Search Console's AI Overviews report, explained

What are the key facts about the report?

What does the report count?

One number: impressions. Google defines an impression here as how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search. Google Search Console Help

The features counted today are AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Google says the list may change over time. Search Labs experiments are left out. Google Discover has a separate report of its own. Google Search Console Help

Two counting rules matter when you read the chart:

• If one AI answer shows several links to your site, the chart counts that as one impression.
• Each page is reported under its canonical URL, after redirects.

Google Search Console Help

These impressions are not new on top of your normal numbers. Google says they also stay in the overall Performance report; this is a separate view of the same visibility. Google Search Central Blog

How do I open the report?

In Search Console, open the Generative AI performance report from the Performance section. Google's help page links straight to it at search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics/ai. Google Search Console Help

If you don't see it, Google gives two usual reasons:

1. Your site hasn't had enough impressions in AI features yet.
2. Your site has been excluded from those features.

Google Search Console Help

The second one is worth checking. Google added a setting in Search Console that lets a site opt out of appearing in, and helping to ground, its generative AI features. Google says sites that opt out "will not receive traffic or impressions" from those features. Google

What does the report leave out?

• No queries. You see which pages appeared, not which questions they appeared for.
• No clicks. You can't see how many people clicked through from an AI answer. Google says it plans to add metrics over time, without a date. Google Search Central Blog
• No competitors. Nothing tells you who else was cited next to you.
• No other AI engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and the Gemini app are not in it.

The usual Search Console limits apply too: the table shows up to 1,000 rows, the newest data is preliminary (shown as a dotted line) and can change within hours, and chart and table totals can differ because the chart counts by site and the table by page. Values shown as "~" or "-" download as zero. Google Search Console Help

How should I read the numbers?

1. Sort the Pages table. The pages at the top are the ones Google's AI already uses as sources. For most businesses this is a short list, often led by the homepage and an "about" page.
2. Look for important pages that are missing. A service page or pricing page with zero impressions is a prompt to check it: is it indexed, and does it allow snippets? Google's AI features only link pages that are indexed and can show a snippet.
3. Watch the trend weekly, not daily. Small sites see a handful of impressions a day, so one day tells you little.
4. Split by country and device if you serve more than one market.
5. Use the filters. "Web: text-based" is ordinary typed searches; "Web: multimodal" is image searches such as Google Lens and Circle to Search. Google Search Console Help

Because there are no queries, don't read a page's impressions as "we rank for X in AI." Treat it as "Google's AI used this page for something," then find out what by asking the questions yourself.

What should I do with what it shows?

This is our advice, based on how the report works and what we do on our own site.

• Keep the cited pages right. If Google's AI is quoting a page, an old price or a wrong opening hour on it gets repeated. Check those pages first.
• Link from them. Add clear links from your most-cited pages to the related pages you want found. This is the first thing we did after reading our own report.
• Fill the gaps. If only your homepage shows up, write one plain page per question your customers ask, each answered in its first few lines.
• Check you haven't opted out by accident, if the report is empty for a site that should have impressions.
• Compare with Bing. Bing's AI Performance report shows the actual phrases Copilot searched with, which this report doesn't. See Bing's AI Performance report, explained.

Does this tell me if ChatGPT or Gemini cite me?

No. This report covers Google Search only: AI Overviews and AI Mode. The Gemini app, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude don't offer a report like it. Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Tools has one for Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.

For the engines with no report, the only way to know is to ask them your customers' questions and record who is named. Our Prompt Simulator does that on 12 engines at once.

Sources

1. Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console — Google Search Central Blog. Read Oct 8, 2026.
2. Generative AI performance report (Search) — Google Search Console Help. Read Oct 8, 2026.
3. New opportunities, control and insights for website owners — Google. Read Oct 8, 2026.