Google Search Console Now Shows Your AI Overviews Impressions: How to Read the New Generative AI Reports

Open your property in Search Console, go to the Performance section, and select the Generative AI tab, which now sits alongside the standard Search results view. The rollout started with a subset of properties on June 3, 2026, expanding to more sites on June 23. Not every account will see the tab immediately.

Here's how to get there.

1. Sign in to Google Search Console with an account that has at least Full or Restricted user access to the property.
2. Select the property (domain or URL-prefix) you want to check. There's no separate verification step. If the property is already verified, it's eligible once your account receives access.
3. In the left-hand navigation, click Performance.
4. Look for a Generative AI tab next to the default Search results view. If it's present, click it to open the report.
5. If the tab isn't there yet, your property likely hasn't been included in the current rollout wave. Check back periodically, since Google is expanding access gradually.

The report shows impressions only, broken down across five dimensions: impressions, pages, countries, devices, and dates. Date granularity ranges from hourly up to monthly, giving you more resolution than the standard Performance report typically offers for recent activity.

An impression is counted any time a URL from your site appears inside an AI Overview, an AI Mode response, or a generative AI feature inside Discover, regardless of whether a user clicks through. The chart aggregates at the property level by default, and switches to per-URL aggregation when you apply a specific URL filter. This data also continues to flow into your overall Performance report, since these impressions were already part of your standard totals before the dedicated view existed.

The report does not include clicks, click-through rate, or query-level data. You can see how often your pages appeared, but not which queries triggered those appearances or how many resulted in a visit. Google has indicated more metrics may be added over time but hasn't committed to a timeline.

The report also inherits the same constraints as the standard Performance report: a 1,000-row table limit and Pacific Time aggregation. If you manage a large site, expect the same row-limit workarounds you already use elsewhere, filtering by page path or date range to stay under the cap.

Alongside the reports, Google added a toggle that lets site owners block their content from appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI features in Discover. Google began honoring this control on June 17, 2026. Sites that opt out receive zero impressions and zero traffic from those specific features. But Google has stated this decision does not affect rankings in standard search results or the regular Discover feed.

For most brands actively pursuing AI search visibility, opting out works against the goal: it removes you from the exact surfaces you're trying to be cited in. The control exists primarily for publishers with licensing, competitive, or content-control concerns that outweigh AI visibility.

Treat AI impressions as a visibility signal, not a traffic signal, since the report can't yet tell you what those impressions produced. Compare your AI impression count against your total impressions in the standard Performance report to estimate what share of your visibility now runs through AI surfaces, then pair that ratio with session and conversion data from your analytics platform to see whether AI visibility is translating into actual visits.

Because the data was always part of your existing totals, don't expect your aggregate numbers to move. What changes is your ability to isolate the AI portion and track it on its own timeline, broken down by page, country, and device, which is the piece that's been missing since AI Overviews launched.