Google Search Console Generative AI Performance Report Now Available to All Sites
Google's Search Console generative AI performance report, which tracks how websites appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, appears to have completed its global rollout as of August 11, 2026. The report gives website owners their first native tool for measuring visibility inside Google's AI-powered search features, though it still lacks click and query data that SEO professionals have been requesting.
The details
Google first announced the generative AI performance report on June 3, 2026, in a blog post by Mrinalini Loew, General Manager of Google Search Ecosystem. At launch, the feature was limited to a small subset of UK website owners. The initial UK-only release was tied to requirements from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which had secured commitments from Google to give publishers more control over how their content appears in AI-generated search results.
Access expanded beyond the UK roughly three weeks later. By June 23, website owners in India, Switzerland, and the United States began reporting that the report had appeared in their Search Console dashboards. Google Search Advocate John Mueller confirmed the incremental rollout on Bluesky, writing: "We're just rolling these out incrementally to sites, and reviewing the feedback along the way. I know everyone wants the new shiny thing immediately... but first, patience." Mueller also encouraged users to provide detailed feedback on the report.
By August 11, the report appeared to be live across all properties with sufficient AI impression volume. Checks across roughly two dozen Search Console profiles showed the report present in all of them. Google has not yet issued a formal announcement declaring the rollout complete. The company's help documentation still carries a note stating the report is rolling out "to a subset of website owners, allowing for thorough testing before rolling it further."
The report appears as an expandable tab under the main performance report in Search Console. According to Google's official documentation, it tracks impressions across two generative AI capabilities: AI Overviews, which Google says has over 2.5 billion monthly active users, and AI Mode, which has surpassed one billion monthly users. A separate report covers generative AI impressions in Google Discover. Data from Search Labs experiments is not included.
Website owners can view impression data broken down by page, country, device type, and date, with granularity ranging from hourly to monthly. Impressions count how many times links to a site were shown to users in a generative AI feature. If two results from the same site appear in a single AI response, they count as one impression in the chart total. Data in the report begins from May 18, 2026.
The report's gaps are as telling as its data. There is no click data, meaning website owners cannot see how often users actually clicked through to their site from an AI Overview or AI Mode response. There is also no query data, so site owners cannot see which search terms triggered their appearance in AI features. When asked about the absence of click data, a Google spokesperson said: "We're continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we'll introduce additional metrics over time."
The rollout also introduced a blocking control that lets website owners opt out of having their content appear in generative AI search features. Google stated that sites opting out "will not receive traffic or impressions from our generative AI features." The company also clarified that opting out would not affect a site's rankings in standard search results, calling it a separate signal. The blocking control took effect on June 17, 2026, for the initial group of UK site owners who had it.
Why this matters for SEO and AI visibility
The generative AI performance report gives SEO teams a standardized, first-party view into how Google's AI features surface their content. Before this report, tracking AI Overview and AI Mode visibility required manual SERP monitoring or third-party tools with limited coverage. Now, teams can at least measure impression trends and identify which pages are appearing in AI responses.
The absence of click and query data, however, leaves a significant gap. SEO professionals can see that their content appeared in an AI feature, but they cannot measure the downstream traffic impact or identify which queries are driving AI visibility. This limits the report's usefulness for ROI attribution and keyword strategy. The lack of click data also reflects a broader challenge: as AI-generated answers reduce the need for users to click through to websites, traditional click-based SEO metrics may become less reliable as a measure of search performance. Google's commitment to "introduce additional metrics over time" suggests the company is aware of these limitations, but there is no timeline for when click or query data might arrive.
What to watch next
Google has not officially declared the rollout complete, so a formal announcement may still be forthcoming. SEO teams should check their Search Console profiles for the report, noting that it will not appear if a site has not received enough impressions in generative AI features. The opt-out toggle for generative AI features is also worth monitoring, as Google could expand the range of AI features covered by the control over time. The bigger question is whether Google will add click and query data to the report, and when. In the meantime, SEO teams will need to supplement the report's impression data with third-party tools and direct traffic analysis to build a fuller picture of their AI search performance.
Sources
- Google Blog: "New opportunities, control and insights for website owners" (June 3, 2026) — https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/new-controls-website-owners/
- Google Search Console Help: "Generative AI performance report (Search)" — https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16984139
- UK Government CMA announcement — https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-secures-fairer-deal-for-publishers-and-improves-google-search-services-in-uk
