Search Console's Generative AI performance report: what it shows and how to use it

Where to find it

1. Open Search Console and pick your property.
2. In the left menu, open Performance.
3. Click Generative AI performance report (Search).

There is a second report for Discover, Generative AI performance report (Discover), with the same idea for AI features in the Discover feed.

Not seeing the report? Google says this usually means your site has not had enough impressions in AI features yet. It can also mean your site is excluded. Check Settings > Search generative AI: if it says your site is excluded, your links and content are kept out of AI Overviews and AI Mode (Search Console Help).

What the report counts

An impression here means a link to your site was shown to someone inside an AI feature on Google Search. Right now that covers two features: AI Overviews and AI Mode (Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report).

Two counting rules matter when you read the numbers:

• Chart and table totals can differ. The chart counts by property, the Pages tab counts by page. Two of your pages in one AI answer is one impression on the chart but one each in the table.
• The newest data is preliminary. A dotted line on the chart means the data can still change over the next few hours.

The usual Performance report limits also apply, including the 1,000-row cap in the table. Data from Search Labs experiments is not included.

What it does not show, and why that matters

The report has no clicks, no queries, no CTR and no average position. That is the big limit. It answers "was my site linked in AI answers?" It does not answer "did that earn me visits?"

Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are still counted. They sit inside your normal Performance report, under the Web search type, mixed with all other clicks (Google, AI features and your website). In that main report:

• An AI Overview takes one position, and every link inside it gets that same position (Search Console Help).
• In AI Mode, a follow-up question counts as a new query, with its own impressions and clicks.

So the new report tells you where you are cited. The old report tells you what you earned. You need both.

How to pair it with the Performance report: the "cited but not clicked" list

This takes about 20 minutes and a spreadsheet.

1. In the Generative AI performance report, set the date to the last 3 months. Open the Pages tab and export it. You now have AI impressions per page.
2. Open Performance > Search results with the same dates. Open the Pages tab and export it. You now have total clicks, impressions and CTR per page.
3. Put both in one sheet and match rows by URL.
4. Add a column: AI impressions divided by total impressions. This is roughly how much of a page's visibility comes from AI answers.
5. Sort by that share, highest first.

Then read the top 20 rows like this:

To see which queries are hit, go back to the Performance report and filter question queries with a regex. Our Search Console regex page has nine filters you can paste.

A fictional example

northwind-outdoors.com (fictional) exported both reports for July to September. Its guide "how to waterproof hiking boots" had 41,000 AI impressions out of 64,000 total impressions, a 64% AI share. Clicks on that page fell from 2,100 to 1,300 a month while its position held. Its product category pages had almost no AI impressions and steady clicks. The team left the category pages alone and rewrote the guide's title and first lines around its own 30-day soak test.

Mistakes to avoid

• Reading AI impressions as traffic. An impression is a link shown, not a visit.
• Comparing the chart total to the Pages total. They count differently, so they will not match.
• Excluding your site to "protect" clicks. The exclude setting removes your links from AI answers too. Other sites can still be cited for the same content.
• Judging from one week. AI answers change often. Use at least 28 days, better 3 months.