Google has until 3 December 2026 to show UK site owners how many clicks their pages receive from AI Overviews and AI Mode. The deadline was set by the Competition and Markets Authority, and as of early November Google had nothing to announce on when that data will reach Search Console.
AI Overviews arrived in UK search results in August 2024 and AI Mode followed in July 2025, and search behaviour has moved faster than the reporting built to measure it. Site owners waited more than 21 months for Google to separate AI impressions from standard search data, while the clicks behind those impressions remain folded into overall web totals. Microsoft has reported AI citations, and the grounding queries behind them, in Bing Webmaster Tools since February 2026.
For brands that depend on organic visibility, AI visibility tracking now has to run on the first-party data both platforms already provide, structured so that Google’s click data slots in the day it arrives. We set out what the CMA requires, what each platform reports today and how we approach tracking either side of the deadline.
Key takeaways
- The CMA requires Google to give UK publishers impressions, clicks and click-through rate for AI Overviews and AI Mode by 3 December 2026.
- Search Console’s Generative AI report shows impressions only, and clicks from AI features are still mixed into standard web totals.
- AI Overviews reached UK search results in August 2024, more than 21 months before Google offered any separate AI reporting.
- Bing Webmaster Tools has reported AI citations, cited pages and grounding queries since February 2026, and added intents, topics and citation share in June.
- Grounding queries show the phrases an AI system used to retrieve a page, a layer of data Google does not expose.
- AI visibility tracking should baseline AI impressions now, add Bing citation data and be ready to compare clicks once Google ships them.
What has the CMA told Google to report?
The CMA imposed its publisher conduct requirement on Google on 3 June 2026, the first conduct requirement under the UK’s digital markets regime. It requires Google to give publishers impressions, clicks and click-through rate for their content, aggregated across AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, along with referral data that shows the quality of the traffic those features send.
The CMA’s interpretive notes require the data to be broken down by individual publisher and to show whether content appeared in an AI feature or an organic result. It must be delivered through a commonly accessible platform such as Search Console, unless Google demonstrates compliance another way.
Google has until 3 December 2026 to comply, with a further three months to roll out page-level controls. Its first compliance report, covering 3 June to 3 December, is due to the CMA on 3 January 2027, and the CMA plans a separate notice requiring Google to publish a non-confidential version of each report.
What does Search Console show for AI search today?
Search Console’s Generative AI performance report began a phased rollout in June 2026 and reached all sites worldwide on 31 August 2026. It counts impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode combined, broken down by page, country, device and date, with a separate report for generative AI features in Discover.
The report contains no clicks, no click-through rate and no queries. Clicks on links in AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the standard Performance report alongside every other web result, and none of its Search Appearance filters isolates AI features. Each follow-up question in AI Mode registers as a new query in the same report.
This blending dates back to June 2025, when Google confirmed that AI Mode clicks, impressions and position data count toward existing Web Search totals. In the Search Console properties we manage, the Generative AI report holds no data before 18 May 2026, and its figures have to be exported manually because the reporting connectors we use do not expose them.
On 2 November 2026, Google’s Gary Illyes said the Search team wants to share more data but had nothing to announce on clicks. That left Google one month from the CMA deadline with no public timeline.
How has search behaviour changed since AI Overviews launched?
Google brought AI Overviews to the UK on 15 August 2024 as part of an expansion to six new countries. AI Mode followed on 28 July 2025, appearing as a tab on the results page and in the Google app. Our guide to how Google AI Overviews work covers the mechanics behind both features.
At Google I/O on 19 May 2026, Sundar Pichai said AI Overviews had more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode had passed 1 billion within a year of launch. Google reported the same day that AI Mode queries had more than doubled every quarter since launch.
The queries are changing in shape as well as volume. On Alphabet’s Q3 2026 earnings call on 28 October, Pichai said AI Mode queries are on average three times longer than traditional searches and that one in five AI Mode searches globally use voice, images or documents. He also said Google’s year-on-year query growth rate was the highest in five years.
Google also says these features send traffic, and on the Q2 2026 earnings call on 22 July Pichai said Google was sending billions of clicks to websites every week through AI features in Search. Those clicks exist in Google’s own data, and no site owner can yet see their share of them.
Why has Google been slow to share AI click data?
More than 21 months passed between AI Overviews reaching UK search results in August 2024 and the first separate AI reporting in Search Console in June 2026, and that reporting stops at impressions. Google began the rollout in the same month the CMA imposed its publisher conduct requirement, and click data is now on a legal deadline.
Every usage figure in the previous section came from Google’s own announcements, including the billions of weekly clicks its AI features send to websites. None of that data is yet available to an individual site owner for their own pages, so no one outside Google can see how many AI searches end as zero-click searches for a given site.
UK publishers are now weighing Google’s opt-out for AI features, which covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover as a single bundle, and many are waiting for click data before deciding whether that visibility is worth keeping. For brands measured on leads and revenue, the same gap means decisions about AI search are being made on impressions alone.
What does Bing’s AI Performance report show?
Microsoft launched AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools as a public preview on 10 February 2026, almost four months before Google’s Generative AI report began rolling out. It reports how often a site is cited in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations.
