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In Google Search Console, AI Overview and AI Mode data lives in two reports. The Generative AI performance report in Search Console shows only impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. The regular Performance report, however, adds clicks from these features to Web search, without separating them. Here’s where each piece of data is and what’s missing.
In short
- The Generative AI performance report reached all sites on August 31, 2026. But it shows only impressions, by page, country, date and device.
- The generative AI report doesn’t show clicks or queries. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode go into the Search Console Performance report, under the Web type, combined with regular search.
- In Search Console, an AI Overview takes up a single position, and all its links get that position. A follow-up question in AI Mode counts as a new query.
- Search Console only covers Google and only counts links. So mentions without a link, sentiment, competitors and other assistants are left out.
Where is the AI Overview and AI Mode data in Search Console?
The data lives in two places. The Generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. The Search Console Performance report, on the other hand, adds clicks and impressions from these features to the Web type. In Brazil, Google’s help pages in Portuguese also call the Performance report “relatório de desempenho”.
Google doesn’t describe the menu path to the report in Search Console. According to the agency 97th Floor, the generative AI report sits in the Performance section. In July 2026, the agency saw it as its own item in some properties and under Search results in others. Check your own property, because the observation comes from the gradual rollout. So the safest shortcut is the “Open the Generative AI performance report” link in Search Console Help.
Do all sites have access to the generative AI report?
Google launched the report in Search Console on June 3, 2026, for a subset of sites. Since August 31, 2026, it has been available to all sites worldwide. Still, if you don’t see it, the help page gives the most common explanation and one possible cause:
- Few impressions: usually, the site hasn’t had enough impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode yet.
- Site excluded: one possible cause is that the site was excluded in the Search generative AI control in Search Console. That’s because, without inclusion, the site gets no impressions from these features.
Discover has its own generative AI report, with pages, countries and dates, according to the help page for the Discover report. This guide, though, only covers Search.
Also, don’t confuse the report with another AI feature in Search Console, the AI-powered configuration tool. It builds Performance report filters and comparisons from a text request. According to the advanced filtering help page, it’s experimental, shows up for a small share of users and accepts 20 requests per day per user.
Does the generative AI report show queries and clicks?
No. The report shows only impressions, that is, how many times links to the site appeared in an AI Overview or in AI Mode. It groups the data by page, country, date and device. There are no clicks, CTR, average position or queries. Instead, clicks from these features stay in the Search Console Performance report, without separation.
According to the help page, the generative AI data is a slice of the Web type, not extra volume. Within that type, the search type filter separates Web: text-based from Web: multimodal. The second type covers searches made with images, for example in Google Lens and Circle to Search.
| Data | Generative AI report | Performance report |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Only AI Overviews and AI Mode | AI and regular search, combined |
| Clicks and CTR | Not shown | Shown, but without separating AI |
| Average position | Not shown | Shown, but without separating AI |
| Queries | Not shown | Shown, but with omissions |
| Page, country, date and device | Shown | Shown |
In the announcement on the Search Central blog, Google left the door open to new data:
“We’re continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights and data would be most helpful to inform their strategies, such as adding additional metrics over time.”
Hillel Maoz, Search Ecosystem Engineering Manager, and Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console, Google (2026)
Even so, the report’s help page still doesn’t list clicks. Three practical details matter if you build reports:
- Chart and table: in the chart, two links from the same site in the same answer count as one impression. In the table by page, however, each page counts its own.
- Limits: the table shows up to 1,000 rows, as in the Performance report.
- Export: the button downloads the chart and the table. The Search Console API documentation, updated on August 11, 2026, doesn’t list a generative AI data type.
How does Search Console count impressions, clicks and position in AI answers?
Search Console applies the same rules to AI answers as to regular search. So a click on a link that leads outside Google counts as a click, and impressions follow the standard rule. In an AI Overview, however, all links get the same position. In AI Mode, Search Console calculates position as on a regular results page.
The help page on impressions, position and clicks details each metric:
- Impression: it counts whenever a link to the site is shown, even off screen. In expanding sections, though, the link must be opened to count.
- Click: clicking a link to an external page, in an AI Overview or in AI Mode, counts as a click in Search Console.
- Position in AI Overviews: in Search Console, an AI Overview takes up a single position, and all links inside it get that position.
- Position in AI Mode: it follows the same methodology as a Google Search results page. Carousels and image blocks inside the answer follow the rules for those elements.
In other words, the count depends on the link. By Google’s definition, an impression counts the times a link to the site was shown. By that definition, an answer that mentions the brand without a link shouldn’t generate an impression. However, the help page doesn’t address this case directly. The count also leaves out Search Labs experiments.
Why does average position change when the site appears in an AI Overview?
In Search Console, average position uses the site’s topmost position in each search. If the AI Overview appears above the blue links, Search Console gives the link cited in it the block’s position. So the site’s average can improve without any change in the blue links.
For example, in one search, the site appears only in 9th place in the blue links. In another, it appears in 9th place and also in an AI Overview at position 1. Then, by Google’s rule, the second search records position 1, and the average of the two is 5. So read position query by query, not just the site’s average.
Why does a follow-up question in AI Mode count as a new query?
Because, for Google, someone who asks a follow-up question in AI Mode is running a new search. The impressions, position and clicks of the new answer go to the new question, not the first one. It’s the same logic Search Console uses when a click opens another search within Google.
Since May 2026, the conversation can also start in an AI Overview. The follow-up question leads to AI Mode, according to Google’s I/O announcement. The help page, though, doesn’t address this path. Since the conversation continues in AI Mode, the same rule most likely applies, but Google doesn’t confirm it.
