Google launched a dedicated Generative AI performance report inside Search Console on June 3, 2026, first to a limited group of UK based properties, then to every property worldwide by August 31, 2026. For the first time, site owners get a first party view of how their content shows up inside AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover, separate from the standard organic performance report.
Why this launched when it did, not sooner
Google was not first to ship something like this. Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Tools rolled out its own AI Performance report almost four months earlier, on February 9, 2026, and industry commentators noticed the gap immediately. SEO analysts publicly framed Google's June release as catching up rather than leading, with one well known technical SEO voice, Koray Tugberk Gubur, stating plainly that Bing Webmaster Tools remained more transparent on AI visibility data even after Google's report shipped. That competitive pressure is real context for why this exists now, not two years earlier when AI Overviews first launched.
Where to find it and what it actually shows
The report sits under Performance in the left navigation, in a section labeled Generative AI, separate from the standard Search performance report. It breaks impressions down by four dimensions: pages, showing which specific URLs appeared inside a generative AI feature, countries, devices, for the Search version, and dates, with granularity from hourly up to monthly.
The one number missing, and it matters
The report does not include click data, and as of this writing Google has not committed to a date for adding it. It shows how often a page appeared inside an AI feature, not whether anyone actually engaged with it afterward. There is also no historical backfill, data only starts from May 18, 2026, and no query level detail, so there is no way to see which actual user question triggered a given appearance. By comparison, Bing's equivalent report already exposes Grounding Queries, the actual internal search phrases an AI system generates, something Google's version has no equivalent for at all.
The opt out control that shipped alongside it
Google introduced a separate, property level setting called Search generative AI control at the same time. It lets a site owner block their content from appearing in generative AI features entirely, without affecting how that same content ranks in traditional organic search results. Google has stated explicitly that opting out removes a site from generative AI traffic and impressions, but is not used as a ranking signal outside those AI features. This control is also part of a real regulatory story, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has set Google a deadline of March 2027 to introduce page level opt out controls, a more granular option than the current property wide setting, and expects click through data to be added as part of that same compliance timeline.
Should a business actually use the opt out
For most businesses, no. Traditional search referral rates are already falling as AI features absorb more queries, and opting out forfeits any visibility in that growing share entirely, with no upside to ranking in classic search. The control exists for genuinely specific cases, a publisher with a licensing dispute, a site whose entire traffic model depends on the click that AI summarization removes, not as a default setting for a business trying to be found.
What to actually do with the data
Treat the report as a directional signal, not a full picture. A page showing strong impressions in the Generative AI report but weak numbers in standard Search performance is a real, useful signal that the page is being read and cited by AI systems even without driving a click, exactly the kind of visibility a from scratch AEO effort is trying to build. Watch it over time rather than reacting to any single week, and pair it with Bing's report where possible, since neither one alone covers the full AI search landscape, Google's version says nothing about Copilot, and Bing's says nothing about AI Overviews.