The dashboard shows total citations, the average number of unique pages cited per day, citation counts for individual URLs, a timeline of citation activity and grounding queries. Microsoft has since added a view that shows the grounding queries behind each cited page.
On 16 June 2026, Microsoft added four more features in preview. Intents classifies grounding queries into categories such as informational, commercial and navigational, and Topics groups related queries into clusters. Citation Share shows the percentage of citations for a grounding query that go to a given site, and Compare overlays one time period on another.
Bing does not report clicks either. Both Microsoft announcements describe citation and query data only, and Microsoft states that Citation Share does not represent traffic share. Bing’s report does show the retrieval context behind each citation, which Google’s report omits entirely.
What are grounding queries and why do they matter?
Microsoft defines grounding queries as the key phrases an AI system used when retrieving content that was later referenced in an AI-generated answer. They are the searches an AI system runs on a user’s behalf after interpreting the prompt, and Microsoft describes the data as a sample of overall citation activity.
Grounding queries show which phrasing pulls a page into an AI answer and which pages are retrieved for which topics. They also show which queries earn few citations, which flags the pages to improve first. With Intents and Citation Share added, they show what kind of request triggered each citation and how much of the available citation activity a site earns for each query.
The same retrieval step sits behind other AI assistants, as our breakdown of how ChatGPT search works sets out. Bing’s grounding data is the clearest first-party record of that step available to site owners today.
How should AI visibility tracking work before and after 3 December?
We treat AI visibility tracking as a first-party measurement job, using Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools as the base. Third-party prompt trackers sit alongside that data as a sample of what assistants say for a fixed set of prompts.
Baseline AI impressions now
Export Search Console’s Generative AI report by page each month and store it outside the tool, so there is a record of AI impressions before click data arrives. Pages with high AI impressions and flat organic clicks are the first to check once AI clicks become visible.
Add Bing citation data
Sites not yet verified in Bing Webmaster Tools can import their properties from Search Console, and the AI Performance report populates from there. We store citations and grounding queries by date, page and query in a single sheet, which makes it simple to compare citation trends with Google’s impression trends page by page.
Separate AI referrals in GA4
Traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini arrives in GA4 as referral traffic, and a custom channel group or calculated field on session source keeps it out of generic referral totals. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode currently arrive as standard Google organic traffic.
Annotate the deadline
Mark 3 December 2026 in reporting dashboards, along with the date click data actually appears. When clicks arrive, compare them with the impression baseline by page, and check AI click-through rate against standard organic click-through rate for the same pages.
Preparing for Google’s AI click data
Google’s click data will turn AI search visibility from an impressions count into a commercial measure, as long as the tracking is in place to read it. Brands that baseline AI impressions now, add Bing’s citation and grounding query data and separate AI referrals in GA4 will see from the first day what AI Overviews and AI Mode are worth in traffic, leads and revenue.
For a quick view of where a site stands today, the Search Radar checks Google search and AI visibility and what AI assistants say about a business, free of charge (with no sign up).
Frequently asked questions
How do you track AI visibility?
AI visibility tracking combines first-party data from Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools with third-party prompt tracking across assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Search Console’s Generative AI report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. Bing’s AI Performance report shows citations, cited pages and grounding queries across Copilot and Bing. Prompt trackers record what assistants say about a brand for a fixed set of prompts.
How do you track AI Mode traffic?
AI Mode clicks are counted inside Search Console’s standard Performance report and are not separated from other web clicks. The Generative AI report shows AI Mode impressions, combined with AI Overviews, by page, country, device and date. The CMA requires Google to provide AI clicks and click-through rate to UK publishers by 3 December 2026, which will separate AI feature clicks from standard web clicks for the first time.
Does Search Console show AI Overview clicks?
No, Search Console does not show clicks from AI Overviews separately as of November 2026. Clicks on links in AI Overviews and AI Mode count as standard clicks in the Performance report, and the Generative AI report shows impressions only. Google must provide AI impressions, clicks and click-through rate to UK publishers by 3 December 2026 under a CMA conduct requirement.
What are grounding queries?
Grounding queries are the phrases an AI system uses to retrieve web content that it then cites in an AI-generated answer. Bing Webmaster Tools reports them in its AI Performance report, launched in public preview on 10 February 2026, as a sample of a site’s citation activity across Copilot and Bing. Since June 2026 the report also classifies grounding queries by intent and topic and shows each site’s citation share.
Why should I track AI brand visibility?
Tracking AI brand visibility shows whether a brand appears in the answers AI Overviews, AI Mode and assistants such as Copilot give to its customers. Google reported in May 2026 that AI Overviews have more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode more than 1 billion. Citation and impression data shows which pages AI systems draw on, and click data will show how much traffic and how many leads that visibility produces.
Is there an AI visibility rank tracker available?
Yes, several third-party AI visibility trackers monitor brand mentions and citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google’s AI features. They run a fixed set of prompts and record the answers, so their data is a sample. Bing Webmaster Tools is the only major search platform reporting first-party AI citation data, including grounding queries and citation share, and Search Console reports AI impressions only.
