Google Adds AI Visibility Data to Merchant Centre: What It Means

Google has begun rolling out an AI performance insights report inside Merchant Centre, giving retailers their first native look at how products are discovered across AI Mode, AI Overviews and the Gemini app. It includes a "share of voice" metric benchmarked against similar brands. For any brand selling online, this is the clearest signal yet that AI visibility is becoming a measurable, reportable line item rather than a guess.

What changed?

On 14 July 2026, search marketers spotted the pilot live inside real Merchant Centre accounts. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz confirmed that Google Merchant Centre is rolling out a beta AI Performance report that shares how well products are performing within AI Mode and AI Overviews, with Google describing it as revealing performance specifically on those two surfaces.

Google first announced the feature back in May, but access only started reaching real accounts this week. SEO consultant Brodie Clark, who gained access for a client account, wrote on X that "Google Merchant Centre is (surprisingly) the first Google product to give query data for AI Overviews and AI Mode," adding that the report can be found under Analytics > Products > AI Performance and is currently available to a limited number of accounts in the US.

According to Google's own help documentation, the tool exists because consumers are increasingly using conversational surfaces to shop, so Google is introducing AI performance insights in Merchant Centre to help brands understand how their products are being discovered.

The report has four components. As Google's business blog explains, brands can compare their share of voice, meaning how often they're linked in relevant results, against shopper demand, alongside a breakdown of journey stages such as discovery, evaluation or purchase, the product terms shoppers search for, and structured attributes such as dimensions, weight, materials and colours.

Crucially, share of voice is relative rather than absolute. Semrush's analysis notes that the metric shows how often a brand surfaces in AI-driven experiences across Search and Gemini, benchmarked against similar brands, and is a relative figure, not a traffic or ranking number.

The rollout remains narrow. Google's help centre confirms that AI performance insights is currently in a pilot with a limited number of Merchant Centre accounts in the US, with plans to expand to Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand in the coming months.

Why does this matter for your business?

For years, brands have had almost no direct way to check whether their products even appear inside AI Overviews or AI Mode, let alone how they compare to competitors. This report changes that, at least for Google's own surfaces.

Industry analysis frames this as a genuine milestone. Semrush states plainly that this is the first time Google has offered native reporting on AI search visibility metrics for ecommerce, signalling that AI performance is now its own measurement category.

That matters because until now, most AI visibility measurement for ecommerce has relied on third-party tools guessing at Google's black box. Now Google is handing over some of its own numbers, even if the picture is partial. PPC Land's breakdown notes that benchmarking against similar brands has existed in paid search tools before, such as auction insights in Google Ads, but its application to AI surface performance is new. That shifts the question from "are my products appearing?" to "how often do my products appear relative to competing brands in AI conversations?"

There's a catch worth flagging for anyone budgeting around this data. The report only counts unpaid visibility. Google's help documentation is explicit that current data is strictly limited to organic AI traffic, meaning cost-free listings, and paid ads traffic isn't included.

It's also worth being realistic about how actionable the data is right now. Brodie Clark, who has hands-on access, cautioned that "in its current form, similar to the recent rollout of AI reporting in Search Console, there isn't a great deal of actionability behind the data, though it is good to see at least some form of query data being included."

This launch also sits inside a wider pattern. Google isn't acting alone, and it isn't even first. Semrush points out that Bing rolled out its own AI performance report in Webmaster Tools earlier this year. AI visibility reporting is quickly becoming standard across major search platforms, not a one-off experiment.

What should you do now?

If you sell through Google Merchant Centre, check your Analytics tab now. Google's guidance is to log in to Merchant Centre, navigate to Analytics, select Products, then select the AI performance tab to load the dashboard. Most accounts won't see it yet, since the pilot is limited to a small group of US advertisers, but it's worth checking regularly as the rollout expands.

While you wait for access, focus on the fundamentals the report is built to measure: clean, complete product attributes, clear specifications and terms that match how shoppers actually phrase queries during discovery, evaluation and purchase. Google's own framing notes that the goal is to give brands a view into their performance on AI surfaces and how to optimise product data to improve results there.

Don't treat this as your whole AI visibility picture, either. It only covers Google's surfaces, and only organic listings. If you want to understand how your brand shows up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features together, running a free audit with a tool built specifically for cross-platform AI visibility, such as Sited's free audit, can give you a fuller picture than any single platform's native reporting offers on its own.

Finally, treat this launch as a preview of where measurement is heading generally. Share of voice, funnel-stage visibility and attribute completeness are likely to become standard metrics across AI search reporting tools over the next year, not just inside Merchant Centre.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google's new AI performance insights report?

It's a beta reporting feature inside Google Merchant Centre that shows retailers how their products are discovered across AI Mode, AI Overviews in Search, and the Gemini app, including a share of voice metric benchmarked against similar brands.

Who can access it right now?

Access is limited to a pilot group of accounts in the United States. Google has said it plans to expand the rollout to Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand in the coming months, with no exact dates confirmed.

Does the report include paid advertising data?

No. The data is limited to organic, cost-free listing visibility within AI experiences; paid ads traffic is not part of this report.

How is this different from existing Google Search Console reporting?

Search Console has recently added some AI reporting, but Merchant Centre's new tool is the first to include query-level data, such as query type and frequency, specifically for AI Mode and AI Overviews, giving ecommerce sellers more granular insight than currently exists in GSC.

Should I stop using third-party AI visibility tools now?

No. Google's report only covers its own AI surfaces and organic listings, so it won't show you how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity or other AI platforms. A broader audit tool is still needed for the full picture.