Google's Search Console now shows exactly how your site performs inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, separately from regular search. The "Generative AI performance" report had been running as a limited test since 3 June 2026, and Google confirmed it reached full global rollout to every website by 31 August 2026.
If you haven't opened Search Console in a few weeks, this is worth doing today. It's a new report, not an update to an existing one, and nothing about your regular performance data will have surfaced it for you automatically.
What the report actually shows
The Generative AI performance report breaks out clicks, impressions and queries specifically for the surfaces where Google's AI features appear: AI Overviews, the summarised answer box that sits above traditional results, and AI Mode, Google's more conversational, multi-turn search experience. It sits alongside the existing Search Console performance report rather than replacing it, and Google Search Central was explicit that this data has to be read as its own surface.
That distinction matters because AI Overviews and AI Mode behave differently from regular search results. A page can rank well in classic search while being cited rarely, or oddly, inside an AI-generated answer, and until now there was no way to see that gap. Now there is, on a per-site basis, inside a tool most site owners already check.
Google also added an opt-out
Alongside the reporting rollout, Google gave site owners a toggle to opt out of appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode entirely. This is a separate control from opting out of regular search indexing. You can choose to stay in classic search results while declining to have your content pulled into an AI-generated summary, or vice versa.
That's a real decision, not a formality. Being cited inside an AI Overview can put your brand or answer in front of someone who never scrolls down to a normal search result, but it can also mean that person gets what they need from Google's summary and never clicks through to your site at all. Opting in or out isn't obviously right either way, and it will vary by page, by query intent, and by how much of your traffic depends on the click itself versus on the impression.
The scale you're being measured against
Google states that AI Overviews now has 2.5 billion monthly active users, and AI Mode has more than 1 billion. Those are large enough numbers that "we'll look into it eventually" is not a reasonable response for anyone whose traffic depends meaningfully on Google search. Whatever share of that audience is seeing your content, or not seeing it, is now something you can check directly rather than guess at.
What to actually do this week
First, open Search Console and look for the Generative AI performance report under the Performance section. If your account was part of the earlier limited test you may already have some history to compare; if not, you're starting a fresh baseline from this week, so check back in a month once there's a trend to read rather than a single data point.
Second, compare the queries and pages showing up in this report against your regular Search Console performance report. Look specifically for pages that do well in classic search but barely register in the AI report, or the reverse. Either pattern tells you something about how Google's AI features are choosing to summarise or cite your content, which you can't infer from regular ranking data alone.
Third, make a deliberate call on the opt-out toggle rather than leaving it on the default. If your business depends on the click itself, such as an ecommerce product page or a lead-generation form, appearing only as a citation inside an AI Overview that answers the question for the searcher may cost you more than it's worth. If your goal is broader brand visibility or you're answering informational queries where the click was unlikely anyway, being cited inside the AI answer may be a net gain even without the visit. Decide per section of your site rather than treating it as one global switch.
Fourth, don't assume your existing SEO reporting or agency dashboard already covers this. This is a genuinely new report inside Search Console, introduced this year, and unless someone has explicitly gone in and pulled this data, it isn't part of whatever weekly or monthly SEO summary you've been receiving. Ask directly whether it's been checked.
The bottom line
Google's Generative AI performance report is now live for every website, showing clicks, impressions and queries specifically from AI Overviews and AI Mode, alongside a new toggle to opt out of those surfaces entirely. Go open Search Console this week, read that report on its own terms, and make a deliberate choice about the opt-out rather than leaving it unexamined.