TL;DR
On 3 June 2026, Google launched a Generative AI performance report in Search Console (in beta): a dedicated view that, for the first time, isolates how often your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
It shows impressions only, broken down by page, country, device and date. No clicks, no CTR, no average position, no query data. Google says more metrics will come “over time.”
So it answers “how visible am I in AI search?” but still not “how much traffic is AI search actually sending me?” The measurement gap is half-closed, not closed.
It’s rolling out to a subset of site owners, the UK first per early reports, then globally with no date given.
Most Australian businesses will not see it yet.
It launched alongside a toggle to opt your content out of AI features. For almost everyone, don’t. You’d forfeit the visibility you’re trying to measure, and Google says the opt-out isn’t used to rank you elsewhere.
Bing shipped this months ago, globally. Google is playing catch-up.
For about two years, the honest answer to “how am I doing in AI search?” has been a shrug.
Google folded AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions into the generic “Web” bucket in Search Console, with no way to pull them out. I wrote about exactly this in our query fan-out guide: the measurement problem was the most annoying part of the whole shift.
As of today, that has started to change. Google has launched a Generative AI performance report in Search Console. It’s a genuine step forward. It also comes with a catch you need to understand before you get excited.
What Google actually launched
It’s a dedicated Generative AI view inside Search Console’s Performance section, currently labelled Beta.
There’s one for Search results (you’ll find it at Performance on Search results, then Generative AI features) and a companion one for Discover. The data still rolls into your overall performance total too. Google has simply pulled it out into its own view so you can see it on its own.
The report does one genuinely new thing: it isolates your visibility inside Google’s generative AI features. Google confirms it covers both AI Overviews and AI Mode, with a note that they expect to update that list over time.
You get the data broken down four ways: by page (the canonical URL linked in the AI feature), country, device, and date, down to hourly granularity.
That’s the headline. For the first time, you can open Search Console and see how often your pages are surfacing inside AI answers, separated from everything else.
The catch: it's impressions only
Here’s the part you need to sit with. The report shows impressions, and only impressions.
No clicks. No click-through rate. No average position. No query or keyword data.
An impression here means a link to your site was shown to someone inside a generative AI feature on Google Search.
That tells you that you appeared.
It does not tell you whether anyone clicked through to you.
That’s the difference between visibility and traffic, and Google is only giving you the first one.
A Google spokesperson said more metrics will come “over time,” but Barry Schwartz, who has watched Search Console longer than almost anyone, was blunt about the missing clicks: no surprise, and don’t necessarily expect that data ever.
So set your expectations correctly.
This report answers “how visible am I in AI search?” It still does not answer “how much traffic is AI search actually sending me?”
If you're in Australia, you probably can't see it yet
Don’t go hunting through Search Console expecting to find it today (I’ve already tried)
Google is rolling this out to a subset of site owners, and early reporting from Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal says the UK is first. Global access is coming, but Google has not given a date.
For most Australian businesses, that means it isn’t here yet. If the report is missing from your account, it’s one of three things: your property isn’t in the rollout, your site hasn’t had enough impressions in AI features, or you’ve opted out of AI features.
My advice for Aussie operators: don’t wait for the rollout to start caring. Get your measurement approach ready now so you can act the day it lands.
Why it still matters
Even impressions-only and UK-first, this is meaningful.
It half-closes the gap I complained about in the fan-out piece. You can now isolate your AI visibility instead of guessing at it inside the “Web” total. That’s a real input you didn’t have last week.
It’s also validation of why we stopped waiting.
We got tired of having no Australian data on any of this, so we ran our own State of AI Search study across 116,918 Australian SERPs. Google is now filling part of that gap, for some people, with part of the picture.
The two work well together: our study tells you how exposed your industry and query types are, and the new report tells you how often your specific pages are showing up.
Used properly, impression data is a trend line.
If your AI impressions climb as you build out topical coverage, your GEO work is landing, even before Google gives you click data to prove the revenue.
The other announcement: an AI opt-out toggle
Google shipped a second thing the same day, and it’s getting less attention than it should.
There’s now a control that lets you block your content from appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Overviews in Discover.
Worth clearing up the confusion straight away: this is not Google-Extended. Google-Extended stops Google training its AI models on your content. This new toggle is narrower. It’s about whether you appear inside the live AI answers, not about model training.
I can already hear the temptation. “AI is stealing my clicks, so I’ll just opt out.”
For almost everyone, don’t.
Opting out forfeits the impressions and any traffic those AI features send you, on the exact surfaces that are growing.
Google has also said the opt-out is not used as a ranking signal for your normal search results, so you can’t even frame it as a ranking play.
You’d be making yourself invisible in the fastest-growing part of search to protect a click you might still get.
There are narrow cases where it’s worth a conversation (highly proprietary content, specific licensing concerns). For a business trying to grow, it’s the wrong lever.
What I'd actually do now
If you’re in the UK rollout, open the report and set a baseline. Note your AI impressions by your most important pages today, so you can measure movement.
If you’re not (most Australian sites), don’t wait. Build your measurement stack now: Search Console for when it arrives, an AI share-of-voice tool like Ahrefs Brand Radar, Profound or Otterly for citations across ChatGPT and Perplexity too, and our AI Overviews benchmark for the Australian context.
Keep optimising for the thing that drives both, which is comprehensive topical coverage and being the source AI cites. The report measures the outcome. It doesn’t change the work. Our guide on how to rank in AI Overviews still applies.
Do not opt out of AI features to protect clicks.
Watch for clicks and query data later. The moment Google adds them, the report goes from interesting to essential.
A couple of caveats to keep you honest with the data when you do get it: the most recent days are marked preliminary and can change within hours, Search Labs experiment data is excluded, and the usual Search Console limits apply, so treat it as a trend tool, not a perfect ledger.
The bottom line
This is Google’s first real admission that AI search needs its own measurement, and a useful first instalment. But read the fine print.
It shows visibility, not traffic. It’s UK-first, so most of us are watching from the sidelines for now. And it’s catch-up to Bing.
If you run an Australian business, the move isn’t to wait for the report. It’s to get visible in AI search in the first place, so that when the data does arrive in your account, there’s something good to measure. If you want help doing that, that’s exactly what our AI SEO work is built for.
Frequently asked questions
What is Google’s Generative AI performance report?
It’s a report in Search Console, launched 3 June 2026, that shows how often your pages appear in Google’s generative AI features (AI Overviews and AI Mode), broken down by page, country, device and date. There’s a Search version and a Discover version.
Does it show how many clicks AI search sends me?
No. The report shows impressions only. There are no clicks, no click-through rate, no average position and no query data. Google says more metrics may come over time, but clicks are not included today.
Can I see it in Australia?
Probably not yet. Google is rolling it out to a subset of site owners, the UK first per early reports, with a global rollout to follow and no date announced. If you don’t see it, you may not be in the rollout, your site may not have enough AI impressions, or you may have opted out of AI features.
Should I opt my site out of AI features?
For almost every business, no. Opting out removes you from AI Overviews and AI Mode, forfeiting that visibility and any traffic it sends, and Google says it won’t help your normal rankings. Only consider it for narrow content-licensing reasons, and get advice first.
Does this replace third-party AI visibility tools?
Not yet. Because it’s impressions-only, UK-first and Google-only, tools that track AI citations and share of voice across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Bing still give you a fuller picture. Treat the new report as one input, not the whole dashboard.
How is this different from the old Search Console data?
Previously, AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions were bundled into the “Web” search type with no way to isolate them. This report finally separates them into a dedicated view, so you can see your AI visibility on its own, even though you still can’t see AI clicks.
