Search Console has a Search generative AI setting. Should I change it?
Google rolled the Search generative AI control out to all websites on August 31, 2026. Excluding a property leaves ordinary Search results and Shopping alone.
- When this applies
- Someone offers to remove your store from AI Overviews, or you are deciding whether the storefront should keep appearing in Google's generative AI features. [1]
- When this does not apply
- This is not a ranking lever and not the AI training control. Google states it is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search, and names Google-Extended for limiting training. [1]
- Why this matters
- The control sits at property level with include as the default, so one value covers every page under a domain property, and excluding removes the site from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover. [1]
- What to do, or not do
- Open Search Console, then Settings, then Search generative AI, and read which of the three values each property carries. Keep include unless you have a reason to give up appearing in those features. [1]
- What you'll see when it's done
- You can name the current value on every Search Console property that covers a store address, and the reason it is set that way. [1]
- What this result does not prove
- The setting states whether Google may use your content in those features. It does not prove that AI Overviews or AI Mode showed a product, or that a shopper who saw one bought anything. [1]
- Sources checked
- September 11, 2026
- Changed
- August 31, 2026
When a third party is worth paying for, and what you do not have to buy
- When paid help is worth it
- Paid help is worth it only where the Search Console property structure has to be sorted out first, because a child property can inherit a value from a parent and end up on a setting nobody chose for it. [1]
- What you do not have to buy
- The control is a setting on a Search Console property you already verify, so no app, plugin, or subscription supplies it. [1]
Google’s help page for the Search generative AI control states that as of August 31, 2026 the control has been rolled out to all websites worldwide. Before that it reached a limited set. Every verified property now has the setting, including yours.
Where it is and what the three values do
Search Console, then Settings, then Search generative AI. Three values:
| Value | What Google says it does |
|---|---|
| Include | The default. Your site’s content can appear in Search generative AI features, including showing up as links and helping to ground AI responses. |
| Exclude | Your site’s content is prevented from being visible to users in those features, including being linked to within them. |
| Inherit from parent | The property follows the value of its parent property. |
Excluding reaches AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover.
What it leaves alone
This is the part worth reading twice, because it is where most summaries go wrong. Google states that the control affects only whether your content can appear in certain Search generative AI features, and that it is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search. It does not override a publisher’s other choices to participate in particular services, and Google names Merchant Center and Google Ads. Your content may still be used to power Google Search as a whole, for example to help Google’s systems understand the language of queries and of pages.
It is also not the training control. Google directs anyone who wants to limit training of the models behind those features to Google-Extended.
Property level, not page level
The value applies to the whole property. A domain property covers every subdomain and page under it; a URL-prefix property covers what its prefix covers. There is no per-page version of this control, so a store that wants its blog out of AI Mode and its product pages in would need that split to exist in the property structure first.
Changes take effect in roughly one to two days after the control goes live, and Google notes that some content may take longer because of caching.
The trade for a store
Exclusion buys one thing: your pages stop appearing inside the answer, including as a linked source. It costs nothing in Search results or in Shopping, which is exactly why a publisher worried about traffic substitution and a merchant hoping to be recommended read the same setting differently.
For a store, the asymmetry points one way. The surfaces this control governs are where a growing share of product questions get asked, and the setting that keeps you there is already the default. The case for opening Search Console is not to change the value. It is to confirm nobody else changed it, and that a subdomain is not sitting on an inherited value that nobody chose.
The observable result is a recorded value for each property that covers a store address. That record states whether Google may use your content in those features. It does not prove that AI Overviews or AI Mode showed a product, or that a shopper who saw one bought anything.