Does Gary Illyes' comment rule out AI click data in Search Console?

No. Gary Illyes said the Search Console team is "super interested in giving more data" and that the team has nothing to announce yet, which is not the same as ruling out clicks and queries. John Mueller publicly pushed back on the idea that Illyes had said no, and a UK regulatory deadline in December 2026 gives Google outside pressure to add this data regardless of what any single Googler says on LinkedIn.

What Gary Illyes actually said

The confusion started on LinkedIn, where a post quoted a Googler, attributed only to "Google Search Central live" rather than a named person, saying click and query data "may be coming soon" to Search Console. That quote read: "The clicks and queries data is the most requested data set by website owners and SEOs. We are also anticipating this data to be available in Google Search Console but, even we don't know by when this data will be added," as reported by Search Engine Roundtable.

Illyes replied to that post. He wrote that the team is interested in bringing "data that makes sense" to the report, but he never said clicks or query data was that data, per Search Engine Roundtable's coverage. Search Engine Journal reported that Illyes also said he didn't think Google had phrased it the way the LinkedIn post suggested, as Search Engine Journal reported. His fuller quote, posted on LinkedIn on 2 November, was: "The team is super interested in giving more data, data that makes sense, but we don't have anything to announce yet," according to Resultsense.

That's a holding statement, not a denial. It sits alongside Google's own launch language for the report, which promised the company would "introduce additional metrics over time" as it worked out what website owners found most useful, as covered by Search Engine Land.

What the Search Console AI performance report shows today

The Generative AI Performance Report counts impressions for AI Mode and AI Overviews collectively, per Search Engine Journal. It shows five things: impressions, pages, countries, devices (search results only), and dates, viewable hourly, daily, weekly or monthly, according to Triloai. It became available to all websites worldwide on 31 August 2026, alongside a new AI feature control, as reported by Triloai. We've covered exactly where it sits in Search Console and how to read it in our guide to the Generative AI performance report.

There are real gaps in how it counts things. An AI Overview takes one position in the results, and every link inside it gets credited with that same position, per Search Console Help documentation summarised by Seomatic. In AI Mode, a follow-up question counts as a new query with its own impressions and clicks, but that distinction isn't exposed anywhere in the Gen-AI performance report itself, as Seomatic notes.

Where AI clicks actually live right now

AI clicks aren't missing from Search Console entirely. They're just not separated out. John Mueller said on Reddit that AI clicks are included in the standard Performance report, tracked as a block the same way Google tracks many search features, and that they simply aren't broken out in the Gen-AI performance report, as reported by Search Engine Watch. The standard performance report lists Search Appearance Types, and none of them currently covers AI Overviews or AI Mode, per Search Engine Journal. The clicks exist somewhere in your data, mixed into overall organic numbers, but you can't isolate them.

This matters when you're trying to work out whether AI features are helping or hurting your traffic, a question we've looked at closely when Google's own data showed AI Mode cutting clicks to websites in our piece on what Google's own data shows about AI Mode, and when examining whether Reddit's CEO was right that AI Mode doesn't drive traffic in our analysis of that traffic claim.

Mueller's pushback and the UK regulatory deadline

Mueller didn't leave Illyes' comments alone. He posted on Bluesky that reading Illyes' statement as a definitive no was "a weird way of reading" it, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. In a separate Bluesky thread, Mueller wrote that there's "lots of helpful data which isn't currently in Search Console" and that what counts as helpful data changes over time, per Search Engine Journal. That's a Googler's personal framing, not a company commitment, but it suggests the door isn't shut.

Google also faces pressure beyond its own product team. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority imposed a conduct requirement on 3 June 2026 requiring Google to give publishers greater control over AI feature use, and Google responded the same day with a Search Console AI opt-out toggle and generative AI visibility reports, initially rolled out to a subset of UK website owners, according to PPC Land. The CMA's interpretive notes go further: Google must also provide click-throughs, click-through rates, and data separated from organic search, and the CMA has said that data isn't in the reports yet, per Search Engine Journal. The requirement specifies metrics including impressions, clicks and click-through rates for search AI features, delivered via "a commonly accessible platform, such as Google Search Console," as Sistrix reports. Google is required to comply before 3 December 2026, per Sistrix.

That deadline is the real reason Illyes' non-answer doesn't settle anything. Google has a regulator-imposed timeline sitting alongside whatever its product team chooses to announce on its own schedule.

Why Google might be hesitant to add click and query data

SEO commentator Barry Adams put it plainly: "Google is introducing AI citation data in search console, which is a clear reaction to the CMA's conduct requirement. Notably absent from these AI search console reports is the clicks metric, which is part of every other performance report in search console. The absence of that data is quite telling," as quoted by Sistrix.

Our view: it's hard to read that absence as anything other than deliberate. Click data would let publishers calculate, with precision, exactly how much traffic AI Overviews and AI Mode are costing them, and Google has little commercial incentive to make that comparison easy. Impressions data lets you see that your content is being used; click data would let you see what that usage is actually worth.

What this means for your reporting in the meantime

Illyes gave no time frame for when click or query data might arrive, so for now AI search reporting has to be built around impressions, per Search Engine Journal. Google may also choose to satisfy the CMA through some route other than Search Console, so its absence from the product wouldn't automatically mean a breach, and UK publishers currently can't isolate clicks from AI features, meaning any decisions made about those features rest on partial data, according to Resultsense.

The honest limitation here is that nobody outside Google can currently measure, with any confidence, how many of their clicks come specifically from AI Overviews versus traditional blue links, because that split simply isn't exposed. Until it is, treat impressions trends in the Gen-AI report as a directional signal rather than a traffic number, and watch your overall organic clicks for the bigger picture of whether AI features are eating into your numbers. For a broader view of how AI visibility is measured across platforms, not just Google, our guide to AI search readiness is a reasonable starting point.

Frequently asked questions

Did Gary Illyes say click data is never coming to Search Console?

No. Illyes said the team is interested in adding "data that makes sense" and has nothing to announce yet, which is a holding statement rather than a refusal, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable.

Can I see AI Overview clicks anywhere in Search Console today?

They exist in your standard Performance report, but blended in with other search features as a block, not separated out, according to John Mueller's Reddit reply reported by Search Engine Watch. The Gen-AI performance report itself currently only shows impressions, pages, countries and devices, per Triloai.

Why does the UK's CMA deadline matter for this?

The CMA requires Google to provide clicks, click-through rates and AI-separated data via a commonly accessible platform such as Search Console, with compliance due before 3 December 2026, per Sistrix. That gives Google a regulatory reason to add this data that exists independently of what any Googler says publicly.

Is Google definitely going to use Search Console to meet the CMA requirement?

Not necessarily. Google could satisfy the regulator through another route, so if click data doesn't appear in Search Console by the deadline, that alone wouldn't prove a breach, according to Resultsense.