TL;DR
- Google's note reads: As of August 31, 2026, we've rolled out this control to all websites worldwide. Owners who still see nothing are told the site may have too little data, and no threshold was published.
- The opt-out is property level. It blocks a site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover, both as links and for grounding, and removes traffic and impressions from those surfaces.
- The report carries impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates with hourly granularity. It has no click data and no query data.
- The UK CMA has given Google until March 2027 for page level controls, and the 31 August updates said nothing about click reporting.
Google confirmed on 31 August 2026 that the Search generative AI control, the property level setting that lets a site owner block a site from Google's AI features, has finished rolling out to every website worldwide. Search Engine Roundtable reported on 1 September 2026 that both the control and the generative AI performance report in Search Console are now released to everyone globally, after a slow rollout that began in the first week of June 2026.
The control is the part that is new. The report had already been turning up on properties through August, and those first sightings came from people looking at their own Search Console accounts rather than from anything Google published. What arrived on 31 August is Google's own written confirmation, in the form of a note added to two of its blog posts and to its help document: "Note: As of August 31, 2026, we've rolled out this control to all websites worldwide."
What changed on 31 August, and what was already known
It is worth separating the two things, because they have been reported together and they are not the same event. The generative AI performance report showing up under the Performance report in Search Console was an observation. Site owners saw a new tab, and the search press wrote it up. Google had not said the rollout was finished, and the report was still arriving on accounts unevenly.
The 31 August update does two things that the earlier sightings did not. It puts a completion date on the record in Google's own words, and it extends the same worldwide availability to the opt-out toggle, which had been the slower of the two features to travel. Until now a site owner outside the original test group could see the data without necessarily having the setting that acts on it.
Google's note also handles the obvious follow-up question. If a site owner still does not see the report, it may be because there is not enough data for the site to have one. Google did not publish a threshold, and Search Engine Roundtable did not report one, so any specific minimum impression figure circulating for this is not coming from this source.
What the Search generative AI control actually does
The Search generative AI control is a property specific setting that lives in the Settings area of Search Console. It lets a site owner block that site's content from appearing in or around AI features such as AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Overviews in Discover. The block covers two uses at once: appearing as a link, and being used for grounding, which is the model drawing on the page to compose an answer.
Two consequences follow from switching it on, and they are worth stating separately because they are often collapsed into one. A site that opts out receives no traffic from those surfaces. It also receives no impressions from them, which means the performance report for that property stops measuring anything on the AI side.
Google states that the setting is not used as a ranking signal elsewhere in Search. It also states that the setting has no effect on AI training, which is governed by the separate Google-Extended control. Those are two different levers with two different scopes, and turning one does not touch the other.
What the report contains, and what it leaves out
The generative AI performance report appears as an expandable tab under the main Performance report in Search Console. According to Search Engine Roundtable, it carries the following dimensions and nothing beyond them.
- Impressions, meaning how often URLs from the site appeared in generative AI features in Search and Discover.
- Pages, so a site owner can check which URLs appeared within AI features.
- Countries, for visibility on a country by country basis.
- Devices, identifying what people were using when they saw the site. This one is available for Search results only.
- Dates, with hourly, daily, weekly and monthly granularity.
There is no click data and no query data. That absence is the most consequential line in the whole release. A site owner can see that a page was surfaced in an AI feature, in which country, on which device, and at what hour. They cannot see whether anyone clicked through from it, and they cannot see which query produced it. The report answers where you appeared, not what you earned or why you were pulled in.
How the rollout reached this point
The dates below all come from the sequence Search Engine Roundtable set out, and they matter because the opt-out toggle did not appear on its own timetable. It arrived alongside a regulatory requirement.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 3 June 2026 | Google announced the generative AI performance reports and the opt-out control together, and began testing with a select group of UK website owners |
| 3 June 2026 | The UK Competition and Markets Authority issued a conduct requirement obliging Google to let websites opt out of AI search features without being penalised in standard search results |
| July 2026 | The control started appearing on accounts outside the UK |
| 31 August 2026 | Google added a note to its blog posts and help document saying the control had rolled out to all websites worldwide |
| March 2027 | CMA deadline for Google to introduce page level controls for generative AI features |
Read in order, the timeline says that the opt-out and the reporting were designed as a pair, that they were built against a UK regulatory clock, and that the global release is the point at which a requirement written for one market became a setting on every property in the world.
The regulator's list is not finished
Two items on the CMA's list are still open, and both change what this feature is worth.
The first is granularity. The CMA has given Google until March 2027 to introduce page level controls for generative AI features. The setting available today is property level, which means it is all or nothing for a site. A publisher who wants its archive excluded but its product pages included has no way to express that yet.
