Google has started rolling out its Search Console generative AI controls to sites outside the United Kingdom, with owners of US and other international properties reporting the new setting in their accounts, per Search Engine Roundtable. The control lets a site opt out of AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Google Discover while staying indexed and ranked as usual in standard search results.

The setting first appeared in June for .co.uk sites, after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to give publishers a way out of its AI search features. Google said at the time the control would expand globally, and Digiday reported a nine-month implementation window. The current rollout is partial: some non-UK sites see the setting in Search Console, others do not yet.

Google's documentation is specific about the trade. An opted-out site's content is "prevented from being visible to users in Search generative AI features, including being linked to within these features," and the site "won't receive any traffic or impressions from these features." Google says the control "isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search," and it is separate from model-training controls, which still run through Google-Extended. Alongside the switch, Google is expanding the generative AI performance report that shows how often a site appears in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Publishers have been quick to point at the limits. The performance report includes impressions and leaves out click data for AI features, the number a site would need to judge what AI answers actually do to its traffic. "It is Google offering publishers a light switch while keeping the power plant running," Raptive's Paul Bannister told Digiday.

The takeaway for brands: appearing in Google's AI answers is now an explicit setting, and someone at every company owns it, deliberately or by default. The calculus for most brands differs from a publisher's. A news site loses a click when an AI Overview answers in its place; a brand that opts out loses its presence in the recommendation itself, on a surface where a growing share of buyer research happens. The harder problem the rollout exposes is measurement, since Google is shipping the visibility switch ahead of the click data that would tell you what flipping it costs.