For businesses wondering how AI is changing search, Google has just given us another useful piece of the puzzle. Google Search Console now includes a dedicated Generative AI Performance report, allowing website owners to see how often their pages appear within features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. The report has now been rolled out worldwide. That’s a pretty significant step.
Until now, understanding whether your website was appearing within Google’s AI-generated search experiences was much harder to measure. We can now see AI impressions by areas including page, country, device and date.
There is, however, still plenty missing.
At the moment, the dedicated AI report focuses on impressions. We don’t get query-level data showing exactly what somebody searched before our website appeared, and we can’t see clicks specifically attributed through this report.
So, does this mean traditional SEO reporting is becoming less important?
Quite the opposite.
AI Makes SEO Tracking More Important
Search is becoming more complicated.
A potential customer might discover your business through a traditional organic result, an AI Overview, AI Mode, Google Maps or another search platform entirely.
That means simply checking where you rank for a handful of keywords is no longer enough.
Businesses need proper SEO tracking that looks at the bigger picture: keyword visibility, organic impressions, clicks, landing page performance, website engagement and, most importantly, conversions.
Traditional SEO data gives us the baseline needed to understand whether all this new AI visibility is actually contributing to business growth.
For example, if a key service page begins receiving significantly more AI impressions, we can compare this against its overall organic visibility, traffic and conversions. Without that tracking already in place, we are effectively looking at AI performance in isolation.
SEO Hasn’t Disappeared. Search Has Expanded.
AI search doesn’t suddenly make technical SEO, quality content, keyword research or website authority irrelevant.
If anything, those foundations matter even more.
Google’s AI features still surface and link to information from websites, meaning businesses need useful, authoritative and accessible content if they want to appear across both traditional and AI-powered search experiences.
The new Search Console reporting is a welcome addition, but it shouldn’t become your only measure of AI visibility. We’d use it alongside your wider SEO reporting, analytics and specialist AI visibility tools to build a much clearer picture.
If you’re unsure whether your SEO tracking is ready for an increasingly AI-led search landscape, get in touch with FUZE Agency. We can help you measure what matters and make sure your business stays visible as search continues to evolve.
