Search results on Google now include generative AI experiences, and for a long time website owners could only guess whether their pages were part of them. In 2026 Google added reports in Search Console for that visibility. A UK business can see impressions in those features instead of inferring them from a traffic dip. The number is a start. It is not, on its own, a picture of whether the site is winning work.
The useful habit is the one good SEO already uses. Look at where pages appear, then look at what visitors do afterwards. An impression inside an AI answer that never becomes a visit is a different outcome from a page that still earns the click.
What the new reports show
Google's Search Central post on generative AI performance reports describes the reports. Google said they became available worldwide on 31 August 2026. They show impressions for URLs that appear in Google's generative AI features, which pages receive those impressions, and visibility by country. For Search results, the data can also be reviewed by device and over time. The reports sit beside the existing performance data rather than replacing it. AI Overviews and AI Mode are the search experiences in view, along with Discover.
Google Search Central explains those reports in its Q2 2026 Search briefing, presented by John Mueller. The episode also covers other Search updates, including controls for website owners. The part that belongs with this article is the generative AI performance report: impressions in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover, read beside the ordinary performance report rather than instead of it.
Google's documentation on AI features explains how those appearances fit into Search. Google's note for website owners covers the controls and context around the same change. Together they are the primary sources. A screenshot of someone else's dashboard is not.
How a UK team should read the numbers
The report tells you whether pages are being surfaced, whether that visibility is moving, and which topics might deserve a closer look. It counts impressions. It should be read with organic clicks, conversions, on-site engagement and qualified leads. A service page that appears often in an AI Overview and still brings the right enquiries is doing a job. A page that appears often and no longer brings visits needs a look at whether the answer on the results page is replacing the click, and whether the page itself gives a reason to continue.
Country and device filters matter for a UK firm. Visibility in another market, or only on desktop, is not the same as being found by a customer on a phone in Birmingham. Compare the AI report with the ordinary Search Console performance report for the same pages and the same dates. The gap between the two is the interesting part. How UK businesses can prepare for AI search sets out the wider approach: sound technical SEO, plus information that is clear enough for an answer engine to represent fairly.
The fundamentals have not been replaced
Google's guidance says established SEO still applies to these AI features. Pages need to be available for crawling and indexing. They need to be useful to people. Internal links should make the important pages easy to reach. Text should be clear, and media should fit the page. Google also says there are no special technical requirements, and no AI-specific schema, required to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A team that spends the quarter inventing markup for a feature Google says does not need it is not spending the quarter on the page.
- Confirm the important URLs can be crawled and indexed, with sensible canonicals and a sitemap.
- Write pages that answer the questions customers actually ask, in language a non-specialist can follow.
- Link related services together so both people and crawlers can find the next page.
- Read AI impressions next to clicks, enquiries and the ordinary performance report.
- Do not add schema that does not match the visible page, and do not add schema only in the hope of an AI citation.
Original, trustworthy content is still the point. A page written only to be quoted by an AI answer, with nothing a visitor needs once they arrive, is a weak page. The site has to be worth the visit: a clearer explanation, a proof of the work, a way to ask. That is also how a business stays visible if the AI experience changes again.
Use the report in the existing workflow
Open Search Console, find pages with visibility in the AI features, and put that list next to analytics and the enquiries those pages produce. Then decide. A page with impressions and no depth might need a better explanation of the service. A page with neither impressions nor clicks might be the wrong URL for the query, or it might be blocked, slow, or orphaned from the rest of the site. Accessibility and page quality still affect whether that visit works once it happens. The WebAIM findings on homepage failures are a reminder that a page can be indexed and still be hard to use.
Measure over time rather than reacting to one week. The reports support a trend. They do not justify rewriting the site around a single AI mode. Search intent, service pages and internal links remain the work.
Keep the site worth visiting
Digital marketing and SEO for a UK business should now include this report, read with the rest of Search Console and with the enquiries the site actually generates. Web development still has to make those pages crawlable, fast and structured, because an AI impression does not repair a site that cannot be indexed or used.
Web Works Rise is a UK-led team in Birmingham, with a development hub in Tunisia for delivery. If you want the new AI reports interpreted against the pages and the enquiries you care about, talk to the team. The goal is a site people can find and a reason for them to arrive, whether the result is a classic listing or an AI overview.