How to Read Search Console’s Generative AI Report: What Impressions Tell You

Search Console’s Generative AI performance report shows how often links to your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search. You can break the numbers down by page, country, date, and device.

You may have heard that you can now see whether Google’s AI shows your site. But after opening Search Console, you cannot find the report or tell what the numbers mean. This article is written for that situation.

Search Console is Google’s free tool for checking how your site appears in Google Search. The following is based on Google’s help page and announcement as checked on September 23, 2026.

What is Search Console’s generative AI report?

It is a report showing how often links to your pages appeared in Google’s AI features. Google announced it on June 3, 2026, and later added that it had rolled out to all websites worldwide on August 31 [1].

In the English help center it is called the “Generative AI performance report.” It covers AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search [2].

Data from Search Labs experiments is not included [2]. Google says it expects to update the list of covered features over time [2].

Generative AI features in Google Discover (the feed that suggests content) have a separate generative AI report [1][2]. This article covers the Search report. The device breakdown is provided for Search results [1].

The report lets you see the following [1][2].

Breakdown	What it tells you
Pages	Which page links appeared in AI features
Countries	Which countries the searches came from
Dates	Changes by hour, day, week, or month
Devices	Desktop, tablet, or mobile

The metric is impressions. The help page does not describe clicks or search queries as breakdowns in this report [2].

How to open the generative AI report and what access you need

Sign in with an account that has access to your site’s Search Console property, then open the report. If you cannot see the site, ask your internal administrator to add you first.

1. Open Search Console and sign in with your Google account.
2. At the top of the screen, select the site (property) you want to check. A property is a site registered in Search Console.
3. Open the Generative AI performance report help page and follow its link to open the report. The report for your selected property appears.

Menu labels can vary with language settings, so starting from the help page link is the easiest route.

Google’s announcement was updated to say the report rolled out to all websites worldwide on August 31, 2026 [1]. The current help page, however, still notes that some properties may not have access yet because of a gradual rollout [2]. As of September 23, 2026, both statements appear, so do not assume your property is excluded from the rollout if you cannot see the report.

If you cannot see the report, the help page lists these reasons [2].

Reason	What to do next
The report is rolling out and your property may not have it yet	Check another property or try again later
Your site has too few impressions in AI features	Check Web search in the standard Search results report first
Your site is excluded from AI features	Ask your web team whether that setting is intended

How to read impressions in the generative AI report

An impression is a time a link to your site was shown to a user in an AI feature. It is not a count of people, of text the AI quoted, or of clicks [2].

If the same person searches several times, each time may be counted. Do not report impressions as a headcount.

Next, understand how the chart and table differ.

• The chart is aggregated by property. If two links from your site appear in one AI feature, the chart counts one impression [2].
• When the table is grouped by page, it is aggregated by page. Tables grouped by country, device, or date are aggregated by property [2].

So chart totals and table totals can differ [2]. Before assuming an error, check which aggregation you are looking at.

Page data is usually assigned to the canonical URL rather than to a duplicate [2]. The canonical URL is the representative URL chosen when several pages have the same content. If a URL is missing from the table, look for its canonical version.

In exported data, values shown as “~” or “-” become zeros [2]. A zero in the export does not necessarily mean “no impressions,” so check the report itself too.

Date range and data start limits

The help page does not say from what date data is available. Check the earliest date in your own report and note it in any report you share.

All dates are in Pacific Time [2]. That can shift days compared with your local time, so be careful with daily comparisons.

The newest data can be preliminary and may change within hours; it is shown as a dotted line in the chart [2]. Comparing a week that includes preliminary days can lead to judgments on incomplete numbers. Compare finalized days.

When to use this report versus the standard Search results report

Generative AI impressions are also included in the Web search type of the standard Search results report. Do not add the two reports together. [1][3]

Google says sites appearing in AI features are included in overall search traffic in Search Console [3]. The generative AI report is a separate view of that AI portion [1].

What you want to know	Report to use
Clicks, impressions, and position across Google Search	Standard Search results report (Web)
Performance by search query	Standard Search results report
Which pages appeared in AI features and how often	Generative AI report
AI feature impressions by country or device	Generative AI report

Suppose the standard report shows 10,000 impressions and the generative AI report shows 2,000 (illustrative numbers). That does not mean 12,000 in total. It means the 10,000 already include the AI feature impressions.

What to check next on pages with rising impressions

Open the pages with the most impressions and check that their content is accurate enough to be shown in AI features. Then check visits and inquiries in separate records.

1. In the generative AI report, select Pages and list pages in order of impressions. There is no set number; this article uses five pages as a working example.
2. Open each page. Check whether the first paragraph answers the question and whether prices or conditions are out of date.
3. In your analytics, check visits and inquiries for the same pages and period.
4. Record the URL and date of any change, so you can compare under the same conditions next month.

A table like the one below makes comparison easier. The numbers and findings are hypothetical, for illustration only.

Page	Period	Impressions	Visits to the same page	What you found	Next task
Pricing page	September	800	120	Extra-fee conditions are outdated	Update the conditions and record the date
Setup guide	September	300	90	The first paragraph does not answer the question	Move the answer to the top

Use what you recorded to choose the next task.

What you see	Next decision
High impressions and an inaccurate explanation	Fix the content first
High impressions, accurate content, but few visits	The AI answer may resolve the question; check whether the page gives reasons to keep reading, such as conditions or steps
Low impressions	First check in the standard Search results report whether the page appears in Web search
A sudden change from last month	Confirm the period, preliminary data, and aggregation match before interpreting it

More impressions alone do not show more visits, because the help page does not describe clicks in this report.

No special settings are required to appear in AI features, and Google does not guarantee inclusion [3]. Rather than looking for settings to increase impressions, first confirm that the pages already shown explain things accurately.

The basics of AI Overviews and AI Mode are covered in What Is AIO?, and how AI runs related searches is explained in the article on query fan-out. With the free AIO check, you can enter a public page URL to start reviewing its content and settings.