Google is rolling out a Search Console setting that lets website owners pull their content out of AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover generative features without leaving search, a choice driven by regulatory requirements in the UK. According to NewzDash tracking data, Top Stories carousels rendered inside AI Overviews on roughly 1 in 6 U.S. trending news results, meaning that opting out of Google’s AI features could also remove publishers from placements within AI Overviews.
What The Search Console Generative AI Control Covers
The new generative AI control lives under Settings in Search Console and is currently rolling out to a subset of website owners. According to Google, the default setting includes a site’s content as links and helps ground AI responses in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover generative features. Excluding a site removes it from those features entirely, including the accompanying links.
Google announced it would begin respecting these changes on June 17, with processing typically taking a few days. Jamie Indigo, Director of Technical SEO at Cox Automotive, flagged the setting on a U.S. account in July, noting on LinkedIn: “Search generative AI controls in Google Search Console. I’m not even British and it’s not even my birthday!”
Crucially, the setting does not act as a ranking or inclusion signal elsewhere in Search. It leaves regular organic results, Merchant Center, and Google Ads participation untouched. Content removal for AI training operates separately through the Google-Extended token.
When Traditional Search Features Sit Inside AI Surfaces
A central tension of the new toggle is how Google integrates traditional features into AI surfaces. John Shehata, CEO and founder of NewzDash and GDdash, reported that nearly 15.5% of tracked U.S. trending news queries placed Top Stories inside AI Overviews, with the UK figure reaching 17.46%. He noted that using the Search Console generative AI opt-out will likely remove publishers from those embedded Top Stories carousels.
Kyle Sutton, Head of SEO and AI Discovery at The Washington Post, commented on social media that publishers are seeing this pattern frequently, though Google’s official help documentation does not explicitly address how the control handles traditional features displayed within AI surfaces. Rahul Jain, CEO and co-founder of Noble, argued on LinkedIn earlier this year that opting out of AI Overviews will hurt most publishers more than it helps by pulling them away from where user attention is concentrated.
Pro Tip: Before applying the opt-out toggle, check your generative AI performance report in Search Console to review impressions from AI features by page, country, and device, keeping in mind that click data and query metrics are limited under the current rollout.
What To Check Before Opting Out of AI Features
Publishers and site owners must evaluate three core variables before altering their Search Console settings:
- AI Visibility: Assess your current impressions using the generative AI performance report, though the absence of click and query data limits baseline comparisons.
- Control Boundaries: Distinguish between the Search generative AI control—which affects links and grounding in Search and Discover—and Google-Extended, which governs specific Gemini model training.
- Business Tradeoffs: Weigh the loss of AI feature visibility against potential traffic shifts, keeping in mind that ecommerce platforms and news publishers face different structural exposures.
Vahe Arabian, founder and editor-in-chief of State of Digital Publishing, noted that the core challenge involves blending disparate data streams into a unified scorecard rather than relying on a single dashboard.
Upcoming Click Data and Page-Level Controls
Regulatory frameworks continue to shape the evolution of these tools. Under the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) timeline, Google is required to provide click data and click-through rates starting in December. Furthermore, detailed page-level controls for generative search features are slated for release by March 2027.
Academic researchers Spencer Cohen of the University of Oxford and Todd Davies, a UCL competition-law PhD candidate and former Google software engineer, argued in a paper published in the Journal of European Competition Law and Practice that property-level opt-outs may prove insufficient for protecting publisher business models without deeper structural choices.
Did You Know?
The UK’s CMA requires Google to submit compliance reports every six months during the first year of these new publisher controls before transitioning to annual reviews.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does opting out of Google’s AI features affect standard organic search rankings?
According to Google, the Search generative AI control does not affect regular organic search results, crawling, or indexing.
What is the difference between Google-Extended and the Search Console AI control?
Google-Extended controls whether crawled content is used to train future Gemini models, whereas the Search Console setting manages content inclusion and link grounding in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover generative features.
When will publishers get click-through metrics for AI features?
Under requirements set by the UK’s CMA, Google is expected to roll out click data and click-through rates through an accessible platform starting in December.
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