For nearly two years, SEOs have had a data problem specific to AI search. Rankings would hold steady, traffic would still dip, and nobody could point to a real number that said whether a page was actually showing up inside AI Overviews or AI Mode. The only options were third-party estimation tools, manual spot-checking prompts by hand, or reading the tea leaves in an analytics dip. None of that was ever a substitute for data from Google itself.
That gap closed, at least partially, on June 3, 2026. Google's Search Console team — led by Search Ecosystem Engineering Manager Hillel Maoz and Search Console Product Manager Lead Moshe Samet — published an announcement introducing a dedicated Generative AI performance report inside Search Console. For the first time, site owners get an official, first-party view of how often their pages show up inside Google's AI-powered search experiences.
This post breaks down exactly what shipped, what's still missing, and — more importantly — what it should change about how we report on SEO and GEO work for clients starting now.
Generative AI performance data continues to be included within the overall Search performance report, giving you a complete picture of your site's visibility.
Hillel Maoz, Search Ecosystem Engineering Manager & Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console — Google Search Central Blog, June 2026
What Actually Shipped on June 3, 2026
Two new reports arrived inside Search Console's Performance section, sitting alongside the classic Search results view: one covering generative AI features inside Search — AI Overviews and AI Mode — and a separate one covering generative AI summaries inside Discover. Both work the same way: every time a URL from your site appears inside one of these AI surfaces, it counts as an impression, and that impression gets broken down across four dimensions.
Five Data Points, Broken Down Four Ways
The report shows total impressions from generative AI features, then lets you slice that number by:
- Pages — exactly which URLs are being surfaced inside AI answers, arguably the single most useful tab in the whole report
- Countries — where those impressions are coming from
- Devices — desktop, mobile, or tablet
- Dates — viewable from hourly up to monthly granularity
One detail matters more than it sounds: this data was already being counted inside your overall Performance report. Nothing about your aggregate numbers changes. What's new is a dedicated, isolated view — so you can finally see the AI-surface slice of your visibility separately from ordinary blue-link impressions, instead of it being buried inside one combined total.
No Clicks, No Queries, No CTR — Yet
This is the honest limitation of the launch. You get no click-through rate, no average position, and — critically — no query-level data, so you cannot yet see which specific searches are triggering your AI impressions. For any agency or in-house team used to running query-level SEO diagnostics, that's a meaningful gap. Google has signalled this is a first version, not a finished product, but there's no public roadmap for when clicks or queries land.
An Opt-Out Toggle for AI Surfaces
Alongside the reporting, Google introduced a control that lets site owners choose to block their content from appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI features in Discover. Opting out forfeits the impressions and any resulting AI-driven traffic, but Google has said it does not affect standard organic Search ranking. For most commercial sites this isn't a lever worth pulling, but it matters for publishers weighing content licensing or traffic-cannibalisation concerns.
Why a Report With No Clicks Still Matters
It's tempting to dismiss an impressions-only report as a half-measure. That reaction misses what actually changed here. Before June 2026, "AI visibility" was measured entirely by third-party tools guessing at citation frequency using their own sampled prompts — numbers Google has never validated and has no involvement in producing. Now there is a first-party number, sitting in the same dashboard clients already trust for their organic performance, showing exactly which of their pages Google's own systems are pulling into AI answers.
There's also a pattern worth noting for how Google typically ships Search Console features. Core Web Vitals started narrow and grew richer over time. The Discover report did the same. Betting against that pattern here would be unusual — impressions today, with clicks and query-level detail a reasonably likely next step, is the way to read this launch.
What This Means for Client Reporting
It's still one input, not the whole picture. Pair the impressions data with GA4's newer AI-referral tracking to get closer to a full funnel — impressions from Search Console on one side, and whatever traffic actually lands on the site from AI-surface referrals on the other. Neither one alone answers "did this convert," but together they get you much closer than either did six months ago.
Key Takeaways
Search Console now has a dedicated AI Performance report — impressions by page, country, device, and date, live since June 3, 2026.
Clicks, CTR, average position, and query data are not included yet. Google has said more metrics are coming, with no confirmed date.
The data isn't new — it was already inside your overall Performance report. This is a clearer, separate view of the same numbers.
Rollout is gradual and started in the UK. Historical data only goes back to 18 May 2026 — there's no backfill.
Start tracking now. Every month you wait to build a baseline is a month you can't get back once deeper data arrives.
What This Means for How We Work at Wevlopers
We've spent the last two years telling clients that "GEO" isn't a separate discipline — it's what happens when foundational SEO, genuine expertise, and clean structured data are already in place. This report doesn't change that view. It gives us a real, first-party number to prove it with, instead of asking clients to take our word — or a third-party tool's word — for it.
For every client property where this report has rolled out, we're now building the AI-impressions baseline into the same monthly reporting we already run: which pages are earning AI visibility, which aren't despite ranking well organically, and what that gap tells us about the content itself. When the click and query data eventually lands, that baseline is what makes the difference between having six months of trend data and starting from zero.
Not Sure If This Report Has Rolled Out on Your Property?
We'll check your Search Console access, set up AI-impression tracking now so you have a baseline in place, and flag any pages ranking well organically but missing from AI surfaces — as part of a free SEO audit.
Get Your Free SEO Audit →Related reading: What Is Local SEO and How Does It Work? · Local SEO Importance: 10 Reasons Backed by Data · Good SEO Is Good GEO: What Google's VP Just Told Every Business About AI Search
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