What Google documented
- AI Overviews and AI Mode began rolling out in France on mobile, desktop and the Google app.
- Google says AI Overviews appear when its systems determine that a generative overview is useful for the query.
- AI Mode uses query fan-out to run multiple searches across subtopics and provides links to the web.
- Google introduced a Search Console control for participation in generative Search features in France and says this control is not a ranking signal outside those features.
What the announcement does not prove
The announcement does not publish a source-selection score, a preferred article format or a guaranteed way to appear. Google Search Central states that normal SEO fundamentals remain relevant to AI features and that no special schema or AI text file is required.
The experimental Generative AI performance report covers impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode. It can group them by page, country, date and device, but it does not report clicks, CTR, queries or position. Access is limited during rollout, and the normal Web performance report still includes this data in aggregate.
A defensible measurement plan
- Freeze a set of French queries and the pages intended to answer them.
- Record Search Console clicks, impressions, CTR and average position before and after a dated change.
- Archive visible AI features manually on a repeatable sample and record region, device and date.
- Report the launch as context, not as proof that it caused a traffic movement.