TL;DR
- Google completed the worldwide rollout of its Generative AI Performance Reports in Search Console on 31 August 2026, covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover.
- The report shows impressions only. Clicks, CTR, queries, or average position are NOT included yet.
- Industry data from BrightEdge and Ahrefs shows AI impressions often rising while click-through rates fall.
- Google's opt-out toggle removes a site entirely from AI surfaces if switched on. We recommend leaving it alone for now.
- The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is driving further transparency, with click data expected around December 2026 and page-level controls by March 2027.
For two years we’ve been advising clients that organic traffic was shifting and that customer journeys were including AI search in their online behaviours, and so we were left to figure out how to measure the shift.
Google stepped up on 31 August 2026, completing the worldwide rollout of its Generative AI Performance Reports inside Search Console, after a phased release that began in June 2026.
The report sits alongside Search Console's standard Performance report and covers impressions across AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover, the last reported separately. Site owners can break impressions down by page, country, date, and device, showing which pages Google's AI systems consider worth surfacing, and how that changes over time.
The Caveats not to Miss
- ADMATIC has seen recent days show as preliminary data, marked with a dotted line, while the numbers settle
- Experimental Search Labs features sit outside the report, and the familiar 1,000 row table limit applies here too
- No impressions in generative AI features means no report, and that absence is itself a visibility signal
Unfortunately Impressions Only Show Us Half the Picture
Unfortunately these reports contain no clicks, no CTR, no queries, and no average position. An impression tells us Google referenced a client's content, nothing about whether a person then visited the site.
AI features are built to answer questions directly on the results page, so click rates from these surfaces run structurally lower than clicks from traditional blue links. As a reference point, BrightEdge measured impressions up 49% year over year while click-through rates fell 30%. Ahrefs found a 34.5% decline in position-one CTR when an AI Overview appears.
Why the Timing Matters
Google is playing catch-up. Bing shipped its AI Performance dashboard in Webmaster Tools in February 2026, with cited URLs and triggering queries included from day one. Google's version arrived months later with less detail, and regulatory pressure sits behind it: the UK's Competition and Markets Authority imposed a conduct requirement on Google in June 2026 compelling publication of engagement metrics, including click-throughs, via Search Console. The CMA's timeline expects click-through data around December 2026 and page-level controls by March 2027.
The Opt-Out Toggle, and Why ADMATIC Leaves It Alone for Now
Alongside the report, Google is rolling out a control that lets site owners exclude their content from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI in Discover. The default is inclusion. Excluding a site prevents its content from grounding those AI features, but Google has stated the control will not act as a ranking signal for regular search results. It is a property-level setting for now, applying to an entire site rather than individual pages.
For many ADMATIC clients, opting out is the wrong move. Google confirmed that sites opting out receive no traffic and no impressions from generative AI features, a full surrender with no partial option. Google also increasingly places elements like Top Stories inside AI Overviews for trending queries, with nearly one in six trending news queries showing that pattern. Opt out, and a site risks losing visibility in modules many assumed lived in traditional search, since the boundary between the two is blurring and the toggle does not respect it.
How we Should Use This New Data Properly
Treat this report as a trend line rather than a ledger for now. The numbers will not reconcile to revenue, and forcing that comparison only frustrates the exercise. What the data does show is direction: which pages earn AI citations, which countries drive AI visibility, and how that shifts month to month. ADMATIC’s recommended approach:
- Set a baseline now, exporting the data from day one so historical impressions have something to compare against once click data arrives.
- Cross-reference against the standard Performance report. Pages strong in both channels are the highest value content assets, so study their structure and apply those patterns sitewide.
- Key for us right now is to layer in third-party tools such as Ahrefs Brand Radar, Profound, and Otterly, since Search Console only covers Google, not ChatGPT or Perplexity.
One caution: Barry Schwartz and others in the search community have noted that click data is not guaranteed to arrive on Google's own initiative, the regulator's timeline is doing the pushing. You need to start building reporting that works without it. Do not wait for Google to provide you with this data.
Where We'd Start This Week
For anyone managing media or search: open Search Console and check whether the report exists for the property. If it does, export the data and note the top pages by AI impressions. If it does not, treat that as a signal AI visibility needs work, and review the clarity of key pages.
At ADMATIC, we are folding this reporting into our Brandformance Organic measurement for clients, because it bridges the brand and performance sides of the same investment. AI impressions are an awareness signal, and the work is connecting them to the outcomes underneath. The measurement gap is half closed, and the businesses that start measuring now will read the next two years most clearly.
If you're working out what your own report is showing, or what it means that you don't have one yet, reach out to an ADMATICian, we're always up for that conversation.