For years, website owners have relied on Google Search Console to understand how their websites perform in Google Search. We regularly check impressions, clicks, average position and which pages are bringing visitors to our websites.
But search is changing. People are increasingly using AI-powered search experiences, including Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, to find information and explore different businesses.
This creates an important question for website owners: Is your website appearing in Google’s AI-powered search results, and how can you measure that visibility?
Google has introduced a new feature in Search Console to help answer this question.
As of August 31, 2026, Google’s Generative AI performance reporting has rolled out worldwide to websites. This gives eligible website owners a dedicated way to understand how their content appears in Google’s generative AI search experiences.
What is Google’s Generative AI Performance Report?
In simple words, this report helps website owners understand how often their website pages appear in Google’s generative AI search features.
Previously, website owners had limited visibility into how their pages were appearing in AI-powered search experiences. Now, Search Console provides a dedicated report for impressions from supported generative AI features.
The Search report currently includes data from:
- Google AI Overviews
- Google AI Mode
Google has also introduced a separate Generative AI performance report for Discover.
The important point is that this is not a completely new ranking system. It is a new way to understand your website’s visibility within Google’s AI experiences.
What information can website owners see?
The new report provides several useful insights that can help businesses and SEO professionals understand their AI search visibility.
1. AI search impressions
You can monitor how often links to your website appear in Google’s supported generative AI search features.
This helps you understand whether your content is getting visibility in AI-powered search results.
Remember, an impression does not necessarily mean someone clicked your website or visited it.
2. Pages receiving impressions
The report helps identify which website pages are appearing in Google’s generative AI experiences.
For example, a business may discover that its service pages, informative blogs or product-related content are receiving AI search impressions.
This information can help website owners identify which content is gaining visibility.
3. Country-wise performance
If your business targets multiple locations or countries, this information can be useful.
You can understand where your website is receiving generative AI impressions and evaluate whether your content is reaching the intended markets.
4. Device breakdown
The report also provides device-level insights for Search results.
This helps website owners understand how their AI search visibility is distributed across devices.
5. Performance over time
You can review how impressions change across different dates and time periods.
This makes it easier to monitor visibility trends instead of relying on a single snapshot.
How can you find this report in Google Search Console?
If your website is verified in Google Search Console, follow these steps:
- Open Google Search Console.
- Select your website property.
- Go to the Performance section.
- Look for the Generative AI performance report.
- Open it to review available impressions and performance breakdowns.
Google has completed the worldwide rollout, but that does not mean every website will display report data immediately.
If you cannot see the report, your website may not have received enough impressions from Google’s generative AI search features. Check your property’s eligibility and Search Console settings as well.
What does this update mean for SEO?
In my view, this is an important development for website owners and digital marketing professionals.
For a long time, businesses have mainly focused on traditional SEO measurements such as keyword rankings, organic clicks and website traffic.
These metrics are still important. However, as search experiences evolve, understanding visibility within AI-generated results is becoming another useful part of SEO reporting.
Consider a simple example.
Suppose you run an education consultancy website. Your website has several pages about courses, admissions and career guidance.
You may already be tracking how these pages perform in traditional Google Search. With the new report, you can also gain insights into whether your pages are appearing in Google’s generative AI search experiences.
This gives you another perspective when reviewing your content strategy.
However, there is one limitation worth understanding: the report currently focuses on impressions. It does not provide dedicated AI-feature click, CTR or search-query data. So, you cannot use it alone to calculate how many enquiries or customers came from AI search.
For a complete picture, website owners should continue monitoring regular Search Console clicks, Google Analytics traffic and actual enquiries or conversions.
Does this mean traditional SEO is changing completely?
No. And this is something I want every business owner to understand.
AI-powered search does not make traditional SEO useless.
Google’s own guidance continues to emphasise useful content, technical accessibility, crawlability, indexing and a good website experience.
In fact, these fundamentals remain important for websites that want to be eligible for visibility in Google’s generative AI features.
Businesses should focus on:
- Creating original and genuinely useful content.
- Answering customer questions clearly.
- Maintaining proper website structure and internal links.
- Fixing technical SEO and indexing issues.
- Building credibility through reliable information and real business experience.
- Monitoring both traditional search performance and AI visibility.
There is no guaranteed shortcut to appearing in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Adding special schema or following a so-called AI SEO trick does not guarantee inclusion.
A strong website foundation and useful content should remain the priority.
My advice to business owners
As the founder of Digi Ustad, I believe website owners should start paying attention to how their content performs across both traditional and AI-powered search experiences.
Don’t focus only on whether your website is ranking for a particular keyword. Also consider whether your important pages are discoverable, whether they answer customer questions and whether they are generating meaningful business enquiries.
The new Generative AI performance report gives us another useful source of information to understand this changing search landscape.
My recommendation is simple: keep your traditional SEO strategy strong, create content that genuinely helps your audience and start monitoring your website’s AI search visibility wherever the data is available.
The future of search is evolving, and businesses that understand their visibility across different search experiences will be better prepared to make informed marketing decisions.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes. Google’s reporting features and data availability may change over time. Always refer to official Google documentation for the latest details.
