If you are trying to find AI Mode traffic in Search Console, here is the short answer. Google says clicks and impressions from AI Mode will be counted inside your normal Performance report, under the “Web” search type. There will be no separate AI Mode filter or report. And at the time I’m writing this, early June 2025, Google says the AI Mode data is not live in Search Console yet.
So you cannot open a report today and see “AI Mode: 120 clicks”. What you can do is understand how the data will be mixed in, set a clean baseline now, and know which numbers to watch. That is what this guide covers.
What Google Has Confirmed About AI Mode Traffic in Search Console
AI Mode started as a Search Labs test on 5 March 2025. At Google I/O on 20 May 2025, Google said it was rolling AI Mode out to everyone in the US, with no Labs sign-up needed. That rollout is why so many site owners started asking where the traffic would show.
Google answered in its Search Central documentation on AI features and your website. The page says sites that appear in AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console. It also says this data is reported in the Performance report, within the “Web” search type.
Shortly after, Google’s John Mueller added some detail in public comments in late May:
- Not live yet. AI Mode reporting was not yet live in Search Console.
- It is planned. Google plans to add AI Mode data to Search Console.
- No separate break-out. There is currently no plan to show AI Mode as its own filter or search type.
- No API change. The Search Console API will not get a new field or dimension for it.
That last point matters if you pull data into Looker Studio, BigQuery or a spreadsheet. Your reports will not break, but they also will not get a new “AI Mode” column.
Mueller also said more specifics might follow soon, without promising a date. So treat this article as a guide to what is known right now. I’ll be checking Google’s help pages every week until the details land.
How AI Mode Data Will Show in the Performance Report
The Performance report shows four main metrics: clicks, impressions, CTR (click-through rate, which is clicks divided by impressions) and average position. You can view them by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date.
Based on what Google has said, AI Mode activity will simply be added to those same totals. Here is what that means in practice:
- Same search type. AI Mode data goes into “Web”. It will not appear under Image, Video or News, and there is no separate “AI” search type.
- No Search appearance filter. The Search appearance tab has no AI Overview option today, and Google has not said it will add one for AI Mode.
- Mixed with normal results. A click from AI Mode and a click from a regular blue link will look the same in your totals.
- Same queries and pages view. You will see the queries and pages, but not which surface the click came from.
In my opinion, this is the part that frustrates people most. AI Mode sits in its own tab in Google Search, so many SEOs expected it to get its own search type. For now, it is being treated like any other part of Google Search.
How AI Overviews Are Counted (the Closest Guide We Have)
Google has not yet published the exact counting rules for AI Mode. But it has published rules for AI Overviews, which have been in the same “Web” data since 2024. These rules sit in the Search Console help page on how impressions, position and clicks are counted.
For AI Overviews, Google says:
- Click: clicking a link to an external page in the AI Overview counts as a click.
- Impression: standard impression rules apply, so the link has to appear on the page of results the user is viewing.
- Position: the whole AI Overview takes one position in the results, and every link inside it gets that same position.
The same help page also says Search Console does not include data from Search Labs experiments. That is a useful detail for AI Mode. While AI Mode was a Labs-only test from March to May, its activity was not part of your Search Console numbers.
My guess is that AI Mode will follow similar ideas, especially for clicks. But AI Mode works differently from an AI Overview, so I would not assume the position and impression rules are the same until Google says so.
What We Still Don’t Know
I’d rather tell you what is unclear than guess. These are the open questions I’m watching:
How Follow-Up Questions Are Counted
In AI Mode, people often ask a follow-up question in the same chat. It is not yet clear if Search Console will treat a follow-up as a new query, or link it to the first question. This could change which queries your pages appear for in the report.
What “Position” Means in AI Mode
An AI Mode answer is not a list of ten results. Links can appear inside the text and in a panel beside it. Google has not said how it will turn that layout into a position number.
When the Data Starts
Google has not given a start date. Once it goes live, I’d also want to know if the data is added from the start of the US rollout or only from the day reporting begins.
Whether AI Mode Will Get Its Own Filter Later
“No separate break-out planned” is a statement about today. Google has added new filters to Search Console before, so this could change. I would not build my reporting around that hope, though.
Why AI Mode Data Can Change Your Numbers
Once AI Mode data starts flowing in, your Performance report may move in ways that have nothing to do with your rankings. These are the effects I’d look out for.
Impressions Can Rise Without Clicks
If your page is shown as a source in many AI answers but people do not click, impressions go up and CTR goes down. On a chart, that can look like a problem when your site is actually being shown more.
Average Position Can Shift
Average position is an average across every impression. Adding a new type of impression with its own position rules can move the average, even when your normal rankings stay the same.
New, Longer Queries Can Appear
Google built AI Mode for longer, more detailed questions. So you may start to see longer, more conversational queries in your query list. Some will be so specific that Google hides them as anonymized queries (rare queries that Search Console leaves out of the query table to protect privacy). That means the query list may grow less than your totals do.
