How to set up AI search performance reporting in Google Search Console (2026)
How to set up AI search performance reporting in Google Search Console: find the worldwide generative AI report, baseline it, and act on the page data.
As of late August 2026, Google's generative AI performance report — the Search Console view that shows how often your pages appear inside AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover's AI features — is available to sites worldwide, after a phased rollout that began in June. That makes AI-search visibility something you can finally report on with first-party data instead of inference. But the report is presence-only: it shows impressions, not clicks, not position, not the queries behind them, and it has no history before mid-May 2026. So "setting up reporting" is less about a dashboard toggle and more about establishing the right baseline, reading the report for what it can support, and building a repeatable cadence that turns the page data into content decisions.
This is that setup, step by step, without inventing numbers the report does not give you. The early steps get you into the report and calibrate expectations; the middle steps establish a baseline that survives the rollout's quirks — no backfill, a known August logging error, staged availability — and segment the data into the two cuts that matter; the last steps turn the read into a standing report and a content brief. If you also need the query side — the conversational AI Mode searches that leak into your standard report — that is a separate job covered in [how to track Google AI Mode traffic in Search Console](/how-to/track-google-ai-mode-traffic-in-search-console).
The steps
Confirm your property is verified and eligible for data. Reporting starts with a verified Search Console property for the site (domain or URL-prefix). With the worldwide rollout complete, most properties now have the report, but two conditions still gate it: the rollout may still be catching up for some accounts, and a site with too few AI impressions may show no data at all. So before you conclude anything, make sure the property is verified and has enough AI-search presence to register — an empty report is not proof you are absent from AI answers.
Open the Generative AI performance report. In Search Console, go to Performance and look for the Generative AI view (separate from the standard Search results report). It reports impressions from Google's generative AI features — AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, plus generative AI features in Discover — combined into one bucket. If the view is not present yet, your property may still be enabling it; check back rather than assuming zero visibility.
Calibrate: this report shows impressions, not traffic. Before you read a single chart, set the expectation that governs everything after: the report shows impressions only. There are no clicks, no click-through rate, no average position, and no query data — Google exposes presence, not outcome. An AI impression means a link to your page was surfaced inside an AI answer; it does not mean anyone clicked, and inside an AI Overview there is no meaningful rank because the whole answer shares one position. Report it as exposure, and never let it sit next to a clicks chart in a way that invites reading it as traffic.
Establish a baseline — and note there is no backfill. Impression data in this report begins around mid-May 2026 with no historical backfill, so you have no pre-launch period to compare against. Your first cycles are not measuring change; they are building the baseline later cycles will measure against. Snapshot the property-level total and the page-level breakdown now, date it, and resist reading a trend into the first six-to-eight weeks of a short, forward-only series.
Annotate the August 2026 logging error on your timeline. Google disclosed a logging error that decreased impressions in the Search generative AI report for data starting August 13, 2026 — a data-logging fault, not a real drop in your AI visibility. Mark that date on any baseline or trend you build. A dip beginning around mid-August should be flagged as a known artifact, or you will report a decline that never happened and act on a problem that does not exist.
Segment by page to find your AI-cited assets. Sort the report by page. This is the actionable core: the list of URLs accruing AI impressions is a ranked read of which of your assets Google's AI surfaces actually reach for. Note that property-level and page-level totals are not additive — two of your URLs in one AI answer count as a single property impression but can each count at the page level — so pick one level per report and stay there. The page list, not the aggregate, is what tells you what to make more of.
Add the country cut to spot geo and coverage gaps. Break the same data down by country (and device, in the Search view). A page winning AI impressions in one market but not another is a localization or coverage gap the aggregate total hides. For multi-market sites this cut often surfaces the fastest wins — a topic already proven to earn AI presence somewhere, missing where you also compete.
Build a repeatable report and turn the page list into a brief. The generative AI report is UI-only — not available through the Search Analytics API or the BigQuery bulk export — so your recurring artifact is the report's own view captured on a fixed cadence (monthly suits most teams), kept separate from your organic impressions rather than summed with them. Then act: group the cited pages by topic to get two lists — topics AI already cites you for (proven demand to go deeper on) and topics you publish about that earn no AI presence (gaps to cover). That grouped list is your content brief for the next cycle. Fold it into your reporting the way you would any channel; [creating social media reports with AI](/how-to/create-social-media-reports-with-ai) covers the wider reporting workflow.
