TL;DR: Google Search Console has a “Generative AI performance report” that shows how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It counts impressions by page, country, device and date. It doesn’t show clicks or the searches that triggered them. Google says it reached all websites worldwide on August 31, 2026.

Is this new?

Not quite. Social posts this week describe it as a new or gradual rollout, but Google announced the report on June 3, 2026, for “a subset of websites” (Search Central Blog, checked 2026-10-18). Both the blog post and the help page now carry the note: “As of August 31, 2026, we’ve rolled out these insights to all websites worldwide.” (Search Console Help, checked 2026-10-18)

What it measures

  • Impressions only: “how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search.”
  • Features covered: AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says it expects to update the list. Discover has its own generative AI report. Search Labs experiments aren’t included.
  • Dimensions: pages (the final URL after redirects, mostly assigned to the canonical), countries, devices (desktop, tablet, mobile) and dates (Pacific Time).
  • Search type filter: “Web: text-based” and “Web: multimodal” (Lens, Circle to Search, image searches).
  • The data comes from the Web search type in the regular Performance report, which still includes it.

What it doesn’t show

  • No clicks, click-through rate or queries. Google’s pages list impressions only. The blog says Google is considering “adding additional metrics over time” but gives no list or dates.
  • Counting quirks: in the chart, two of your links in one AI answer count as one impression (aggregated by property). Table totals can differ from chart totals. The usual 1,000-row limit applies, and the newest data is preliminary (dotted line).
  • Small sites may see nothing: Google says a missing report “usually happens when your site hasn’t received enough impressions.” It can also happen if you’ve excluded your site using the Search generative AI control.

How to find it

The easiest route is the “Open the Generative AI performance report” link on Google’s help page, which takes you into Search Console. Choose a tab (Pages, Countries, Dates, Devices) and a date range. An export button downloads the chart and table; “~” or “-” values export as zeros.

What small businesses should do

  1. Check whether you have the report. If you don’t, Google’s explanation is too few AI impressions, or your site is excluded through the Search generative AI control (checked 2026-10-18). You can check that setting under Settings > Search generative AI in Search Console.
  2. Look at which pages appear. Treat it as a visibility signal, not a traffic number.
  3. Measure traffic separately. Clicks from AI features aren’t broken out, so watch the overall Performance report and your own analytics.
  4. Decide on the AI control with data. Google says the report “can help you get an idea of how changing your control may impact traffic” (control help page).
  5. Make your key pages easy to link. Google is also putting more links inside AI answers; see what a small business should check this week.
  6. Don’t buy “AI Overview ranking” services on the strength of this report. It doesn’t show what triggered an appearance.

How we made this

Drafted with AI assistance from Google’s own pages, read on October 18, 2026 (Manila). We haven’t viewed the report in a Search Console property of our own for this article. No affiliate links. See our editorial policy.

Sources (checked 2026-10-18, Manila)

Related: Google is putting more links inside AI Overviews. Here’s what a small business should check this week