Gsc AI Performance

/digital-marketing-pro:gsc-ai-performance

Purpose

Google rolled out a new GSC AI Performance Report on 3 June 2026 (Search Engine Land announcement) covering both AI Overviews and AI Mode in a single combined surface. This skill helps you (a) baseline a brand's visibility in the new report, (b) understand the metric trade-offs, and (c) decide whether to use the new in-SC opt-out toggle.

What is genuinely new (3 June 2026)

Critical interpretation guidance: The report shows when your pages were SHOWN in AI Overviews / AI Mode, not when users clicked through to them. Because click data is absent, all downstream attribution to AI traffic must come from your analytics (GA4's new AI Assistant channel — added 13 May 2026 — is the matching analytics-side surface; see /digital-marketing-pro:analytics-insights).

When to use this skill

• Setting baseline AI visibility for a new brand (first 30-day capture of AI Overview + AI Mode impressions)
• Comparing brand AI visibility against aeo-audit synthetic results — the GSC report shows ACTUAL impressions vs aeo-audit's probe queries
• Deciding whether to flip the in-SC AI opt-out toggle for a brand (regulated industry, brand-safety concern, or paywall/login content)
• Quarterly business review evidence — "AI search impressions grew X%" using authoritative Google data

Brand context (auto-applied)

1. Read ~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json for the active slug, then load ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json
2. If no brand exists: ask "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults
3. Apply industry-specific guidance from skills/context-engine/industry-profiles.md (YMYL industries may want opt-out toggled ON until E-E-A-T audit is clean)
4. Reference skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md for jurisdiction-specific rules (EU markets — see skills/context-engine/eu-code-of-practice.md for Article 50 transparency context)

Process

1. Access check — confirm the user has Google Search Console verified access for the brand's domain. If the brand is in the UK rollout cohort, the report is live; otherwise it will appear when global rollout reaches them.
2. Locate the report — Search Console → left nav → Performance → switch tab to Search results → look for the new AI Overviews & AI Mode tab (the tab title may vary slightly during rollout; Google's working name during testing was "Search Generative AI"). On rollouts pre-tab, the data may also surface under the existing Performance report with an AI Features filter.
3. Run baseline export — set the date range to "last 28 days" (or maximum available since rollout), export to CSV/Sheets via Search Console's export button. Capture: impressions, pages, country mix, device mix, top queries (if available in your cohort).
4. Reconcile against aeo-audit — synthetic queries from /digital-marketing-pro:aeo-audit test what AI engines might surface; the GSC report shows what they actually surfaced. Significant gaps either way are signals:
   • GSC shows much more than aeo-audit found → your test query set is too narrow; expand it
   • aeo-audit found brand in synthetic results but GSC shows few impressions → low query volume for those topics; redirect AEO effort to higher-volume topics
5. Opt-out decision — if any of the following apply, consider the in-SC opt-out toggle:
   • Industry has YMYL / regulatory risk and brand E-E-A-T isn't fully audited yet
   • Brand's content is paywalled or login-gated (AI surfacing of partial content can damage funnel)
   • Brand is the subject of active reputation management — surfacing in AI answers amplifies whatever sentiment AI models have absorbed
   • Editorial team wants to ship corrections via the brand's own properties first, not via AI synthesis
6. Run optimization recommendations — for brands NOT opting out, route to /digital-marketing-pro:aeo-geo for the optimization playbook (entity consistency, citation-worthy snippets, knowledge graph alignment).
7. Set up monthly tracking — schedule a recurring gsc-ai-performance baseline (CSV export → dated archive folder) so trend lines emerge over the next 6–12 months as AI search adoption grows.

Output

A structured GSC AI performance brief containing:

• Baseline metrics — current-period impressions, pages, country mix, device mix
• Trend analysis — period-over-period change (where prior data exists)
• Reconciliation table — GSC actuals vs aeo-audit synthetic results, with gap notes
• Opt-out recommendation — explicit opt-in / opt-out decision with rationale grounded in industry profile and brand context
• Optimization handoff — list of high-impact topics where the brand is under-cited (route to aeo-geo)
• Tracking cadence — recommended monthly export schedule, archive path

Caveats and known limitations (June 2026)

1. No click data. Google explicitly chose not to include click metrics. AI-to-website attribution must come from GA4 (the new AI Assistant channel group, added 13 May 2026, captures Medium=ai-assistant referrals from ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude). Note: GA4's channel may or may not specifically attribute Google's own AI Mode traffic the same way — verify in your property.
2. UI only at launch. No public API. Wait for Google to publish the AI report under the Search Console Search Analytics API (searchanalytics.query) before automating against it. Current automation must rely on CSV export + manual upload.
3. UK first. If your brand's primary market is outside the UK, the report may not show data yet. Mark the date you first see data so subsequent month-over-month comparisons start from a real baseline.
4. Tab placement may move during rollout. Google often refines the UI in the first 30–60 days. If the exact tab path differs from step 2 above, look anywhere in the Performance > Search results area for "AI", "Generative", "AI Mode", or "AI Overviews" labels.
5. Don't compare AI Overviews impressions to classic SERP impressions one-for-one. AI Overviews surface differently — an "impression" there means your page was used as a grounding source, which is a stricter bar than appearing in a 10-blue-link result.

Agents used

• seo-specialist (primary) — for interpretation and recommendation framing
• analytics-analyst — for the GA4 reconciliation when AI Assistant channel data is available
• brand-guardian — for the opt-out decision when brand-safety or compliance is in play

See also

• /digital-marketing-pro:aeo-audit — synthetic AI-engine probing
• /digital-marketing-pro:aeo-geo — optimization playbook for AI visibility
• /digital-marketing-pro:analytics-insights — GA4 AI Assistant channel attribution
• skills/context-engine/eu-code-of-practice.md — EU Article 50 transparency context for AI-cited content
• scripts/gsc-ai-performance.py — helper script (placeholder until Google publishes API; reads exported CSV today)