Original data
How to track Google AI Overviews, and who they name.
· Measured 1 to 25 September 2026
Start with the report Google already gives you: Search Console's generative AI report shows how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. What it cannot show is who the Overview named instead of you, and that is what a tracker is for.
We searched our 20 buyer questions about AI visibility tools on Google four times each. An AI Overview appeared on 71 of 80 searches, and it named Semrush in 36 of them.
Key takeaways
- Google's own report is free and shows your pages' impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It does not show competitors.
- An Overview appeared on 89% of our searches; the rest showed none, so a tracker has to count those separately.
- Asked about these tools, the Overviews named Semrush (36), Profound (30) and Otterly.AI (20) most.
- 29 of the 32 tools we checked name AI Overviews on their own sites.
Start with Google's free report
The Generative AI performance report in Google Search Console is the only first-party AI Overviews number there is. It shows how often links to your site were shown in Google's generative AI features, as impressions, with filters for text and multimodal searches. It is part of Search Console, which Google describes as a free service, and Google says access is still rolling out.
Read it for what it is. It counts impressions of links to your pages, on the searches where Google showed one. It does not tell you which questions an Overview answered without you, which brands it named, or which other sites it cited. Those three are what the tools below exist to measure.
Which tools Google's AI Overviews names
The Overviews themselves, asked our buyer questions about AI visibility tools. 71 of the 80 searches showed an Overview; this counts the tools each one named.
| # | Tool | Answers naming it | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Semrush | 36 | 51% |
| 2 | Profound | 30 | 42% |
| 3 | Otterly.AI | 20 | 28% |
| 4 | Ahrefs | 13 | 18% |
| 4 | SE Ranking | 13 | 18% |
| 6 | Peec AI | 12 | 17% |
| 7 | Scrunch | 11 | 15% |
| 8 | AthenaHQ | 7 | 10% |
| 9 | Conductor | 5 | 7% |
| 9 | Rankscale | 5 | 7% |
| 11 | Goodie | 4 | 6% |
| 12 | Alhena | 3 | 4% |
| 12 | BrightEdge | 3 | 4% |
| 12 | Dageno | 3 | 4% |
| 15 | Evertune | 2 | 3% |
| 32 | Greater Than Servicesours | 0 | 0% |
Gemini is grounded in the same Google Search, and it agrees on the top three. The order below them differs, which is one reason to track the two separately:
| Tool | AI Overviews (71) | Gemini (80) |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush | 36 (51%) | 37 (46%) |
| Profound | 30 (42%) | 31 (39%) |
| Otterly.AI | 20 (28%) | 29 (36%) |
| Ahrefs | 13 (18%) | 21 (26%) |
| SE Ranking | 13 (18%) | 10 (13%) |
| Peec AI | 12 (17%) | 19 (24%) |
| Scrunch | 11 (15%) | 13 (16%) |
| AthenaHQ | 7 (10%) | 6 (8%) |
What makes AI Overviews harder to track
It does not always appear. 9 of our 80 searches showed no Overview. A tracker that counts those as "not named" understates you; one that drops them should say how many it dropped.
There is no API for it. Google publishes none for AI Overviews, so a tool has to read Google's results page to see one. Ask any vendor how it does that, and from which country, because Overviews are served per market. The figures here were read as a searcher in the United States.
It moves, like every engine. Searched again at the next run, the Overview named 53% of the same tools again. A weekly count shows direction; one screenshot shows a moment.
AI Mode is a separate surface. It sits in the same Search Console report, and of the 29 tools naming AI Overviews, 22 list AI Mode too.
Tools that say they track AI Overviews
By their own sites, checked on 25 September 2026. Each links to the page that says so; which plan includes it is on the vendor's site.
- Semrush · named 36 times by the Overviews
- Otterly.AI · named 20 times by the Overviews
- Profound · named 30 times by the Overviews
- Peec AI · named 12 times by the Overviews
- Ahrefs · named 13 times by the Overviews
- Scrunch · named 11 times by the Overviews
- AthenaHQ · named 7 times by the Overviews
- SE Ranking · named 13 times by the Overviews
- Rankscale · named 5 times by the Overviews
- Writesonic · named once by the Overviews
- Surfer · named once by the Overviews
- GrackerAI · named once by the Overviews
- Goodie · named 4 times by the Overviews
- LLMrefs · not named by the Overviews
- BrightEdge · named 3 times by the Overviews
- Ayzeo · named once by the Overviews
- LLM Pulse · named 2 times by the Overviews
- Ranketta · named 2 times by the Overviews
- Trakkr · named once by the Overviews
- Alhena · named 3 times by the Overviews
- Evertune · named 2 times by the Overviews
- Wellows · named 2 times by the Overviews
- Cognizo · named once by the Overviews
- Siftly · not named by the Overviews
- Dageno · named 3 times by the Overviews
- Rankability · not named by the Overviews
- Omnia · named once by the Overviews
- KIME · not named by the Overviews
- RankPrompt · named once by the Overviews
Where we fit
Greater Than Services was named in none of these Overviews. Google AI Overviews is on every plan we sell, including the smallest, beside ChatGPT, and each tracked question shows the Overview's text, the sites it cited and your Google rank for the same search.
One check before blaming any tracker for a missing Overview: make sure a Google-Extended warning has not led someone to block Googlebot. The Gemini post explains the difference.
How we measured this
These are buyer questions we track for our own product, Greater Than Services, in our own workspace. Each run puts every question to five engines, asking as a buyer in the United States. It ran four times, on 1, 2, 10 and 25 September 2026. 20 questions drew 391 answers.
- ChatGPT: OpenAI's GPT-4o with web search, through the API
- Claude: Claude Haiku 4.5 with web search, through the API
- Gemini: Gemini 2.5 Flash grounded in Google Search, through the API
- Perplexity: Sonar, which always searches the web
- Google AI Overviews: read from Google's own results page
Named means the tool appears in the answer's own words. The engines write their sources into the text as links, and a link to a vendor's blog is a source, not a recommendation, so links are removed before names are matched. Own site read means the tool's website was among the sources the engine cited for that answer. A tool named in the question itself is not counted for that question, because every answer repeats it.
Across all 20 questions, Google showed an AI Overview for 71 of the 80 searches, so the other 9 are not counted as answers. Answers move from week to week: asked the same question on the same engine at the next run, the engines named 54% of the same tools again.
The full method, the questions we left out, and the data as a CSV are on the main ranking.
Questions people ask
Can I see AI Overviews in Google Search Console?
Yes. Search Console's generative AI performance report shows how often links to your site were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, as impressions. Google says the report is still rolling out, so not every property has it yet. It covers your own pages; it does not show which other sites or brands an Overview named.
Which tools track Google AI Overviews?
Of the 32 tools we checked, 29 name Google AI Overviews on their own site among what they track. When we asked Google's AI Overviews itself, it named Semrush, Profound and Otterly.AI most.
Does blocking Google-Extended remove my site from AI Overviews?
No. Google-Extended governs whether your content can be used for Gemini and Vertex AI. AI Overviews are built from the Search index, which Googlebot crawls, so blocking Googlebot would remove you from Google Search, not fix anything.
How often should I check AI Overviews?
Weekly is enough to see a trend, and once is not. When the same question was searched again at the next run, the Overview named 53% of the same tools again.