Published 2026-09-13 · Last updated 2026-09-13
Yes, you can finally see it. Google Search Console reports how many times links to your pages appeared inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, the answers people read before they click anything. For the first time, the question every owner has been asking, is the AI sending buyers to me or naming my competitors instead, is a number you can open and look at. The same update added a switch to opt out of AI answers, and for almost every local business that switch is a trap. The move is not to hide from AI. It is to become the business it names, and you now have a way to check whether you already are.
Can you see whether AI is recommending your business?
You can. Google announced the Search generative AI performance reports on its Search Central blog in June 2026, and by August 31, 2026 the reports had reached every website worldwide, as reported by Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land. Inside Search Console, alongside the familiar performance numbers, the report shows how often your pages surfaced inside AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the generative AI parts of Discover, broken down by page, by country, and by date. If you have ever wondered whether the AI at the top of the results is working for you or around you, that wondering is over. It is a report you can pull up.
What does the AI report actually show, and what does it hide?
It shows impressions. Google defines an impression here as a link to your site shown to someone inside an AI feature on Google Search. So the number tells you how many times a link to one of your pages made it into an AI answer. That is real and useful, and it is also less than the whole picture. The report does not include clicks yet, and it does not show the exact question the person typed. And because it counts a shown link, it is a floor, not a full tally: when an AI names or paraphrases your business in a sentence without putting a link on screen, that mention may never register. Read the number as a direction, not a scoreboard. Rising means the AI is finding you. Flat or empty means it is not, and that is worth knowing before a customer does.
Should you opt out of AI answers?
The same update gave every site a new control. Under Settings in Search Console there is a section called Search generative AI, and it decides whether your content is eligible to appear in, and help ground, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover's AI features. Every property starts on Include. To leave, you have to switch yourself to Exclude. Google is clear about the trade. A site that opts out will not receive traffic or impressions from those AI features, though it keeps its normal spot in regular Google results and in Discover, and the choice is not used as a ranking signal anywhere else in Search. The control exists because regulators pushed for it: the UK Competition and Markets Authority issued a binding requirement on June 3, 2026 that Google give publishers a genuine way to opt out, as reported by 9to5Google. Having the switch is good. Flipping it is a different question.
| The question | Stay in AI answers (Include) | Opt out of AI answers (Exclude) |
|---|---|---|
| Who can see you | Buyers who get their answer from AI Overviews and AI Mode, plus everyone else | Only people who scroll past the AI to the older list of links |
| What you keep | Your normal Google and Discover results, and a chance to be named in the answer | Your normal Google and Discover results |
| What you give up | Nothing you were not already showing to | Every impression and click the AI answers could have sent you |
| Who it is right for | Almost every local and service business that wants the phone to ring | A publisher shielding paid work, not a business that wants to be found |
Why is opting out the wrong move for a local business?
Because the answer is where the buyers are going. On searches that trigger an AI Overview, roughly 8 in 10 end without anyone clicking through to a website, according to Similarweb data reported in 2026. Across all of Google, about 68 percent of US searches ended without a click in early 2026, per SparkToro and Similarweb, up from around 45 percent a decade earlier. Pew Research Center found that when an AI summary sits at the top of the page, people click a normal result on only 8 percent of visits, against 15 percent when there is no summary. Put those together and the pattern is plain: more and more, the AI gives the answer and the visit never happens. If the AI is naming three businesses and yours is not one of them, opting out does not protect you. It just makes sure you are never in the running.
There is an honest caveat. Local map results have been touched far less so far. Semrush found under 3 percent of local-intent searches showed an AI Overview in its 2025 tracking, so the map pack that sends most trade jobs is largely intact. But AI Mode and assistants like ChatGPT increasingly pull local businesses into their answers, and the traffic only moves one way. The businesses that get named early tend to keep getting named. The point is not to panic. It is to be present, and to be able to prove it with a number.
How do you become the business the AI recommends?
The AI can only name a business it is allowed to read, can understand, and can trust the facts of. None of that is expensive. It is the same work that makes a site clear to a person, done so a machine can follow it too.
- Be readable. Let the answer crawlers into your site in your robots settings, because a business the AI cannot read is a business it cannot name.
- Be clear. Give every service its own page and answer the real question in plain sentences, because a plain sentence is the exact text an AI can lift into its answer. It cannot quote a slogan it cannot parse.
- Be consistent. Put your business name, your services, the towns you cover, and your phone number in the words on the page, and match what your Google profile and your reviews say, so the facts line up everywhere the AI checks.
- Then check the report. Open the AI performance numbers in Search Console, and ask the AI yourself for your trade in your town. What it says back is what your customers are hearing.
What should you look at first?
Start with the number you now have. Open Search Console and read the AI report: which of your pages are showing up in AI answers, and which are silent. Then do what a customer does. Ask an assistant for your service in your area and read the answer word for word. If it names you, note what it got right so you can protect it. If it names someone else, you have found the gap while it is still cheap to close. We build sites for both readers at once: the person deciding in five seconds whether to call, and the AI deciding whether to say your name at all. If you want to know which one you are, we will look at the report together.
Common questions
Where is the AI performance report in Search Console?
It lives inside the performance section of Google Search Console, in the generative AI performance report Google rolled out to all websites by August 31, 2026. It shows impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the AI features in Discover, split by page, country, and date. It does not include clicks or the exact search someone typed.
Does opting out of AI answers help my normal Google ranking?
No. Google has said the Search generative AI control is not used as a ranking signal for regular search results. Opting out only removes you from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover's AI features. It does not lift your position in the classic results, and it does not add protection worth the visibility you give up.
Does the report tell me how many clicks AI sent me?
Not yet. As reported by Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land, the report shows impressions, meaning how often a link to your page appeared in an AI answer, but it does not include click or query data. Treat it as a signal of whether the AI is finding you, and pair it with your overall traffic to judge the effect.
If most AI searches end without a click, why be in the answer at all?
Because being named in the answer is the new version of being recommended. On AI Overview searches, roughly 8 in 10 people never click, per Similarweb, so the moment that decides who they call is the answer itself, not the list of links below it. If the AI names you there, you are in the running even when no one clicks. If it does not, you are invisible at the exact second someone is choosing.
How do I know whether AI is naming my business?
Two ways, and you can do both in an afternoon. Read the AI performance report in Search Console to see which pages are surfacing in AI answers, and ask an assistant directly for your trade in your town to hear what it says about you. Together they tell you whether the AI is sending buyers your way or handing them to a competitor.
