Search Console and visibility in generative AI

Artificial intelligence is changing Google.

But it’s also changing a fundamental part of SEO: the way we measure a website’s visibility.

For years, Search Console has been one of the main tools for analysing impressions, clicks, CTR and positions on Google.

Now a new dimension appears:

Visibility within generative AI experiences.

Google has created new specific reports in Search Console to help website owners understand how their pages appear in features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.

And since 31 August 2026, this data has been available to all websites worldwide.

This changes quite a lot about how we can analyse SEO on Google. If you’re starting from scratch, begin with the roundup of 10 official Google data points on SEO and AI.

What are the new generative AI reports in Search Console?

Google announced these new reports on 3 June 2026.

Their goal is to offer a specific view of a website’s presence within Google Search and Discover generative AI features.

These include:

• AI-generated views.
• AI Mode.
• Generative AI features in Discover.

Until now, much of this visibility was analysed within the general Search Console data.

Now Google provides a specific view to study these experiences.

This makes it easier to separate a part of the behaviour that was previously mixed with the rest of the search traffic.

What data can we consult?

The new reports don’t simply show whether a website appears or not.

Google provides different dimensions to analyse that visibility.

We can currently study mainly:

This data lets you move from a generic question like:

to much more useful questions:

• Which pages appear?
• In which countries?
• How often?
• Is that visibility growing?
• Which content appears most?
• What changes occur after updating a page?

Where do AI Overviews and AI Mode fit?

The new AI features are part of the evolution of Google Search.

AI Overviews: what they are and how they impact SEO can show an AI-generated answer directly on the results page.

Google AI Mode: what it is and how it changes SEO allows more conversational searches and lets users explore an issue through different questions and subtopics.

For SEO professionals, this introduces a new visibility opportunity.

A page can be relevant not only for a traditional position in the results.

It can also be used as a source or appear within a generative experience.

Google explains that its AI features use its core search and quality systems to find relevant information on the web.

That’s why it’s important to understand that SEO and generative AI aren’t two completely separate worlds, something we analyse in is traditional SEO still working with artificial intelligence?.

AI visibility doesn’t replace traditional metrics

This point is important.

The new reports don’t mean we should abandon the traditional Search Console metrics.

Impressions, clicks, CTR and queries remain fundamental.

The difference is that we can now add another layer of analysis.

We can think of a website’s SEO at different levels:

This separation helps avoid interpretation errors.

A page can gain visibility on Google without immediately increasing its clicks.

And the opposite can also happen.

That’s why we should analyse the complete journey. You can reinforce the conversion side with how to improve CTR on Google.

Search Console and Google Analytics should work together

Search Console and Google Analytics answer different questions.

Search Console helps us understand what happens before the click.

For example:

• which queries generate visibility;
• which pages appear;
• how many impressions a URL receives;
• which countries generate visibility;
• how presence on Google evolves.

Google Analytics lets you analyse what happens afterwards.

• which pages the user visits;
• how long they stay;
• what actions they take;
• whether they convert;
• which channels generate revenue.

Google specifically recommends combining Search Console with tools like Analytics to better understand the behaviour of traffic coming from Search.

Does appearing in an AI answer mean getting a click?

Not necessarily.

Visibility and traffic are different metrics.

A URL can appear within a generative experience and not necessarily receive the same volume of clicks it would get in a traditional result.

That’s why the new reports are especially interesting.

They let you study the exposure of our content within these new experiences.

We can then compare that information with real traffic and conversions.

The question stops being only:

And becomes:

Google states that clicks from AI Overviews can be higher quality

Google has noted an interesting behaviour.

According to its documentation, when users click on results pages that include AI Overviews, those clicks can be of higher quality.

Google defines this higher quality by indicating that those users are more likely to spend longer on the site.

This doesn’t mean all websites will experience the same behaviour.

But it does show why looking only at the number of sessions can be insufficient.

An SEO strategy should also analyse:

• traffic quality;
• engagement;
• conversions;
• revenue;
• post-click actions.

This approach connects with what we analyse in organic traffic and Google: what’s happening with AI.

Which pages should you analyse first?

Not all URLs have the same importance.

If you manage an SEO project, I’d start with the pages that generate business.

For example:

• service pages;
• ecommerce categories;
• product pages;
• landing pages;
• articles that generate leads;
• comparison pages;
• content that answers commercial searches.

Then you can expand the analysis to the rest of the site.

The idea is to identify which content has the greatest strategic value. A good SEO content plan in 5 steps helps you prioritise these pages.

A new way of analysing your content

Generative AI reports also let you ask a very interesting question:

What type of content is achieving visibility in Google’s new experiences?

