For two years, website owners had one big question about Google’s AI features: is my content actually showing up in AI Overviews and AI Mode? Google Search Console now answers part of that question. This guide explains the new Search Console AI report (officially the Generative AI performance report), what it measures, what it leaves out, and how bloggers and small business sites in India can use it to make better content decisions.
Quick answer: what is the Search Console AI report?
The Generative AI performance report in Google Search Console shows how many times links to your site were shown to users in Google’s generative AI features, mainly AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search. Google introduced the reports in June 2026 and says that, as of 31 August 2026, they have been rolled out to all websites worldwide. A separate version covers generative AI features in Google Discover.
The key limitation: the report shows impressions only. As of the latest coverage, it does not show clicks, so you cannot directly measure how much traffic AI answers send you from this report alone.
What the Generative AI performance report shows
According to Google’s Search Console Help documentation, the Search version of the report includes:
- Features covered: AI Overviews and AI Mode. Data from experiments in Search Labs is not included.
- Metric: Impressions, defined by Google as how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search.
- Pages tab: Groups data by the final URL after redirects, assigned to the canonical URL.
- Countries tab: Where the search came from, which is useful for checking India versus other markets.
- Dates tab: Daily, weekly or monthly views, reported in Pacific Time (PT).
- Devices tab: Desktop, tablet and mobile.
- Search type filter: Web: text-based for normal typed queries, and Web: multimodal for image-based searches such as Google Lens, Circle to Search and uploaded images.
- Export: You can download chart and table data. Cells shown as ~ or – export as zero.
Google also notes that the newest data may be preliminary (shown as a dotted line) and can change within a few hours, and that the table is limited to 1,000 rows, the same as the standard Search performance report.
What the report does not show
- Clicks and CTR: Not included as of the latest reports, so traffic from AI features is not separated out here.
- Queries: Google’s help page lists Pages, Countries, Dates and Devices as the dimensions; a query breakdown is not listed.
- Search Labs experiments: Excluded.
- Small sites with little AI exposure: Google says the report may not appear if your site has not received enough impressions in generative AI features.
Main Performance report vs Generative AI report
| Feature | Search results Performance report | Generative AI performance report |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | All Google Search results | AI Overviews and AI Mode only |
| Clicks | Yes | No (impressions only) |
| Impressions | Yes | Yes |
| CTR and average position | Yes | No |
| Queries | Yes | Not listed |
| Pages, countries, devices, dates | Yes | Yes |
| Multimodal (Lens, Circle to Search) filter | Yes | Yes |
| Export | Yes | Yes |
How to open the Search Console AI report (step by step)
- Sign in to Google Search Console and select your property. If you have not verified your site yet, start with our guide on submitting a sitemap in Google Search Console.
- Open the Performance section in the left menu.
- Choose the Generative AI performance report. Google’s help page also provides a direct link to it.
- Set a date range. Start with the last 3 months to see a trend.
- Switch between the Pages, Countries, Dates and Devices tabs to explore the data.
- Use the search type filter to compare text-based and multimodal impressions.
- Click Export to download the data to Google Sheets or Excel for deeper analysis.
If you do not see the report, it usually means your site has not yet had enough AI feature impressions, or your property is set to exclude generative AI features in Settings.
5 practical ways to use the report
1. Find your AI-visible pages
Open the Pages tab and sort by impressions. These are the pages Google is already using as links in AI answers. Treat them as your strongest assets: keep them updated, fix outdated facts, and make sure each has a clear, direct answer near the top.
2. Compare AI impressions with normal clicks
Export both the Generative AI report and the standard Search results report for the same pages and date range. Put them side by side in a spreadsheet. A page with high AI impressions but falling organic clicks may be losing visitors to AI answers. A page with high AI impressions and stable clicks is probably being cited in a way that still sends readers to you.
3. Check your India versus global visibility
Many Indian blogs earn a large share of AdSense revenue from visitors in higher-CPM countries. Use the Countries tab to see whether your AI visibility is mostly from India or from markets such as the US and UK. This helps you decide whether to write more India-specific guides or more globally relevant ones.
4. Watch mobile and multimodal trends
Most Indian users search on mobile. Check the Devices tab, then try the Web: multimodal filter. If your product, recipe, travel or tech pages appear for Lens or Circle to Search queries, invest in original, clearly labelled images with descriptive alt text.
5. Track the impact of content updates
After you refresh an article, note the date and watch the Dates tab over the next few weeks. A rise in AI impressions after adding a clear summary, FAQ section or comparison table is a useful signal that the change helped. For a full checklist of what to improve, read our guide on how to rank in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The new Search generative AI control: should you opt out?
Alongside the reports, Google added a property-level setting under Settings > Search generative AI. According to Google’s help documentation it has three options:
- Include (the default): your content can appear in AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover, including as links, and you can receive impressions and traffic from them.
- Exclude: your links and content are kept out of these features, and content crawled from your site will not be used as an input to generate those AI responses. You will receive no traffic or impressions from these features.
- Inherit from parent: a child property follows its parent’s setting (default for child properties).
Important details from Google’s documentation:
- The control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Google Search.
- It does not affect AI training. To limit the use of your content for training, Google points to the separate Google-Extended control.
- It does not remove your site from Search. For that, you would use noindex.
- Exclusion generally takes a few days to apply, and some content may take longer because of caching.
Our recommendation for small Indian sites
For most new and growing blogs, keeping the default Include setting makes sense. AI features can bring brand visibility and some clicks, and excluding means other sites can still appear in those answers instead of you. Consider excluding only if your business depends on content that loses value when summarised, such as paid research, and you have measured the effect on clicks using the comparison method above.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Reading impressions as traffic. An impression in an AI answer does not mean a visit. Always check clicks in the standard report.
- Ignoring the time zone. Dates are in Pacific Time, which can shift daily figures compared with your IST-based analytics.
- Panicking over small numbers. New sites may see very few AI impressions. Focus first on indexing and ranking; our post on indexing vs ranking explains the basics.
- Changing the opt-out setting without data. Measure for at least a few weeks before deciding.
Explore more practical search guides in our SEO category.
FAQ: Search Console AI report
Does the Search Console AI report show clicks from AI Overviews?
No. As of the latest coverage, the Generative AI performance report shows impressions only. Use the standard Search results report to track clicks.
Why can’t I see the Generative AI report for my site?
Google says the report may not appear if your site has not received enough impressions in generative AI features, or if the property is set to exclude these features. The rollout reached all websites worldwide by 31 August 2026.
Will excluding my site from AI features hurt my Google rankings?
According to Google, the Search generative AI control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search. You would, however, lose impressions and traffic from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover AI features.
Does the report include Google Discover?
The Search report covers AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google provides a separate Generative AI performance report for Discover.
Sources
- Google Search Central Blog – Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console: original announcement (June 2026) and worldwide rollout note.
- Google Search Console Help – Generative AI performance report (Search): features covered, impression definition, tabs, search type filter, row limit, preliminary data and export behaviour.
- Google Search Console Help – Search generative AI control: Include, Exclude and Inherit options, ranking and AI training statements, and timing for exclusions.
- Search Engine Journal – Google Search Console AI Reports Rolled Out Worldwide: 31 August 2026 rollout date, impressions-only limitation and Discover coverage.