June 11, 2026, 9:32 am | Read time: 3 minutes
Google is working on a new feature for website operators. It aims to provide more transparency about how content is used in the company’s AI offerings. At the same time, it will be possible to prevent certain content from being used in AI responses without sacrificing visibility in the traditional Google search.
What Changes Google Plans
Until now, website operators often had to balance reach and control. While Google increasingly integrates AI features into its search engine, there have been no detailed options to specifically manage the use of their own content. The company is now testing a new setting in the Search Console to enable exactly that.
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With this feature, Google is responding to the concerns of many website operators. They want to keep their content discoverable in search while not automatically appearing in all of the company’s AI products.
Which AI Offerings Are Affected
The planned setting applies to several areas where Google already displays AI-generated responses. These include:
- AI summaries in search
- the AI mode
- AI content in the Discover section
Those who opt out can prevent their pages from being used in these functions. According to Google, the traditional search remains unaffected. The position of a website in regular search results will not change due to this setting.
A website could thus still be found via the normal Google search without simultaneously appearing in AI responses.
Why This Development Is Important for Operators
The significance of Google’s AI offerings is growing. According to the company, AI summaries now reach more than 2.5 billion monthly active users. The AI mode, according to Google, has more than one billion users.
Google explains that the AI functions are not only meant to provide answers. They are also intended to direct users to external websites. For this purpose, the company has integrated additional links in AI responses, added previews of websites, and tested other display formats.
Nevertheless, this development causes uncertainty among many content providers. If important information already appears directly in the search, users might visit the original websites less frequently. For publishers, online shops, blogs, and other providers, this can impact reach, advertising revenue, and business models.
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New Data on AI Reach
The planned evaluations in the Search Console are therefore intended to provide additional insights. Website operators should be able to see if their content appears in generative AI functions and how often this occurs. Additionally, the data should show:
- which content is affected
- how often it is displayed
- in which countries it appears in AI responses
This information is intended to help better assess the significance of Google’s AI offerings for one’s own reach.
Test Run Begins in the United Kingdom
Initially, the new feature is only available to selected website operators in the United Kingdom. There, Google is launching a test to examine the use of the setting under real conditions.
The company has not yet announced a date for a worldwide rollout. It is also still unclear whether the feature will be adopted unchanged or further adjusted after the test phase.