Measuring AI Visibility with the New Google Search Console Report

SEO is changing. Visibility is no longer just about achieving a high position in traditional search engine results. With the rise of AI-powered search, the way websites gain visibility has changed significantly.

When you ask Google a question today, there is a good chance that you will receive an AI-generated answer. Google uses features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, where websites can appear as sources. Until recently, however, it was difficult to measure how visible your website actually was within these AI experiences.

That is gradually changing. Google Search Console has introduced new reporting capabilities that provide more insight into AI visibility. Below, we explain what these reports can tell you and how you can use the data.

What Is New in Google Search Console?

Google Search Console now provides more insight into how websites perform within Google's AI-powered search experiences. Search reporting can include visibility generated through features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google also provides reporting related to generative AI experiences within Google Discover.

The Search report can already provide several useful insights. For example, you can monitor how many AI-related impressions your website receives and how this visibility develops over time. You can also analyse which pages appear most frequently in AI-driven search results, which countries the impressions come from and which devices users are using.

It is important to note that Google Search Console does not yet provide every possible detail, and these insights may not be available for every website. We will discuss these limitations later in this article.

What Exactly Is an AI Impression?

It is useful to understand what an AI impression actually means.

In simple terms, an impression is recorded when a link to your website is shown to a user within a supported generative AI feature.

When you ask Google a question, you may receive an AI Overview: an answer generated with the help of AI. To create these answers, Google uses information from websites and other sources. If your content is relevant, trustworthy and useful, your website may be included as a source within an AI-generated response.

For example, within an AI Overview, a link may need to become visible after scrolling or expanding part of the result before an impression is counted.

This is an important distinction. The reporting does not necessarily count every occasion on which Google uses or references information from your website. Instead, it focuses on the visibility of links to your website within supported AI features.

Which AI Data Can You Analyse?

The new reporting capabilities in Google Search Console allow you to analyse AI-related visibility from several perspectives.

Pages

First, you can analyse individual pages on your website. Which URLs receive the most AI impressions, and which content appears to perform particularly well within AI-generated results?

This can help you identify which topics and content formats are most likely to gain visibility in AI search.

Time

You can also analyse how your AI visibility develops over time.

For example, you can identify periods in which AI impressions increase or decrease. If you have recently updated a piece of content, you can compare performance before and after the update to determine whether its AI visibility has changed.

This makes it easier to recognise trends and developments over a longer period.

Country

It can also be useful to understand where your AI visibility is coming from geographically.

Your website may be based in the Netherlands, but that does not necessarily mean your content is only being viewed by users in the Netherlands. The report can provide insight into the countries in which users are seeing links to your website within AI-powered search results.

Device

Finally, you can analyse visibility by device.

For example, you can see whether AI-related impressions are generated on desktop computers, mobile devices or tablets. This can help you better understand how users encounter your content across different devices.

Why This Matters for SEO and GEO

There are several reasons why these developments are important for both SEO and GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization.

SEO remains important, but the way success is measured is changing.

Traditionally, organic success was strongly associated with search rankings. A high position in Google's search results often represented strong organic performance.

Today, rankings are only part of the picture. AI is playing an increasingly important role in how information is presented to users.

Your content may appear within an AI-generated answer before a user even reaches the traditional search results. As a result, a page can receive significant AI visibility without necessarily generating a corresponding increase in clicks.

Modern SEO reporting should therefore look beyond rankings, clicks and organic traffic. AI impressions and AI visibility are becoming increasingly important metrics as well.

How to Use the New Report

You can use the new reporting features in Google Search Console in several ways.

Start by opening Google Search Console and checking whether the relevant AI-related reporting is available for your website.

If it is available, select a relevant date range to analyse how your website has performed over a particular period.

Monitor the development of your AI impressions and sort the data by page to identify the content receiving the most AI visibility.

It can also be valuable to compare periods of growth and decline. Perhaps your website appeared more frequently in AI-generated results during a particular period.

Once you have identified your best-performing pages, analyse what they have in common. This can reveal patterns that may help you improve other content on your website.

What Insights Can You Gain?

The report can provide several useful insights that can support your content and SEO strategy.

For example, you may discover which types of content are most frequently surfaced by AI. Certain topics, formats or types of information may generate significantly more AI visibility than others.

You can also identify pages with unexpected growth potential.

Some pages may receive relatively little traditional organic traffic but generate a high number of AI impressions. These pages may therefore be more strategically valuable than traditional traffic metrics alone would suggest.

It is also useful to compare AI impressions before and after major content updates. Google continuously changes and improves its search systems, while websites regularly optimise their content.

By comparing different periods, you may be able to identify whether certain changes have had a positive or negative impact on AI visibility.

What Can You Not Measure Yet?

Although Google Search Console provides useful AI-related data, there are still several limitations.

• The reporting has not necessarily been rolled out to every website. Some websites may have access while others do not.
• A website may also need to generate enough AI impressions before certain data becomes available. If you cannot see AI-related information in Google Search Console, this does not automatically mean that your website has no AI visibility.
• The reporting mainly provides information about dimensions such as pages, countries, devices and dates. It does not necessarily tell you the exact prompts or questions users entered that caused your content to appear.
• As a result, the report still provides limited insight into exactly why your website became visible and which AI appearances ultimately generated clicks.
• You may also have limited ability to distinguish between visibility generated specifically through AI Overviews and AI Mode. In some reporting contexts, AI visibility may be grouped together rather than separated by individual AI feature.

These limitations mean that the data is valuable, but it should still be interpreted within the broader context of your SEO and analytics strategy.

How Can You Improve Your Visibility in AI?

There are several ways to improve your chances of gaining visibility within AI-powered search experiences.

Start by creating content that directly answers the questions your target audience is asking. AI systems rely on information from sources such as websites, recognised entities and brand mentions to generate useful responses.

Think about the problems, questions and concerns your audience has regarding a particular product, service or subject.

Create content that provides clear answers to these questions. The information should be relevant, original, reliable and concise.

Structured content can also make it easier for both users and search engines to understand your information. Clear headings, direct answers, supporting details and well-organised pages can all contribute to making your content more useful.

Ultimately, the goal is not simply to create content "for AI". The goal is to create valuable content that provides strong, clear answers to real user questions.

From an SEO Dashboard to an AI Dashboard

Many companies already use an SEO dashboard to track organic performance.

Traditionally, such a dashboard may contain metrics such as keyword rankings, organic impressions, clicks and organic traffic.

As AI-powered search becomes more important, AI visibility can become another layer within that dashboard.

By adding AI-related Search Console data, organisations can build a more complete picture of their visibility across Google's search ecosystem.

The central question is therefore changing.

Instead of asking only:

How high does our website rank?

Businesses increasingly need to ask:

How visible are our brand and our content across Google Search and Google's AI experiences?

Answering this question can help organisations adapt their SEO strategy and remain visible as search continues to evolve.

AI Visibility Is Becoming a Real SEO KPI

One of the biggest advantages of the developments within Google Search Console is that SEO teams are gaining more measurable data about their visibility within AI-driven search results.

The reporting is still limited, but it represents an important step towards more practical AI and GEO monitoring.

This makes it worthwhile to start measuring AI visibility now.

Establish a baseline, identify the content that receives above-average AI visibility and analyse what makes those pages successful. From there, you can optimise existing content and develop new pages based on the patterns you discover.

SEO is no longer only about ranking in a list of search results. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into search, visibility within AI-generated experiences is becoming an important part of organic search performance as well.