Quick answer: The Search Console generative AI report is a new performance report that Google rolled out to all websites worldwide on August 31, 2026. It shows how often links to your site appeared inside AI Overviews and AI Mode on Google Search, broken down by page, country, device and date. It reports impressions only, not clicks, and Google added a separate Search generative AI control that lets a site opt out of those features entirely. For a business in Delhi NCR, the report is the first official way to see whether your service and location pages are being used to answer questions like “best CA firm in Noida” or “industrial fan manufacturer in Faridabad”, and which pages are being ignored.
For two years business owners have asked us the same question: “Are we showing up in Google’s AI answers or not?” Until this month the honest reply was that nobody could measure it properly. That changed when Google finished the global rollout of the Search Console generative AI report, announced on the Google Search Central blog and covered by Search Engine Land. This guide explains what the report shows, what it does not, and how we are using it for SEO clients across Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Faridabad and Ghaziabad. It builds on our SEO plan for small businesses in India.
What the generative AI report shows
Open Search Console, choose your property, and under Performance you will now find a report for generative AI features alongside the familiar Search results and Discover reports. According to Google’s help documentation, it counts an impression each time a link to your site is shown to a user inside AI Overviews or AI Mode. You can split those impressions by page, which uses the canonical URL, by country, by device and by date at daily, weekly or monthly granularity. The usual Search Console limits apply: a 1,000 row cap on exports, Pacific time zone dates, preliminary data that can shift for a few hours, and no data at all until a property has enough impressions to report. Search Labs experiments are excluded.
What it does not show, and why that matters
The report has no click column. Google measures whether your link was displayed, not whether anyone tapped it, and independent studies suggest that only around 4.5 percent of AI Mode sessions end in a click to an external website compared with roughly 24 percent for a traditional results page. So a page with thousands of AI impressions can still send you very little traffic. There is also no query dimension, so you cannot see which questions triggered the citation. In practice the Search Console generative AI report tells you which pages Google trusts enough to quote and where those users are, and you have to combine it with your normal search report, your analytics referral data and your enquiry forms to understand the business effect.
The opt out switch: should a Delhi NCR business use it?
Alongside the report, Google shipped a setting called Search generative AI control. Switch it on and your content stops appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover. Google says this is not a ranking signal for ordinary web results, so classic blue link visibility is unaffected. Our advice for almost every service business in the region is to leave it off. A clinic in Dwarka, a coaching institute in Laxmi Nagar or a packaging manufacturer in Bhiwadi gains nothing by disappearing from the answer a buyer reads first. The exception is a publisher whose revenue depends on page views; that is a different calculation.
How to read the report for a local business
Start with the pages tab and sort by impressions. In most accounts we manage, three kinds of pages dominate: service pages with specific detail, location pages naming a locality such as “Sector 62 Noida” or “Udyog Vihar Gurugram”, and question led articles with FAQs. Pages that are missing from the list are the ones Google does not consider quotable, usually because they are thin, generic or slow. Next, filter by country and confirm that India is the source of most impressions; if you serve Delhi NCR and see impressions from the United States or the Gulf, it is often NRI buyers researching property or education, which is useful commercial intelligence. Then compare the device split with your normal search report; AI Mode impressions skew heavily to mobile, which is where most NCR customers search.
What to change on the site once you have the data
The report is only worth opening if it changes what you publish. Pages earning AI impressions should be strengthened with clearer answers in the first two sentences, specific numbers, updated dates and a short FAQ with FAQPage schema, because those are the passages Google lifts. Pages with strong classic search impressions but no AI impressions usually need restructuring: a direct answer at the top, descriptive H2 headings, and locality specific detail such as service areas, landmarks and pin codes. For a local SEO client in East Delhi we rewrote six service pages this way in August and saw them enter the generative AI report within three weeks. The technical basics still apply: a Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on a mid range phone, no AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt, and consistent name, address and phone details across Google Business Profile, Justdial and your website, as covered in our SEO plan for small businesses in India.
A monthly routine for the Search Console generative AI report:
- Week 1: Export the pages table, note which service and location pages earned AI impressions, and record the total against last month.
- Week 2: Rewrite one high potential page that has search impressions but no AI impressions, using a direct answer, specific figures and an FAQ.
- Week 3: Run twenty real buyer questions such as “best SEO agency in Delhi” or “Google Ads agency near Gurugram” through AI Mode and ChatGPT and record who is cited.
- Week 4: Reconcile AI impressions with enquiries by source in your CRM, and brief the next month’s content around the gaps.