Imagine you have 500 articles.

With the new data you can identify which URLs appear in generative experiences.

You can then compare those pages.

Maybe you’ll discover they have certain characteristics:

• they answer specific questions;
• they provide original information;
• they have a clear structure;
• they cover a topic in depth;
• they are well connected through internal links;
• they answer a specific search intent.

This doesn’t mean those characteristics are a secret formula for appearing in AI.

Google doesn’t offer a specific recipe to guarantee presence in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

What it does recommend is continuing to apply the fundamental good SEO practices. If you want to dig deeper, review the complete on-page SEO guide.

Google says you don’t need special SEO for AI Mode

This point is especially important.

Google states that recommended SEO practices remain relevant for its AI features.

There are no specific additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Nor is it necessary to perform special optimisation for these features.

Google recommends continuing to work on fundamental aspects such as:

• clear technical structure;
• unique and useful content;
• reliable information;
• page experience;
• internal links;
• content accessible to Google (robots.txt and sitemap XML correctly configured);
• images and videos when they add value.

So it wouldn’t make much sense to abandon a solid SEO strategy to chase supposed «GEO» or «AEO» tricks. You can see the differences in SEO vs GEO vs AEO: real differences in 2026.

Google recommends focusing on effective SEO strategies and useful content for people.

And what about AI-generated content?

The arrival of generative Search has also increased the volume of content produced with artificial intelligence tools.

But generating content automatically doesn’t guarantee visibility.

Google focuses on creating unique, useful, reliable and people-centred content. This principle connects with the criteria of E-E-A-T: experience, authority and trust in Google.

That’s why a strategy based simply on producing hundreds of pages with AI may not provide a real advantage.

The important question shouldn’t be:

But rather:

Google specifically recommends developing content that adds value beyond common knowledge and that is backed by experience or expert knowledge.

How to use Search Console to analyse AI

A simple methodology can be enough to get started.

What you should NOT do

The appearance of new reports can also lead to some bad practices.

For example, becoming obsessed with achieving a specific metric without understanding the context.

It would also be a mistake to create artificial content only because we think a particular structure might work better in AI.

Google warns against tactics that try to exploit supposed AEO or GEO «hacks».

Among other things, its current documentation states that it’s not necessary to create files such as llms.txt (although if you want to understand what it is, here’s what llms.txt is and how to create it step by step) or use artificial techniques to try to achieve visibility in Google’s generative experiences.

The strategy should remain much simpler: create useful content, make it easy for the website to be crawled and understood, and apply good SEO practices.

Search Console makes AI visibility measurable

This may be one of the most important changes.

For a long time, visibility in AI-generated answers was difficult to measure with Google’s own data.

There were external tools that tried to estimate it.

But Google warns that no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.

Now site owners have an official source to analyse part of this visibility.

This opens the door to a new generation of SEO analysis.

We’ll be able to start studying not only:

But also:

What this means for the future of SEO

SEO is entering a stage where traditional position stops being the only way to measure visibility.

Google still has organic results.

But it also incorporates generative experiences that can answer complex questions, summarise information and show links to different sources.

That means we SEO professionals will have to analyse different surfaces.

This doesn’t mean traditional metrics have stopped being useful.

It means we need to add new layers of analysis. You can see how this is reflected in AI Mode searches, which are 3 times longer.

Conclusion: measuring AI will be part of SEO

Google is already incorporating artificial intelligence into different parts of Search.

And now it’s also incorporating new tools to measure that evolution.

The generative AI performance reports in Search Console let you analyse impressions, pages, countries, devices and trends over time within these experiences.

Since 31 August 2026, this data has been available globally.

For SEO professionals, this is an opportunity.

We can start studying AI visibility with official Google data and relate it to traffic and conversions.

But the fundamental strategy doesn’t change.

Google still recommends doing good SEO.

Creating useful content.

Providing original information.

Building a technically solid website. You can reinforce this with Core Web Vitals: what they are and how to improve them and with robots.txt and sitemap XML correctly configured.

Making navigation and internal linking easy.

And, above all, creating pages that genuinely help the user.

The big difference is that we now have a new surface to measure.

And that can change quite a lot about how we analyse SEO over the next few years. If you want to broaden the approach, review how to optimise your website for AI (GEO) or the impact of multimodal search on Google.

Written by

Alex Figueiras

Freelance SEO consultant in Valencia · WordPress + Elementor + Rank Math

I help local businesses and SMEs rank on Google with technical audits, on-page SEO and content that converts. More than 40 projects audited and cases measured in sectors such as renovations, training and ecommerce.

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