The rule changes what appears in the Queries dimension of the Search Console Performance report:
- Conversational questions: each follow-up question shows up as its own query, which can be long and written as a sentence.
- Omitted queries: to protect privacy, Search Console removes rare queries from the table, according to the help page on data discrepancies. As a result, they only count in the chart total. Many long, unique questions probably fall into this group, but Google doesn’t say how many.
- Image search: in the Web: multimodal type, the Queries dimension doesn’t appear, because these searches mostly use images.
To find the long questions left in the table, use a query filter with regex.
How do you separate the effect of AI in the Performance report?
No Search Console Performance report filter isolates AI Overviews or AI Mode. In fact, in the help page on dimensions, the list of Search appearance types has no AI type. So the way forward is to cross-check generative AI impressions with Web impressions and clicks, page by page.
- Keep the scope fixed: use the same period, country, device and search type in both reports.
- Export by page: download the pages table from both reports, since both aggregate the data by page.
- Calculate the AI share: divide each page’s generative AI impressions by its Web impressions.
- Compare groups: split pages with a high and a low AI share and see how each group’s CTR changed.
- Separate the brand: in the Performance report, use the branded and non-branded queries filter. But it doesn’t appear for sites with few impressions.
- Note the dates: mark site changes and events that affect the data on the chart.
Note that the AI share shows exposure, not cause. A CTR drop on pages with more AI can have other reasons, such as seasonality, content changes or competition. Therefore, use the comparison to choose which pages to investigate.
Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode don’t appear separately in GA4 either. There, they count as Organic Search, according to the guide to AI traffic in GA4.
Which dates should you annotate on the Search Console chart?
Custom annotations arrived in the Search Console performance reports in November 2025. Since then, you can right-click the performance chart and write a note of up to 120 characters. Everyone with access to the property can see the notes. Four dates deserve an annotation:
- May 13, 2025, to April 27, 2026: a logging error affected impressions, CTR and average position, but not clicks. With the fix, impressions may drop, according to the Search Console data anomalies page.
- May 19, 2026: the follow-up question starts leading from AI Overviews to AI Mode.
- August 13 to 17, 2026: an error reduced impressions in the generative AI report. Google restored the data on August 21. So if you exported this period before then, export it again.
- August 31, 2026: the generative AI report reaches all sites.
What doesn’t Search Console show about your brand in AI?
Search Console shows only Google and only links. So it doesn’t include mentions without a link, the text of the answers, sentiment or the competitors cited. The generative AI report in Search Console lists only AI Overviews and AI Mode. As a result, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and the Gemini app stay out and require other measurement sources.
| Question | Does Search Console answer it? |
|---|---|
| Did the site appear in an AI Overview or in AI Mode? | Yes, but only in impressions by page |
| For which question? | No |
| How many clicks came from AI? | No, because the clicks come combined |
| Did the answer mention the brand without a link? | No |
| What did the answer say about the brand? | No |
| Which competitors appeared? | No |
| What about ChatGPT or Perplexity? | No |
For Copilot, Microsoft offers the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, with citations by page. What changes in SEO to show up in these answers is in the guide to SEO and AI.
On the other hand, you measure mentions, recommendations and sentiment with fixed prompts, repeated every month. The protocol is in the guide on how to measure your brand’s mentions and citations in AI. When volume grows, collection moves to one of the GEO tools. For agencies, Search Console data and prompts fit in the same monthly report. See how to build and sell a GEO service.
What does the CMA require from Google in the UK?
This could change in the UK. On June 3, 2026, the CMA, the UK competition authority, imposed a publisher conduct requirement on Google. In the CMA’s definition, a publisher is anyone who makes content available on the web. One of the items requires clear and detailed metrics. These metrics must show engagement with that content in search generative AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.
In the CMA’s interpretative notes, the authority expects clicks and CTR separate from organic search, on a platform such as Google Search Console. However, the requirement only applies to answers shown in the UK. It comes into force six months after the notice, that is, in early December 2026.
What we found when we analyzed the guides in Portuguese on the topic
We ran 12 searches in Portuguese about AI Overview and AI Mode data in Google Search Console. Then we analyzed the 4 pages in Portuguese on the topic that loaded. All of them warn that the report doesn’t show clicks. But only one clearly says it doesn’t show queries, and only one mentions the rollout to all sites.
Two say that, before the report, AI data was mixed into the general report. But none warns that clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are still combined there. Likewise, none covers the single position of AI Overviews or the follow-up question rule in AI Mode. The impressions logging error between May 2025 and April 2026 doesn’t appear in any of them either. On the other hand, three discuss the exclusion control.
Frequently asked questions
Usually, the site hasn’t had enough impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode yet. Also, one possible cause is that the site was excluded in the Search generative AI control in Search Console. The generative AI report has been available to all sites since August 31, 2026.
Not separately. In GA4, clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode count as Organic Search. Likewise, in Search Console, the same clicks sit in the Performance report, under the Web type, combined with regular search. Therefore, neither GA4 nor Search Console isolates Google’s AI.
No, according to the documentation. The Search Console API documentation, updated on August 11, 2026, doesn’t list a generative AI data type. So, to get the data into a spreadsheet, use the report’s export button, which downloads the chart and the table.
By Google’s definition, it shouldn’t count. That’s because an impression counts the times a link to the site was shown. By that definition, an answer that mentions the brand without a link doesn’t generate an impression, but Search Console Help doesn’t address this case directly.
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Main sources
- Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report (Search) (2026).
- Search Console Help, What are impressions, position, and clicks? (2026).
- Google Search Central, Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console (2026).
- Search Console Help, Data anomalies in Search Console (2026).
- Google, announcement of follow-up questions from AI Overviews into AI Mode (2026).
