Search Console AI Overview and AI Mode Numbers

If your Average Position jumped or your impression totals look off after AI Overviews and AI Mode showed up more often, you are probably reading two different layers of Search Console as if they were one. Google rolled the Generative AI performance report and the Search generative AI control out to every site on August 31, 2026. The dedicated Gen AI report is impressions-only. Position still lives in the main Performance report, where AI Overview links are counted as one block.

This post is about reading those numbers without double-counting or trusting Average Position the way you did when results were mostly ten blue links. It is separate from the multimodal Search Console filter. That filter is about image-led queries. This one is about generative AI features on Search.

What the Generative AI performance report shows

Google's help doc for the Generative AI performance report (Search) says it covers impressions in:

AI Overviews
AI Mode

As of August 31, 2026, the report is available for all websites worldwide. Search Labs experiments are not included.

Impressions here mean how many times links to your site were shown in a generative AI feature on Google Search. You can break the data down by:

Pages (canonical URL after redirects)
Countries
Devices (desktop, tablet, mobile)
Dates (Pacific Time, same rules as the main Performance report)

You can also filter by search type: Web text-based vs Web multimodal (image-led searches such as Lens or Circle to Search).

What the Gen AI report does not give you in the dedicated view: clicks, queries, or position. Use it for page-level AI visibility trends, not for ranking storytelling.

Chart vs table aggregation matters. On the chart, if two results from the same site appear in one generative AI feature, they count as a single impression for the property total. Page grouping in the table counts per page. Chart and table totals can disagree for that reason.

These impressions also sit in the main Performance report

Google's June 3, 2026 Search Central launch post is clear: generative AI visibility is included in the overall Performance report, and the Gen AI report is a dedicated view of that slice.

Practical rule: do not add Generative AI report totals on top of your main Performance totals. You would be counting the same AI impressions twice. Use the Gen AI report to isolate AI Overviews and AI Mode. Use the main report for the full Search picture that already includes them.

How position is counted for AI Overviews and AI Mode

Position still comes from the main Performance methodology, documented in Google's "What are impressions, position, and clicks?" help page.

AI Overviews: An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results. Every link inside that Overview is assigned that same position. Search Console is not reporting which citation sat first, second, or third inside the block.

AI Mode: Position follows the same methodology as a Google Search results page. Carousel and image blocks inside AI Mode use the standard rules for those element types. A follow-up question inside AI Mode is treated as a new query.

John Mueller put the limits in plain language on Reddit (covered by Search Engine Roundtable, Sep 10, 2026): Google is tracking these features "like we do for many search features (as a block)," and "the old 'position 1 - 10' is hard to map, or to make useful for site owners." A week later on LinkedIn (Roundtable, Sep 16, 2026), he said position and impression tracking for AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Search will "evolve over time," that there are edge cases, and that Google will update the docs when there are significant changes.

The Average Position trap

Because every link in an AI Overview inherits the block's position, Average Position in the main report mixes:

Classic organic placements (position varies by link)
AI Overview citations that all share one block position
Other features that also flatten to a block

Hypothetical example only: if one query credits your page at position 1 inside an AI Overview block, and another query credits the same page at organic position 19, the average of those two impressions is 10. That "10" is not a stable rank you can chase the way you chased classic page-one slots.

Do not build a monthly narrative around a 0.5-point Average Position move if AI Overview share is rising. Prefer:

Page-level impressions in the Generative AI report
Clicks and conversions from Analytics or your CRM
Spot checks of live SERPs for your money queries

Search generative AI control: what it does and does not do

Under Settings > Search generative AI, owners can:

Include the site's links and content in Search generative AI features (default)
Exclude them
Inherit the parent property's setting

Exclusion covers AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover. Excluded sites are not shown as links in those features and are not used to ground those AI responses. You will not get traffic or impressions from those features while excluded.

Google's control help doc is explicit about the boundaries:

The control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search.
It does not override Merchant Center or Google Ads participation choices.
Site content may still help Google understand language on the web generally.
It does not control AI training. For that, use Google-Extended.
To leave Search entirely, use noindex.

Timing: after you change the control, exclusion generally takes a few days. Google says content is usually excluded within 1-2 days after the control goes live, with some pages taking longer because of caching and propagation.

Trade-off in one line: excluding removes AI-feature visibility (and the Gen AI report will dry up for those surfaces). It does not "boost" classic rankings. Measure with the Gen AI report before and after if you change it.

What to check monthly

A short pass that matches how the reports actually work:

Open Generative AI performance (Search). Confirm you have any impressions at all. Empty can mean low AI visibility or an exclude setting.
Sort Pages by impressions. Note which URLs keep showing up in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Check Countries and Devices for the same range. Do not invent query themes the report cannot show.
In the main Performance report, look at clicks and CTR for those same URLs. Do not treat Average Position alone as the story when AI share is rising.
Confirm Settings > Search generative AI still matches your intent (include vs exclude vs inherit).
Spot-check a handful of commercial queries in an incognito window. Reporting and the live SERP both matter because position rules for these features will keep changing.

If you run SEO reporting for clients, put Gen AI impressions next to visits and leads, not next to a classic "we moved from position 8 to 6" slide.

Sources

Generative AI performance report (Search) (Search Console Help; worldwide rollout Aug 31, 2026)
Search generative AI control (Search Console Help)
Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports (Google Search Central, Jun 3, 2026)
What are impressions, position, and clicks? (Search Console Help; AI Overviews and AI Mode sections)
Google: The Old Position 1-10 Is Hard To Map (Search Engine Roundtable, Sep 10, 2026)
Google Search Console AI Position Reporting Will Evolve (Search Engine Roundtable, Sep 16, 2026)