Common gotchas
Impressions only — no clicks, CTR, position, or queries. The report tells you that you appeared inside an AI answer, not whether anyone clicked or where you ranked in it. Pair it with your standard Performance report for the click side.
AI Overviews and AI Mode are combined. There is no native way to split AI Mode impressions from AI Overviews in this report — they are reported together. Any tool promising a clean AI-Mode-only number from native GSC is estimating.
No historical backfill. Data starts around mid-May 2026, so you cannot see your AI presence before then. Build the baseline now instead of expecting past data to appear.
The August 13, 2026 logging error dents the data. A decrease in reported impressions from that date is a logging fault, not a real drop — annotate it, do not chase it.
Absence can mean low volume or a staged rollout, not zero. A missing view or a flat line early on may mean the property is still being enabled or logged too few AI impressions to show — not that you are invisible.
Property and page totals are not additive. Two of your URLs in one AI answer count as one impression at the property level but can each count at the page level, so the property total will not equal the sum of page totals. Report at one level and stay there.
Where Kompozy fits
The setup above ends with a specific deliverable: a page-and-country list of the exact assets Google's AI surfaces already cite you for, plus the topics where you earn no AI presence yet. That list is a content brief, and it repeats every reporting cycle — which is where the workflow stalls, because Search Console can tell you what to double down on but produces none of it. Kompozy is that production layer: a full AI content generation and multi-platform publishing engine, not an analytics tool, and it does not replace the reporting loop — it clears the queue the loop generates. Take a proven-demand page from your report and drop the topic into Kompozy: from one [Persona Brief](/glossary/persona-brief) it builds a deeper, more liftable [Blog Article](/glossary/output-buckets) and long-form text that give AI answers more of the quotable source they already pull from you, plus brand-exact Carousel posts and Quote Graphics that restate the load-bearing facts as discrete units, and a [Persona Short](/glossary/persona-shorts) where your named expert says it on camera. For the country gaps the report surfaces, the same brief spins format and market variants without re-establishing your voice each time. [Autopilot](/glossary/autopilot) then schedules and fans the set across the eight social platforms plus your blog and newsletter behind a per-post review gate, so one true claim lands on several independent surfaces — the cross-source corroboration AI engines weigh when deciding what to cite. The honest scope: no tool can force an AI Overview to cite you or move the impression number by decree; what Kompozy removes is the production ceiling that makes acting on a monthly report impractical by hand, so measurement and response run at the same speed. Starter ($99/mo, 5,500 credits) fits a solo operator working one topic cluster from the report; Pro ($299/mo, 18,000 credits) suits a brand producing across every platform each cycle; Enterprise is custom for agencies reporting and feeding AI visibility across multiple clients.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the AI performance report in Google Search Console?
In the Performance section, as a dedicated Generative AI view separate from the standard Search results report. It shows impressions from Google's AI features — AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, plus generative AI features in Discover — broken down by page, country, and date, with a device cut in the Search view.
Is the Search Console AI report available worldwide now?
Yes. Google announced it in June 2026 and rolled it out in phases; by late August 2026 it was reported as available to sites worldwide. Some properties may still be catching up, and a site with too few AI impressions may see no data, so an empty report does not always mean you are absent from AI answers.
Can I export the AI report or pull it through the API?
Not through the API or BigQuery — the generative AI report is UI-only, unlike the standard performance report. Your recurring artifact is the report's own view captured on a cadence. The Search Analytics API and BigQuery export still cover your standard Performance data, which is where the click side lives.
Why does my property show no AI data?
Two common reasons: the worldwide rollout may still be enabling your property, or your site logged too few AI impressions to register. Neither means you have zero AI visibility. Confirm the property is verified and has meaningful AI-search presence, then check back before treating an empty report as a finding.
Should I opt out of appearing in Google’s AI features?
Google shipped a property-level control that excludes your content from AI Overviews and AI Mode without a ranking penalty in standard Search, with page-level controls expected later. Most content teams stay in, because opting out forfeits a growing discovery surface — but the choice is now explicit and worth stating in your report.
How often should I report on AI search performance?
Monthly suits most content operations. Because the data is forward-only and short, a monthly snapshot of AI impressions by page (and by country) lets a baseline accumulate and gives new content several cycles to show up in the report — which is the only honest way to attribute a content decision to an AI-visibility change.