Google Tests AI Search Data, UK Requires Opt Out, SEO Pulse

For the last year, publishing for the web has felt like guessing. We have watched AI Overviews roll out and shift the landscape, but we have done so with almost no visibility into how our content actually performs within those AI generated answers. The lack of data creates a specific kind of anxiety for anyone managing a site, because you cannot optimize what you cannot measure. This connects with structured data when the same signal needs a clearer operating decision.

Recent updates from Google and regulatory bodies in the UK suggest that the era of the black box is starting to end. We are seeing the first real pieces of infrastructure designed to let publishers see and control their presence in AI search. While these tools are still in early stages, they signal a shift in how Google views the relationship between its AI and the people who provide the data that fuels it.

New AI Visibility Reports and Controls in Search Console

Google is currently testing a set of features within Search Console that aim to pull back the curtain on AI search. The most immediate addition is a set of dedicated performance reports. These reports are designed to show exactly how your URLs are appearing within AI features across both Search and Discover.

The data available in these reports is quite granular. You can see impressions, specific pages, the countries where the content is appearing, the devices being used, and the dates. Google has even included hourly granularity, which allows for a very tight look at when AI visibility spikes or dips. However, there is a significant omission: click data is not included in these reports. Google has stated they are consulting with website owners to determine which metrics should be added in the future.

Alongside the reporting, Google is testing a toggle. This control would allow site owners to decide whether their content appears in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Currently, these features are being rolled out to a small group of websites in the UK first.

The Gap Between Visibility and Traffic

The introduction of these reports is a step forward, but the absence of click data is a major problem. In the SEO world, impressions are a vanity metric if they do not lead to engagement. Knowing that your page appeared in an AI Overview a thousand times in the UK is useful, but it does not tell you if the AI answered the user's question so well that the user never felt the need to click your link.

This is the central tension of AI search. If the AI provides a complete answer, the click is gone. By providing impressions but not clicks, Google is giving us a map of where we are visible without telling us if that visibility is actually valuable. The decision for a site owner here is to treat this data as a signal of relevance rather than a measure of success. If you see high impressions in AI reports but your overall traffic is flat, it is a strong indicator that the AI is cannibalizing your clicks. The same pattern also shows up in to Measure SEO Beyond Clicks, where the practical question is how the signal becomes visible.

Industry Perspective on AI Reporting

The reaction from the community has been mixed. Glenn Gabe, the President of G Squared Interactive, pointed out the irony of the situation on LinkedIn. While the arrival of AI reporting in Search Console is a welcome development, the lack of click data makes the utility of the tool questionable. It is a reminder that Google often provides the tools we want, but not necessarily the data we need to make business decisions.

UK Regulators Mandate AI Opt Out Options

While Google is testing controls voluntarily, the UK government is making them a requirement. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, has stepped in under its digital markets regime to impose a conduct requirement on Google. This is not a suggestion, but a legal mandate.

Under these rules, publishers must be given the ability to opt out of having their content used in AI search features. Specifically, Google must allow websites to opt out of AI Mode and AI Overviews. Crucially, the CMA has specified that choosing to opt out of these AI features must not negatively impact the site's position in standard, traditional search results. Google must provide a way for publishers to opt out of having their content used to train AI models entirely. Google has a window of nine months to bring these systems into compliance.

The Separation of Indexing and AI Participation

This is a pivotal moment because it is the first time a regulator has forced a separation between being indexed for search and participating in AI features. Previously, the options were blunt. If you wanted to avoid certain AI features, you often had to use methods that also removed you from standard snippets or search results entirely.

The tradeoff here is between reach and control. For a publisher, the decision to opt out is a gamble. You protect your intellectual property and prevent the AI from summarizing your work, but you also remove yourself from a new surface where users are spending time. However, the regulatory backstop provided by the CMA removes the fear of retaliation in the traditional rankings. This allows publishers to make a purely strategic choice based on the value of their content versus the value of the AI exposure.