US Data Changes First
The full AI Mode rollout is US-only for now. If you get traffic from many countries, the effect should show in the United States first. Comparing the US with other countries will be one of the few ways to spot it.
How to Prepare Search Console for AI Mode Data
You can’t see AI Mode data yet, but you can get ready so you notice the change when it comes. This is the process I’m following on the sites I manage.
- Check you have access to the right property. Make sure your site is verified, ideally as a Domain property so it covers every subdomain and both http and https. If someone else owns it, ask to be added as a user.
- Export a baseline now. In the Performance report, set the date range to the last 3 months and export clicks, impressions, CTR and position by date, query, page and country. This gives you a “before” picture to compare with later.
- Write down key dates. Keep a simple change log with 20 May 2025 (the US rollout) and the date Google says reporting goes live. Add your own site changes too, so you don’t confuse them with AI Mode.
- Add the same dates to GA4. Mark the US rollout in GA4 with an annotation so anyone who opens your traffic reports sees it.
- Set up a long-query filter. Save a regex filter for long, question-style queries so you can track that group over time (example below).
- Split by country. Compare the United States with your other main countries each month. A change that shows only in the US is a clue.
- Check engagement in GA4. Look at engagement rate and conversions for Google organic traffic, not just clicks. Google says clicks from results pages with AI Overviews tend to be higher quality, with people spending more time on the site. Check if that holds for yours.
If you have not used GA4 annotations before, my guide to marking changes in your GA4 reports shows how to add them in a minute or two.
A Practical Filter for Long Queries
Because there is no AI Mode filter, I use a proxy: a filter for long queries. It won’t isolate AI Mode, but it tracks the kind of searches AI Mode is built for.
In the Performance report, click + Add filter, choose Query, then Custom (regex), and paste this pattern:
^(S+s+){6,}S+$This matches queries with seven or more words. If that’s too narrow for your niche, change the 6 to 4 to match queries with five or more words.
You can also filter for question queries:
^(how|what|why|when|where|which|who|can|does|is|should)bI check both groups by month and by country. If the long-query group in the US grows faster than the rest after AI Mode data goes live, that’s a reasonable sign of AI Mode at work. For more patterns, see my Search Console regex filter examples.
One honest warning: this is a pattern, not proof. People typed long questions into Google long before AI Mode. Use it to spot trends, not to report exact AI Mode numbers.
How to Read Your Reports After AI Mode Data Arrives
When the data goes live, it’s easy to read too much into one chart. Here is how I plan to read the numbers.
- Compare like with like. Use the compare option in the date picker to set the weeks after the start against the same weeks before. Avoid comparing across a core update or a big site change.
- Look at the four metrics together. Higher impressions with flat clicks and lower CTR usually means more visibility with fewer clicks, not lost rankings.
- Don’t panic over average position. A small change in average position after a change in counting is normal. Check the positions of your top pages for their main queries instead.
- Check pages, not just queries. The Pages tab is less affected by anonymized queries, so it gives a fuller view of which pages gained or lost.
- Use GA4 for what happens next. Search Console tells you about the search side. GA4 tells you if those visitors read, sign up or buy.
In my experience, the sites that handle changes like this well are the ones with a clear “before” picture. That’s why the baseline export in the steps above is the most important thing you can do this week.
How Search Console Fits With Other Tools
Search Console is still the only place to see Google’s own data on clicks and impressions from Search. Third-party rank trackers can check whether a page shows up in AI answers for a list of queries, but they don’t see real impression or click data from Google.
GA4 adds the visitor side, but it can’t split Google organic traffic into AI Mode and regular results either. Both tools will show AI Mode visits as part of normal Google traffic.
So for now, the best setup is simple: Search Console for search visibility, GA4 for what visitors do on your site, and your own notes for the dates that explain the changes.
What This Means for Your SEO Work
The reporting change doesn’t change what earns visibility. Google has said its AI features use the same core ranking and quality systems as normal Search, and that there are no special extra requirements to appear in them. Its advice, which I covered in Google’s tips on doing well in AI search, comes back to helpful content, good page experience and pages Google can crawl and index.
What I’d focus on is the content that matches AI Mode’s style of search. That means pages that answer a full question, cover the follow-up questions people usually have, and explain things in plain words. Those pages tend to do well in regular results too, so the work is not wasted either way.
I’d also be careful about reporting to clients or bosses. If someone asks “how much traffic do we get from AI Mode?”, the honest answer right now is “we can’t see that yet, and we may never see it as its own number.” It is better to set that expectation now than to explain later why the numbers look odd.
Conclusion
AI Mode traffic in Search Console will be counted in the same place as your other Google Search data: the Performance report, under the “Web” search type. Google has said there is no separate filter planned and no API change, and the data was not live at the start of June 2025.
That means you should prepare now. Export a baseline, note the key dates, save a long-query filter and watch the US numbers. When Google publishes the exact counting rules, you’ll be ready to read the change correctly. If you want the full picture of what Google launched for AI Mode in May, read my summary of the Google I/O 2025 Search announcements next.