Why this matters more in Delhi NCR than most markets
The National Capital Region is one of the most competitive local search markets in the country. Real estate in Gurugram and Noida, coaching in Laxmi Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar, hospitals in Saket and Vaishali, and industrial suppliers in Faridabad, Manesar and Ghaziabad all fight for the same handful of positions. AI Overviews now appear on close to half of searches, and when Google answers “which digital marketing agency in East Delhi handles B2B lead generation” with three cited sources, the businesses outside those three are invisible to that buyer. The generative AI report is the first tool that shows you, page by page, whether you are inside that answer. If you would like Beyond Digita to audit your report and rewrite the pages that are being ignored, request a free growth audit; we are based at National Arcade, Ghazipur Road, East Delhi and work with clients across NCR.
Related reading and sources
Read this with our guides to answer engine and generative engine optimisation, the 2026 SEO plan for small businesses in India and Google Business Profile optimisation, and see our SEO and local SEO services.
Official references used in this article:
- Google Search Central Blog: introducing Search generative AI performance reports in Search Console.
- Search Console Help: generative AI performance report.
- Search Engine Land: AI performance reports and Search generative AI control rolling out globally.
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website.
Step by step: finding the report in Search Console
- Open Search Console and select your property.
- Go to Performance in the left menu, then Search results.
- Click + New above the chart and choose Search Appearance.
- Select AI Overviews or AI Mode where available for your property.
- Set the date range to the last 3 months and switch on Compare against the previous period.
- Export to CSV if you want to track the numbers month over month in a sheet.
If the Search Appearance filter does not list an AI option, your property has not recorded enough AI impressions yet. That is normal for newer or smaller sites and is not an error.
Reading the numbers without fooling yourself
| What you see | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions up, clicks flat | You are being cited in AI answers but the answer satisfies the user | Normal. Track branded search and enquiries instead of clicks |
| Impressions down, position stable | Fewer searches in your topic, or seasonality | Check search volume trends before assuming a problem |
| Position worse, impressions up | You now rank for more, harder queries — the average is diluted | This is usually growth, not decline. Segment by query |
| Both down sharply | A technical issue, a de-index, or a core update | Check indexing and Core Web Vitals reports first |
The most common mistake is judging a single week. AI surfaces are volatile, and Search Console data lags by two to three days, so the last two days of any date range always look artificially low.
Three metrics to track alongside the report
- Branded search volume. If people read about you in an AI answer and later search your name, that shows up here. Rising branded search is often the first real sign AI visibility is working.
- Direct traffic. Visitors who saw your brand cited and typed the URL later. Watch the trend, not the absolute figure.
- Manual AI mention checks. Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your top five commercial questions and record whether you appear. A simple spreadsheet beats any tool at this stage.
What to do with low or zero AI impressions
- Add a direct answer of 40–70 words at the top of your most important pages. Answer engines extract these first.
- Rewrite headings as questions your buyers actually type, then answer immediately beneath each one.
- Add verifiable specifics — prices, dates, locations, numbers. Pages with concrete facts get cited far more than pages with adjectives.
- Implement FAQ and Service schema so machines can parse the page reliably.
- Fix entity consistency — your business name, address and services written identically across your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
These are the same fundamentals we set out in our guide to answer engine optimisation for Indian businesses. If you would rather have the measurement and the fixes handled for you, our SEO services include AI visibility reporting.
Frequently asked questions about the Search Console generative AI report
What is the Search Console generative AI report?
It is a performance report in Google Search Console, rolled out to all sites on August 31, 2026, that shows how many times links to your website appeared inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, split by page, country, device and date.
Does the report show clicks from AI Overviews?
No. It reports impressions only. To estimate traffic, compare it with your regular search performance report and referral data in analytics, and track enquiries by source.
Why does my site show no data in the generative AI report?
Either the rollout has not reached your property yet, your pages have not earned enough AI impressions to display, or you have switched on the Search generative AI control that opts the site out of AI features.
Should I opt my business out of AI Overviews?
For service businesses in Delhi NCR, no. Opting out removes you from the answer buyers read first and gives nothing back. Only publishers dependent on page view revenue should consider it.
How do I get more of my pages into AI Overviews?
Open each page with a direct answer, add specific numbers and locality detail, use clear headings and an FAQ with schema, keep the page fast, allow AI crawlers, and make sure your business details match across Google Business Profile and directories.
Is this report available to businesses in India?
Yes. Google confirmed the report is available to all websites worldwide from August 31, 2026, and Indian properties in Delhi NCR are already showing data where AI impressions exist.