Expert Interpretation of the CMA Ruling

Not everyone sees this as a clear victory for publishers. Stuart Forrest, formerly the Global SEO Director for Publishing at Bauer Media, suggested that while this looks like a win for publishers, it may actually benefit Google by providing a legal framework to settle these disputes. Similarly, Todd Davies from University College London described the ability to opt out as a consolation prize. The logic is that once the AI has already been trained on the data, a toggle to stop future use does little to recover the value already extracted from the content.

Analyzing the May 2026 Core Update

While the AI conversation dominates, the traditional side of search has remained volatile. Google's May core update finished its rollout on June 2, taking a total of 11 days to complete. During this window, third party tracking tools noted significant volatility in rankings.

Google continues to advise that site owners wait at least one week after a major update concludes before attempting to analyze the data or make sweeping changes to their site. This update is the fourth confirmed event on the Search Status Dashboard this year, suggesting a cadence of roughly one major ranking event every six weeks.

The Divergence of Organic and AI Rankings

The most interesting takeaway from this update is the split in visibility. Some practitioners have observed a strange phenomenon where a site regains its traditional organic rankings but simultaneously loses its placement in AI generated responses. This suggests that the algorithms governing the blue links and the algorithms governing AI Overviews are not moving in lockstep. A useful companion note is AI Recommendation Sets Leave Some Brands Out, because it looks at a nearby part of the same system.

This means the old way of tracking SEO, which focused solely on keyword positions, is now incomplete. You can be number one in the organic results but be completely absent from the AI answer that sits above those results. The decision for any SEO professional now is to implement a dual tracking system. You must monitor traditional SERP positions and AI visibility as two separate KPIs because they are clearly being influenced by different signals.

The Role of Source Type Fit

Aleyda Solis, an SEO consultant and founder of Orainti, noted that source type fit appeared to matter more than raw authority during this update. This is a critical distinction. It suggests that Google is looking for the specific kind of content that fits the intent of the query, rather than just rewarding the site with the most backlinks. If your content is authoritative but not the right format or type for the specific user intent, you may find your visibility dropping even if your site's overall health is good.

Google Search Profiles for Creators

In a move to better organize creator identity, Google has launched Search Profiles. These are customizable pages that aggregate a creator's social accounts, YouTube channels, and other links into a single hub on Google Search. This can either enhance an existing knowledge panel or trigger the creation of a new one.

Access to this feature is restricted. To be eligible, creators need at least 100,000 followers on platforms like Instagram, X, or YouTube. For TikTok, the threshold is higher, requiring 300,000 followers. Currently, this feature is only available in the United States.

The Impact on Discover and Reach

The real value of these profiles is not just the hub page, but the connection to Google Discover. When a user follows a publisher or creator through their profile, they are more likely to see that creator's content within the Discover feed. This creates a direct pipeline from search to a personalized feed.

The tradeoff here is the high barrier to entry. By setting the minimum at 100,000 followers, Google is effectively ignoring the long tail of independent creators and small publishers. This creates a tiered system where established voices get a direct line to Discover, while smaller players must rely on the standard algorithmic lottery. For those who do meet the threshold, the decision is simple: claim the profile to solidify your brand identity across the Google ecosystem.

The Shift Toward AI Search Infrastructure

When you look at these updates together, a clear theme emerges. For a long time, AI search was a chaotic experiment. Publishers were forced to accept whatever Google implemented without knowing if it helped or hurt them. Now, we are seeing the beginning of a formal infrastructure for AI search.

Between the new Search Console reports, the UK's legal mandates for opt outs, and the divergence in core update rankings, the industry is moving from a phase of reaction to a phase of management. We are finally getting the tools to ask, "Am I in the AI answer, and do I actually want to be?"

The tools are still limited, and the lack of click data remains a glaring hole, but the direction is clear. The relationship between the web's content creators and AI search engines is becoming more transactional and transparent. The goal for publishers now is to build a measurement framework that accounts for both traditional search and AI visibility, while keeping a close eye on the regulatory shifts that may grant them more control over their data.

Practical next steps

The useful part is not only the idea itself, but the operating habit behind it. Use it as a checklist for decisions: what deserves attention now, what should be monitored, what needs a stronger evidence base, and what can wait until the system has more scale.