Google has launched Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console, giving site owners their first official view of how they appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode. The reports show impressions but not clicks.
You can see that you appeared in the AI answer. You cannot see whether anyone came through.
Google has finally given Search Console its own reporting for AI search. On 3 June the company launched Search Generative AI performance reports, with dedicated views for both Search and Discover, so site owners can see how often their pages turn up inside AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The reports break impressions down by page, country, device and date, with granularity from hourly through to monthly. For the first time you can see which of your URLs are surfacing inside generative answers and where in the world they show up. Discover gets its own view too, which matters for publishers and any brand running a content engine.
There is a catch, and it is a big one. The reports show impressions but not clicks. You can see that you appeared. You cannot see whether anyone came through. Google is also rolling this out slowly, starting with a subset of sites in the UK before a wider release.
Why it matters
For two years marketers have been flying blind on AI search. Traffic from informational queries has been sliding and nobody could prove where it went. This is the first official window into that black box, and it confirms the shape of the problem. Visibility and clicks are now two separate things. You can be cited constantly and still lose the visit.
For Australian businesses that means the old SEO scorecard is incomplete. Ranking on the page is no longer the same as being chosen by the answer engine, and the answer engine is now the front door for a growing share of searches. Without this data you were guessing. With it you can at least see where you stand.
Clicks reported in Google's new AI search performance data. The reports show impressions only.
What to do about it
Check whether you have the report yet and start a baseline now, even if the data is thin. You want history before you make any changes.
Track AI impressions and traditional clicks as two separate lines. A page that earns impressions in AI answers but no downstream traffic is doing brand work, not acquisition work. Treat it accordingly.
Lean into commercial intent. Informational content is what AI summarises and keeps. Pages that help someone actually buy are still pulling people through to you.
Build branded search and direct demand so you are not wholly dependent on being picked by a model you do not control.
This is the start of measurement catching up to where search already went. The brands that build a baseline now will read the next twelve months far better than the ones who wait.