What does Google Search Console now show about AI answers?
Since June 2026 Google has been rolling out generative AI performance reports in Search Console. They show how often each of your URLs appeared in AI Overviews, AI Mode and the AI features in Discover, broken down by page, country, device and date.
Two limits matter. The reports count impressions, not clicks, and Google has not committed to adding them. And they reached a subset of sites first, so if you cannot see them in your account, that is the rollout rather than a problem with your site.
Even impressions alone answer a useful question: which of your pages Google is willing to use in an AI answer at all. If your product pages never appear and a two-year-old blog post appears often, that tells you where Google finds something worth quoting.
What does Bing Webmaster Tools show?
Bing's AI Performance report goes further in one respect. It lists the grounding queries, meaning the search queries Microsoft's AI ran when it cited your site, and the pages cited for each.
On 13 October 2026 Bing added Topics Portfolio, a beta view that groups those queries into themes. For each theme it shows how many citations the topic gets across all sites, how many sites compete for it, and a list of opportunity queries where other sites are cited and yours is not. Bing calls these figures directional, so treat that last list as a directional list of gaps rather than a ranking.
Smaller sites may see few topics or none, because Bing only shows a theme once there is enough data. That is a reading on your current presence, not a fault in the tool.
Why should an Indian B2B company look at Bing?
Few Indian buyers use Bing directly. That is not the point. Bing's index sits behind Microsoft Copilot, which is built into Windows 11 and Microsoft 365, and it has been widely reported as one of the sources ChatGPT draws on when it searches the web. The Bing report is the nearest free view of how those assistants see your pages.
A monthly routine
- In Search Console, open the generative AI report, set the last 28 days, and note the five pages with most AI impressions. Compare with last month.
- In the same account, check the ordinary Performance report for the same pages. Rising AI impressions with falling clicks is the pattern described in the AI Overviews click study.
- In Bing Webmaster Tools, open AI Performance and note your top grounding queries.
- Open Topics Portfolio, if it shows, and copy the opportunity queries for your main product theme into a list. Those are candidates for new or expanded pages.
- Put the same three or four buyer questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, as set out in how to check what AI assistants say about your company.
If you have not yet verified your site in Bing, it can import the setup from Search Console in a few clicks. More on the wider picture is in the AI Visibility section.
Questions founders ask
Does Google Search Console show AI Overview traffic?
It shows impressions, not clicks. The generative AI performance reports, announced in June 2026, show how often your URLs appeared in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover AI features, by page, country, device and date. They were rolled out to a subset of sites first, so yours may not have them yet.
What is the Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?
A beta tab inside the AI Performance report, launched on 13 October 2026. It groups the queries where Microsoft's AI answers cite your site into themes and shows, for each theme, how many sites compete and which queries cite other sites but not yours.
Why should an Indian business bother with Bing at all?
Bing's index feeds Microsoft Copilot and has been widely reported as one of the sources behind ChatGPT's web answers, so Bing Webmaster Tools is the closest free view of how those assistants see your site. Setting it up takes about ten minutes if Search Console is already verified.
Do these reports replace asking the assistants directly?
No. They tell you where your pages were shown or cited, but not what the assistants say about your company or whether they recommend you. A monthly set of real buyer questions put to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity is still needed alongside them.