The second is click reporting. The regulator is expecting click-through data, and the 31 August updates did not mention it. No date was given for when clicks might appear in the report. Anyone planning a measurement approach around AI surfaces should treat click data as unscheduled rather than imminent.
There is also a smaller inconsistency worth knowing about before anyone files a support ticket. Google's help pages still describe the rollout as in progress, even though Google says the reports are now available everywhere. A site owner reading the documentation and the blog note side by side will find them disagreeing.
A decision you cannot measure your way out of
What follows is reasoning about the feature rather than a claim Google or Search Engine Roundtable made.
The opt-out and the report are asymmetric in a way that makes the decision harder than it looks. Switching the control on removes a site from AI features entirely: no links, no grounding, no impressions, no traffic. Switching it off restores eligibility. But the data a site owner would need to weigh that trade, the clicks those AI surfaces actually send, is the one thing the report does not contain.
So the honest framing is this. A site owner can measure the visibility they are giving up in impressions. They cannot measure the traffic they are giving up, at least not from this report. Anyone treating the toggle as a reversible experiment should be clear that the experiment produces a before and after in impressions only, and that any read on sessions has to come from analytics, where AI feature referrals are not cleanly separable either.
Who this affects, and who it does not
The people for whom this is an immediate decision are publishers whose content is being summarised rather than visited, sites under a licensing arrangement that constrains where their text may be reused, and organisations with a legal or editorial reason to stay out of generated answers. For them the toggle is the first practical mechanism Google has offered.
For most commercial sites this is not a decision at all. Appearing in AI features is generally the goal, and the report is the first party record of whether it is happening. The relevant work is reading the report, not acting on the setting.
The control also does not do several things it is sometimes assumed to do. It does not stop other search engines or AI assistants from using a site. It does not stop Google using content for AI training, which is the Google-Extended control's job. And per Google, it does not affect ranking in standard Search results.
What this means for Thai marketers
Nothing in this release is specific to Thailand, and Search Engine Roundtable reported no Thai detail. What is practical this week is checking three things in Search Console rather than changing anything.
First, open the Performance report and look for the expandable generative AI tab. If it is missing, the likely reason is the volume note Google published rather than a fault. Second, open Settings and confirm whether the Search generative AI control is present and, more to the point, what state it is in, because on a property with several people holding owner access a setting that blocks AI eligibility is not something to discover months later. Third, use the country dimension to see what share of AI impressions come from Thailand as opposed to elsewhere, since that ratio is the only market level signal the report offers.
For sites running Thai and English on one property, the property level scope is the constraint to plan around. The setting cannot be applied to one language folder and not the other. If that separation matters, it is an argument for how properties are structured, which sits alongside the usual work in SEO for Thai websites and any structural review done during an SEO audit. Teams building toward visibility in generated answers will find the impressions and pages dimensions are the closest thing to a scoreboard that generative engine optimisation has had so far.
What the source did not say
Being clear about the gaps is more useful than filling them. Search Engine Roundtable did not report a threshold or any figure for what counts as not enough data. It did not report a date for click reporting or query reporting. It did not report how many sites have used the opt-out, or any breakdown by country or vertical. It did not report anything specific to Thailand or to Southeast Asia. And it did not report any measured traffic impact from opting out, in either direction.
FAQ: the Search generative AI control
Is the Search generative AI control available to everyone now?
Yes. Google added a note on 31 August 2026 saying the control has been rolled out to all websites worldwide, and Search Engine Roundtable reported the global release on 1 September 2026. It is a property specific setting found in Settings in Search Console.
Does opting out affect normal Google rankings?
No, according to Google, which states the setting is not used as a ranking signal elsewhere in Search. Opting out does remove the site from AI features, so there is no traffic and no impressions from those surfaces.
Does the opt-out also stop Google using my content for AI training?
No. Google states the setting has no effect on AI training, which is governed by the separate Google-Extended control. The two settings cover different things and have to be handled separately.
Why can I not see the generative AI performance report?
Google says a site owner may not see it because there is not enough data for the site to have the report. Google did not publish a threshold, so there is no public number for how many impressions a property needs.
Does the report show clicks from AI Overviews?
No. The report contains impressions, pages, countries, devices for Search results, and dates, with no click data and no query data. The UK CMA is expecting click-through data, but the 31 August updates did not mention it and no date has been given.
If your Search Console now shows the generative AI tab, the useful next step is reading it against the pages you actually want cited, then deciding whether anything about your property structure needs to change before page level controls arrive in 2027. Relevant Audience works with Thai and international teams on exactly that kind of visibility question.
