Search Console Generative AI Report

Where to find the generative AI report in Search Console

Google calls it the Search Generative AI performance report. You'll find it in the Performance section of your property, next to the standard Search results report. You can also open it directly at search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics/ai.

A second, separate report covers generative AI features in Google Discover. Don't mix the two in your tracking dashboards: they are different surfaces, with different exposure patterns.

Since August 31, the report has been available to every website. If it still doesn't show up in your property, there are two likely explanations: either your site doesn't yet generate enough impressions in AI features for Google to display data, or it has been excluded from these features in your Search Console settings (more on this below). Check the second one first: it's the only one you can fix in a few clicks.

What the report measures… and what it doesn't tell you

The report relies on a single metric: impressions. An impression is counted when a URL from your site appears in an AI feature, for example as a source link in an AI Overview or as a reference in an AI Mode answer. These impressions can be broken down by page, country, device and date.

Three reading habits will help you avoid most misinterpretations:

• Don't add it to the standard report. Google states that these impressions are already included in the overall performance report. The AI report zooms in on part of your visibility; it isn't an additional channel. The right way to read it is as a ratio: what share of your impressions now comes through AI?
• More impressions don't mean more traffic. A page can be shown very often in an AI Overview without anyone clicking, because the answer is enough for the user. Always cross-check with your clicks in the standard report and with your conversions in your analytics tool.
• Filter by country. If your site has an international audience, some AI impressions may come from countries where AI Overviews has been live since 2024. To measure the effect of the French launch, isolate France and follow the curve from July 22 onwards.

One last technical point: impressions are attributed to each page's canonical URL. If your canonical tags are misconfigured, a page can be cited by AI without showing up under the right address in the report. It's a good opportunity to audit this markup.

The GeoFast method: spot your pages that are invisible to AI

The report doesn't tell you why a page is cited. But when you cross-reference it with the standard report, it reveals something valuable: the pages Google considers relevant for a search, but doesn't use to build its AI answers. Those are your priorities.

The five-step process:

1. Export your pages that are visible in standard search. In Performance > Search results, filter by country, select the last 28 days and export the Pages tab with impressions and clicks.
2. Export your pages used by AI. In the generative AI report, apply the same country filter and the same date range, then export the Pages tab.
3. Cross-reference the two files. In a spreadsheet, match the two lists by URL. Pages missing from the second export have zero AI impressions. For each page, calculate the share of its impressions that comes from AI features.
4. Sort your pages into three profiles, using the table below.
5. Analyze your priority pages one by one to understand what's keeping them out of AI answers.

The second profile requires a manual check, since the AI report doesn't provide queries. Pull the page's main queries from the standard report, search for them on Google in a private window, and see whether an AI Overview appears. If it doesn't, the page isn't the problem: the query is simply transactional or navigational. If one appears and it cites your competitors, you've found your priority.

Watch out for exports: the Search Console interface is limited to 1,000 rows. On a large site, work directory by directory (/blog/, /products/…) by filtering URLs, rather than exporting the whole site at once.

Why a well-ranked page isn't picked up by AI

When a page that performs well in SEO doesn't appear in any AI answer, the cause is rarely technical. Most of the time, it comes down to how the content is built:

• The answer is buried. The key information only comes after several introductory paragraphs. AI engines extract passages: each section should be able to answer a specific question on its own. That's what chunking is all about.
• The page doesn't cover sub-questions. To build its answer, Google breaks the search down into secondary queries. A page that covers a single angle is less likely to be selected than one that anticipates these fan-out queries.
• Entities are vague. Products, brands, places, concepts: if named entities aren't explicit, AI struggles to connect your content to the question being asked.
• Expertise isn't visible. Unsigned content, unsourced data, a thin "About" page: these are all missing E-E-A-T signals that AI needs before it will cite you.
• The format doesn't match the page type. A product page isn't optimized the same way as a blog post. Check out our best practices by page type.

Should you opt out of AI features?

Alongside the report, Google added a setting in Search Console that lets you remove your site from generative AI features. You'll find it under Settings, in the "Search generative AI" section, with three options: include (the default), exclude, or inherit the setting from the parent property.

What you need to know before changing this setting:

• opting out removes your site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features, and takes effect within one to two days;
• it doesn't affect your ranking in standard results: Google says it isn't used as a ranking signal;
• it covers neither the Gemini app nor the use of your content to train models;
• for now, it applies to the entire property, not page by page.

For the vast majority of sites (e-commerce, B2B, services, brand content), opting out means giving up top-of-page exposure without getting the clicks back: the AI Overview will keep showing, just with your competitors as sources. Opting out is mainly worth considering for publishers whose business model relies on subscriptions or premium content. Either way, the rule is the same: measure first with the generative AI report, decide second.

Frequently asked questions

Is the generative AI report available for every website?

Yes. Since August 31, 2026, Google has rolled it out to all websites worldwide. If you don't see it, your site probably doesn't have enough impressions in AI features yet, or it has been excluded from them in the settings.

Can you see the clicks generated by AI Overviews?

Not yet. The report only shows impressions. Google has said that more metrics will be added gradually, without giving a timeline.

Does the report cover ChatGPT or Perplexity?

No. It only measures your presence in AI Overviews and AI Mode (and, in a separate report, in Discover). To track your visibility in other AI engines, you need dedicated tools: see our comparison of GEO tools.

How often should you check the report?

A monthly review is enough to steer your strategy, plus a check a few weeks after each major page optimization. Avoid drawing conclusions from the last few days: recent data is preliminary and may still change.

Measure before you optimize

The generative AI report doesn't answer everything: no clicks, no queries, no split between AI Overviews and AI Mode. But it finally gives a factual answer to the question everyone has been asking since July 22: are my pages being used by Google's AI?

Cross-referenced with the standard report, it becomes a powerful prioritization tool. Pages that are already cited need to be consolidated. Pages that rank well but are missing from AI answers are your real GEO project: that's where every hour of optimization will have the most impact.