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Google Adds AI Performance Reports and Opt-Out Toggle to Search Console

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Google has added two new features to Search Console: a dedicated report tracking how content performs in AI search features, and a toggle letting site owners opt out of those features entirely. Both launched with a subset of UK website owners first, and reached all websites worldwide on 31 August 2026.

The moves follow requirements set by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has designated Google as having strategic market status under the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. The CMA required Google to give publishers proper attribution in AI results, with clear links to their sites, and formal controls over their content’s appearance in AI-generated answers. Google has nine months to implement all the required changes; the CMA said it expects important parts to land earlier, and Google’s decision to begin testing immediately means some changes will arrive sooner.

The AI performance report also closes a measurement gap that has existed since AI Overviews launched in May 2024. Until now, impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode were folded into the standard Performance report with no way to isolate them. That separation exists in the Search Console interface only, not in the API.

Search Generative AI Performance Report

Google launched two reports rather than one: a Search report covering AI Overviews and AI Mode, and a separate Discover report covering generative AI features in Discover. Each is a dedicated view of visibility that the standard Performance report already counts but cannot isolate.

Available dimensions:

  • Impressions: how often URLs from your site appeared in those AI features
  • Pages: which specific URLs appeared
  • Countries: visibility broken down by geography
  • Devices: device type for Search results (not Discover)
  • Dates: hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly granularity

The report sits alongside the existing Performance report rather than replacing it. Publishers with access see a separate view; those outside the current rollout see no change to their Search Console interface.

What the report does not include: click data and query-level metrics are absent. Google has said it is “continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful” and plans to add metrics over time. Without query data, it is not possible to identify which searches are triggering AI features for your content: only that your pages are appearing.

What counts as an impression: John Mueller clarified that impressions are based on a link to your site being shown in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A bare favicon may not count unless it links to a page on your site, and a link that only appears once something is expanded or activated counts only when the user does that. The report undercounts appearances where your site is grouped into a collapsed or clustered card without a default-visible link.

The report launched with a subset of UK website owners. Update (25 June 2026): Google has since begun expanding access beyond the UK, with practitioners reporting the report on properties in the US, India and Switzerland from around 22 June. John Mueller confirmed the wider rollout, saying Google is “just rolling these out incrementally to sites, and reviewing the feedback along the way.” This remains a partial, incremental rollout rather than general availability. A Google Support help document covering the report is live at support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16984139.

Update (22 August 2026): Access expanded again in August, with no announcement from Google. Barry Schwartz checked around 25 Search Console profiles on 11 August and reported the report live for everyone, then corrected that the same day: it had reached many more properties but was still not fully rolled out. John Mueller confirmed as much on Reddit, saying “Correct, it’s not yet every domain,” and adding that “like the discover and news reports, these are only shown if there’s sufficient data to display.” Google’s help documentation for both the Search and Discover reports still carries its subset-testing note as of 22 August. Two separate things can hide the report, then: a property not yet included in the rollout, and a site without enough impressions in generative AI features for Google to populate it.

Update (31 August 2026): The rollout finished. Google added a dated note to the Search Central blog post and to the help documentation for the Search report, the Discover report and the opt-out control. The wording differs by document: the blog post and the report documentation both say “As of August 31, 2026, we’ve rolled out these insights to all websites worldwide”, while the opt-out control’s page says “we’ve rolled out this control”. Both the report and the toggle are now available to every Search Console property. The second condition still applies: a site with too few impressions in generative AI features sees the report with no data in it. Nothing else changed, and the report still carries impressions only, with no click or query data.

The report has no API equivalent. It is not a search type: the enum in the live Search Console API discovery document holds only WEB, IMAGE, VIDEO, NEWS, DISCOVER and GOOGLE_NEWS, with no AI-related value. Nor is it a search appearance, and Google’s own documentation explains why. The report “includes data from the Web search type in the Performance report”, so AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions are blended into ordinary web impressions with no dimension available to separate them. Anything built on the API, including third-party dashboards, sees the combined figure only.

AI Content Blocking Toggle

Google is also testing a toggle in Search Console allowing site owners to opt out of appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Overviews in Discover entirely.

Sites that opt out will not receive impressions or traffic from those AI features. Google is explicit that the opt-out “will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside of these generative AI Search features.” Opting out does not affect positions or traffic from standard search results or the Discover feed.

The toggle is distinct from existing controls:

  • nosnippet meta tag: instructs Google not to use a snippet from the page, but has inconsistent enforcement in AI features
  • Google-Extended in robots.txt: blocks the Googlebot-Extended crawler used for AI training data, but does not control whether content appears in AI-generated answers at retrieval time

The GSC toggle targets appearance in AI search features directly, regardless of whether the content has been crawled or trained on. It is the first formal mechanism in Search Console specifically designed for this purpose.

Google published supporting documentation for the control in June 2026, found under Settings > Search generative AI in Search Console. Two limits apply. First, opting out only stops your content appearing in the generative AI features; Google states the content “may still be used to power Google Search as a whole”, such as helping its systems understand query language, so it is not a general AI block and does not stop training data collection, which still requires the separate Google-Extended directive. Second, changes take one to two days to take effect, and Google warns some content may take longer to disappear from AI features because of caching and propagation.

The opt-out exists in large part because the CMA required it. The authority determined that publishers needed formal leverage to negotiate terms with Google over how their content is used in AI-generated answers. Opting out of AI features gives a publisher the standing to approach Google about commercial arrangements. CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell called it a “world-first requirement” that would result in “fair treatment, greater transparency and meaningful choice for businesses and consumers.” Theo Bamber, chief executive of the News Media Association (which represents UK publishers including the Financial Times and Guardian Media Group), called it a “significant step” towards a fair digital economy.

Google said it was engaging with regulators “to ensure website owners have the right tools as user preferences evolve.” The CMA controls more than 90% of the UK online search market figure in its assessment of Google’s market position, and retains powers to monitor and act further on Google Search developments.

The toggle reached all websites worldwide on 31 August 2026, having launched to a subset of UK website owners on 3 June.

What this means

The performance report is useful but its current scope limits what you can do with it. Impressions without clicks mean you cannot measure conversion impact from AI features: you can see your content is appearing but not whether it is driving visits. Query data would be the more valuable addition; without it, the report is closer to a presence indicator than a performance tool. Treat it as a starting point and monitor what Google adds over time.

The blocking toggle is a more consequential development, and understanding its regulatory context matters for how publishers should think about it. The CMA framed the opt-out as a negotiating tool: if a publisher opts out of AI features, that creates the standing to approach Google about a commercial deal for the use of their content in AI-generated answers. This is particularly relevant for news publishers, whose content has been cited in AI Overviews without direct payment or meaningful traffic return.

For most sites, the opt-out is not yet worth acting on. Without click data from AI features, you cannot quantify what you would be giving up. If AI appearances are driving material referral traffic (visible in GA4 via the AI Assistant channel group), opting out destroys that. If they are not, the toggle may eventually be useful leverage. The CMA’s framing gives it strategic weight that a pure product feature would not have.

Hold off on using either feature for consequential decisions until you have several weeks of data. For news publishers specifically, the CMA’s involvement means this situation will continue to develop; the nine-month implementation window suggests further requirements are coming.

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