap.
Use the country breakdown as well. If most of a page's AI impressions come from outside India while your customers are in Kerala, the page may be serving general answers rather than local ones, and your location and service pages need the attention. Our guide to tracking answer share covers how to check the AI assistants Search Console cannot see.
05
Should you use the opt-out?
Google's new setting excludes a whole site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover. Google says it will not be a ranking signal for results outside those features, but the trade-off is blunt.
Sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from our generative AI features.
For a local service business that wants to be recommended, opting out removes you from the answers where many buyers now start. It makes more sense for publishers whose content is the product. If you only want to limit how much of a page Google can show, the older preview controls, nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet, still apply. Google-Extended is a separate control aimed at some of Google's other AI systems, not at Search.
06
What to do this week
- Look for the generative AI report in Search Console. If it has not appeared, check again each week while the rollout continues.
- Export AI impressions by page once it appears, and save a copy every month so you build your own history.
- Match each page to its clicks in the main Performance report for the same dates, and sort pages into the three groups above.
- Fix the not-shown pages first: a direct answer near the top, your location, and facts an AI system can repeat safely.
- Add reasons to visit on pages that are shown but losing clicks.
- Report enquiries alongside visibility. Calls, WhatsApp messages and form leads decide whether any of this paid off. Our quarterly website audit includes the Search Console checks worth making a habit.
If you would like help building the page-level view, our SEO and AEO service sets it up as part of monthly reporting.
Sources
Facts current as of 19 August 2026. Google is still expanding this report.