Search Console's AI report counts impressions and nothing else
Google rolled out a Search Console report for AI Overviews and AI Mode on 31 August 2026. It has impressions, pages, countries and devices, and no clicks, queries or position. Here is what that is good for and where it stops.
Search Console now has a Generative AI performance report, rolled out to every site on 31 August 2026. It shows how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It does not show clicks, click-through rate, average position or the queries that triggered them. It is an impressions report and nothing else, and reading it as anything more is the first mistake worth avoiding.
What it counts, and what it leaves out
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Features counted | AI Overviews and AI Mode. Search Labs experiments are excluded |
| Metric | Impressions only |
| Clicks, CTR, position, queries | Not included |
| Several links from your site in one answer | One impression |
| Breakdowns | Page, country, device, over time |
| Row limit | 1,000, same as the main Performance report |
| Latest days | Preliminary, drawn dotted, can still move |
Two of those rows change how the numbers read. Because several links from one site in one answer count once, the report measures how many answers you appeared in rather than how many times you were cited, which is the more honest of the two numbers. And because the chart totals the property while the table totals pages, the two can disagree, which Google states rather than hides.
What it is good for
- Finding which pages get pulled into answers at all. That list is usually short and usually surprising, and it is the first real evidence of what an AI engine thinks your site is for.
- Watching a trend after a change. If a page is rewritten to answer its question in the first paragraph, this is where the effect shows first, weeks before any traffic moves.
- Setting a baseline before deciding whether to opt out. Google added a control for that on the same date, and deciding without this number is guessing, which we set out in whether to opt out of AI Overviews.
What it cannot do is tell you whether any of it was worth anything. With no clicks and no queries, a page with high AI impressions might be sending visitors or might be answering the question so completely that nobody needs to click. The main Performance report and your own analytics are still where that gets answered. For how pages get chosen in the first place, see how AI search engines decide what to cite.
