Generative AI in Search Console

#Where it is and what it shows

The section lives in the Performance report, under the Search results view, as a separate Generative AI entry. The data breaks down by pages, countries, devices and dates, down to hourly granularity. History goes back to May 18, 2026 at most, because Google did not collect it in this form before then.

The rollout is gradual. If you do not see the section on your account yet, that is normal. Selected domains got it first, and the rest are arriving in batches.

#AI Overviews and AI Mode are two different things

The report merges two surfaces that are worth keeping separate in your head. AI Overviews are the summaries generated above classic results, which the user sees without asking for anything beyond a normal query. It is a passive surface. AI Mode is a separate conversational search mode, where the user deliberately asks questions as a dialogue. That is active intent, and different behaviour. The Generative AI section counts both together, with no split between the two surfaces.

For anyone reading the report, that has a practical effect: you cannot tell today whether your impressions come from passive summaries or active conversations. Those are two different paths to your content, and likely two different audiences. Google does not separate them yet, so keep it in mind when you interpret the numbers.

#What the report leaves out

This is the part that matters most. The report shows impressions only. There are no:

• clicks,
• CTR,
• average position,
• queries.

So you learn which pages are cited in AI answers, but not whether anyone clicked through. For judging return on investment, that is not enough. The UK regulator CMA has required Google to provide clicks and CTR within nine months, so a fuller picture should follow. For now you have half the answer.

#The key caveat: this is not new data

It is easy to assume Google has revealed a new traffic source. It has not. These impressions were already counted in the standard Performance report. The Generative AI section is a filtered view of the same data, just better organised.

That has a practical consequence. If you see thousands of impressions in this section, do not add them to your existing traffic. They were already there.

#How an impression is counted

Two things are worth remembering:

• A link has to be scrolled or expanded into view, not just present in the background of an answer. Being among sources the user never expanded does not count.
• Aggregation per service. If two URLs from your site land in one AI answer, that counts as a single impression.

Without that context it is easy to over or under read your presence in AI.

#What each dimension tells you

With so little data, it is worth squeezing what each dimension carries:

• Pages. The most important one. It shows which specific pages AI picks from your site as a source. That is a list of content that already earned a citation, and a hint about what to expand so more of it gets picked.
• Countries. Tells you which markets you appear in inside AI answers. If you run a multilingual site, it is a check on whether your AI visibility matches the distribution you actually care about.
• Devices. The desktop versus mobile split shows where your AI presence is stronger. It is often different from your classic results.
• Dates. Hourly granularity lets you see whether a publish or an update translated into a generative presence, and after how long.

None of these dimensions tells you whether anyone clicked. But put together, they map what AI takes from your site, where, and when.

#Common mistakes reading this report

Three slip-ups come up most often:

1. Adding AI impressions to your existing traffic. They were already counted. Doing that is double counting the same data.
2. Confusing an impression with a visit. An impression means the link was visible in the answer, not that anyone came to the page. Without clicks, you do not know how many people actually reached you.
3. Treating missing data as a decline. If you do not have the section yet, or the history only goes back to May 18, that does not mean you were not cited before. It means Google did not report it before.

#What to do with it in practice

Since all you have is impressions, get what you can from them:

1. Work out the AI share of your impressions. Compare the Generative AI section against the total in the Performance report. In the sample accounts the source authors analysed, AI traffic was around 17 percent of all impressions. Your number tells you how much visibility already depends on generative features. A quick example: if you have 128,000 total impressions in a month and 21,000 in the Generative AI section, your AI share is about 16 percent. Record that number, because its change over time says more than the value itself.
2. See which pages get cited. The pages dimension shows what AI picks from your site. That is a real signal for which content to expand and which to rewrite so it gets cited more often.
3. Do not optimise for clicks you cannot see yet. Until Google adds CTR, treat impressions as a presence signal, not a conversion one.

#What changes when Google adds clicks

Today the report answers one question: which pages are popular in generative features. Clicks and CTR will change that into a far more important one: whether AI presence turns into traffic, or just lets the model summarise your content and keep the user on its own surface. That distinction decides whether AI visibility is an acquisition channel or a cost.

The timing is not accidental. The UK regulator CMA required Google to deliver clear metrics, including clicks and CTR, within nine months. Until then it is worth building a baseline. Record the monthly AI impression share, so that when clicks arrive you have something to compare them against. Without that base, the first CTR data will be a number with no context.

The report is a measurement tool, not a strategy. If you want AI to cite your pages more often, that is content and structured-data work, which we cover in the GEO guide. If you want it implemented and measured on your site, that is our GEO/LLMO optimization service.