AI Mode queries (AI Mode is the conversational AI experience inside Google Search) already show up in Search Console, but nothing tells you which ones they are. Google counts AI Overviews (the AI-generated answers at the top of search results) and AI Mode inside the regular performance report, under the “Web” search type, with no filter of its own. Glenn Gabe, of GSQi, showed in an article from August 13, 2026 a way to separate those queries: export everything through the Search Console API (programmatic access to the data, without the interface’s row limit), hand the spreadsheet to Claude Cowork (Anthropic’s agent that works with files on your computer) and ask it to flag what looks like a conversation prompt.
For anyone making SEO decisions, what matters is what you can do with this today. You can see which of your URLs appear in AI Mode answers, even when those appearances bring no clicks.
Does Search Console show AI Mode data?
Search Console shows it, but blended. Google’s documentation says that sites appearing in AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console, in the Performance report, under the “Web” search type. There is no “AI Mode” filter in the report.
The support page Performance report (Search results): About the data has an AI Mode section with the counting rules:
| Metric | How Google counts it in AI Mode |
|---|---|
| Click | Clicking a link to an external page in AI Mode counts as a click |
| Impression | Standard impression rules apply |
| Position | Follows the same methodology as a Google Search results page |
| Follow-up question | Counts as a new query, with impression, position and click data from the new response attributed to it |
The last row explains why the report has strange queries. Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Roundtable, on August 6, 2026, that Anastasia Kourou found queries like “yes”, “yes go on” and “yes, pricing”. John Mueller replied that Search Console includes information on AI Overviews and AI Mode in the general performance report. Whoever typed “yes” was answering the chatbot, not searching from the Google bar.
What about the new generative AI reports?
The generative AI reports exist, but they carry no queries. Google announced the generative AI performance reports on June 3, 2026, according to PPC Land’s coverage. The dimensions are impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates, and the rollout started with a subset of sites.
Two limits matter. First: with no query dimension, the new report can’t help you find the text a user typed in AI Mode. Second: per PPC Land, the announcement doesn’t list clicks among the metrics, so you can’t calculate CTR (click-through rate) inside that report. Barry also points out that AI Mode queries show up only in the main report, not in the generative AI ones.
How do you find AI Mode queries step by step?
Glenn Gabe’s method has three steps and uses tools many people already have.
- Export query and page together. Use Analytics Edge, software that brings Search Console data into Excel (the license is paid, according to the site). The Search Console interface shows at most 1,000 rows per report, and Glenn exported more than 50,000 queries through the API. Export with the query and page dimensions and save to a spreadsheet.
- Ask Claude for the analysis. In Claude Cowork, create a project, point it at a working folder and upload the spreadsheet. Glenn’s request is, in essence: analyze the queries in the sheet and say which look like AI Mode prompts, meaning queries that continue a conversation, answer the chatbot’s questions or are too long and elaborate for a traditional search.
- Organize the result. Claude creates a new tab with the queries it identified, the reason for each pick and the URLs cited in those conversations.
You can turn the flow into a skill (a saved set of instructions in Claude) and reuse it on other sites or clients, as Glenn suggests.
What did Glenn Gabe’s test find?
Glenn analyzed more than 50,000 exported queries. They ranged from short replies, like “Yes”, to long prompts. He also found queries that looked automated, coming from monitoring tools. And the most striking data point: in his words, “there are no clicks at all for those AI Mode queries” in the case he tested.
He warns that the analysis is not perfect. A query like “how long does it take?” has no context to say whether it came from AI Mode. So treat the result as a list of candidates to review, not as a measurement. And one site doesn’t prove AI Mode never generates clicks: Google’s documentation says a click on an external link in AI Mode is counted.
What do you do with that list of queries?
The list supports three decisions, and none depends on clicks.
- See the cited URLs. The spreadsheet shows which of your pages enter the conversations. Those are the pages AI Mode is already citing on that topic.
- Learn the shape of the questions. Conversation prompts are long, in natural language and carry context. That helps you write question-style H2s with full questions, as in the guide to showing up in ChatGPT.
- Separate the noise. Automated tool queries and loose replies like “yes” leave the keyword analysis. They inflate the query list without showing real demand.
When I was in sales, the objection came before the price. AI Mode is similar: the follow-up question shows the doubt the user has after reading the first answer. If your page answers the first question and ignores the second, the conversation moves on without you.
What are the limits of this method?
The method has limits worth noting before you show the result to a client.
- It is inference. Search Console doesn’t label a query as AI Mode. Claude decides what is a prompt, and it gets ambiguous queries wrong.
- It depends on what Google exposes. The API returns the same data as the performance report, with no AI Mode label.
- A small sample doesn’t generalize. Glenn shows a single export. Run it on yours before drawing conclusions about clicks.
- Google may change things. On September 16, 2026, John Mueller said on LinkedIn that position and impression counting in AI Mode and AI Overviews “will evolve over time”, according to Search Engine Roundtable, and that Google updates the documentation when there is a significant change. Keep your exports dated.
To track the rest of your organic performance without paying for tools, see the free SEO tools for AI. And for the bigger movement, Google answering inside its own screen, read what GEO is.
What is the summary for people who work in search?
AI Mode queries are in the Search Console performance report, mixed with regular search and with no filter. The new generative AI reports have no queries, and the announcement doesn’t list clicks. The way out is to export query and page through the API, ask Claude to flag the queries that look like prompts and review the list by hand.
On Monday, you can do it like this:
- Export 90 days of query and page for your site through the API.
- Ask for the AI Mode prompt analysis and review the ambiguous queries.
- Note the cited URLs and check whether they also answer the next question, not just the first.
- Keep the export dated so you can compare next month.
Want help building this report for your site? Talk to me.