Google is starting to test two new Search Console features. Another change that allows you to control whether your site appears in AI Search’s productive features. Some dedicated performance reports show where URLs appear on the site from AI generating features across Search and Discover.
Both of these features are being rolled out to a set of UK websites first. Google says it will expand availability globally after testing.
Changing the Appearance of AI
Sites that use conversion to opt-in will not receive traffic or impressions from AI Overview, AI Mode, or AI Overview in Discover. Google claims that control cannot be used as a search result ranking signal without these AI features.
Google describes this as building on previous tools like snippet controls and Google-Extended. Thumbnail controls control how content is displayed in standard search results. Google-Extended allows you to prevent content from being used to train Google AI models.
This new conversion is about whether the site appears in the live AI Search output.
What New Reports Show
According to Google’s blog post, impressions show how often URLs from a site appear in AI-generated features in Search and Discover. Reports also break down data by page, country, device, and date, granular down to the hourly level.
Data for the AI productivity feature was already included in the overall performance report. New reports provide a dedicated overview of AI visibility.
The reports leave data on clicks and query level metrics, which are important for the performance of site owners. Google “continues to work with website owners to understand what information will be most helpful” and plans to add more metrics over time.
It’s the background
We’ve been asking Google for AI-specific data in Search Console since the AI Overview launched in the US in 2024.
When Google confirmed that AI Mode data was counted in Search Console totals, there was no way to separate AI-driven traffic from organic searches in the reports. John Mueller explained that all links within the AI Overview share a single location in the Search Console, making it difficult to assess which placement is performing well.
Our installation followed the measurement gap consistently. Two weeks ago, we reported that Google had increased link locations to AI features without providing click data specific to those locations.
At the time, Microsoft moved quickly on AI search reporting. Bing Webmaster Tools introduced the AI Performance dashboard in February. It added a basic query-to-page map in March and previewed Share Quotes at SEO Week in May.
Why This Matters
The new reports offer the first dedicated view of website visibility to Google Search’s AI features, giving you a clearer picture than previous aggregated reports, where AI-driven visibility was difficult to distinguish in the search console.
What’s missing is click data specific to AI features. Impressions tell you how many times your pages appear, but not how many people click on those views. That gap has been a central question in SEJ’s coverage of AI search rankings for more than a year, and this announcement doesn’t close it yet.
Looking Forward
Google says it will test both features with a subset of UK websites before expanding them globally. The company says it will add more metrics to the reports over time, but hasn’t specified specific additions or timelines.
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