How to Track ChatGPT and AI Traffic in GA4

We set up analytics as part of our SEO and AI search work, and the channel group and reports below are the ones we set up on marketlube.in. Our GA4 property went live on 2 October 2026 with an "AI assistants" channel from day one; the regex below is the corrected version of our first pattern, the one our own group is moving to, for a reason explained further down.

People ask ChatGPT and Gemini for recommendations now, so business owners want to know whether those answers send anyone to their site. GA4 can show part of that picture, Search Console and Bing show another part, and some of it you will only learn by asking customers. Here is how to set up each piece and read them together in one monthly report.

Which AI tools send visitors, and how do they show up in GA4?#

When someone clicks a link inside an AI answer, their browser usually passes the assistant's address as the referrer, for example chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, claude.ai or copilot.microsoft.com. GA4 records that hostname as the session's source. Some assistants also tag their links: OpenAI's publisher FAQ (opens in a new tab) says "ChatGPT automatically includes the UTM parameter utm_source=chatgpt.com in referral URLs" (as archived on 27 August 2026; the live page blocked our automated read on 4 October 2026).

Until May 2026 most of these visits landed in GA4's Referral channel, mixed with every blog and directory that links to you. A link carrying ChatGPT's utm_source tag but no medium could even end up in Unassigned.

How much traffic should you expect? Not much, yet. Ahrefs studied about 35,000 websites and found that AI sent just 0.1% of total referral traffic (opens in a new tab) (26 March 2025). A newer report by the agency Previsible, covering 166 GA4 properties from November 2024 to May 2026 (opens in a new tab) (6 July 2026), found AI referrals still a small share of sessions, from 0.08% in publishing to 1.71% for small businesses, with ChatGPT sending 92.4% of trackable AI referrals and Claude overtaking Perplexity in March 2026. Small numbers, but every one of those visitors came from an answer that mentioned you.

GA4's default AI Assistant channel, and why we still keep a custom group#

On 13 May 2026, Google's What's new in Google Analytics (opens in a new tab) announced a new AI Assistant channel for visits "through chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude". When the referrer matches a recognised assistant, GA4 sets the medium to "ai-assistant", the campaign to "(ai-assistant)" and the channel to AI Assistant. The default channel group page (opens in a new tab) (read 4 October 2026) describes the channel as visits "from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot, or Grok", and adds that it "excludes Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode", which count as Organic Search.

If you have never looked at AI traffic, the default channel is a good start: open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and look for the AI Assistant row. You don't need to configure anything.

We still keep our own channel, for three reasons:

It doesn't depend on Google's list. Google names examples, not the full list of assistants it recognises. Our rule names each hostname, including claude.ai, perplexity.ai and meta.ai, and also takes any visit GA4 has already labelled ai-assistant, so one row holds both.
It matches on the source as well as the medium. Google's channel depends on GA4 recognising the referrer and rewriting the medium. Our hostname rule also catches a visit from chatgpt.com that arrives with ChatGPT's utm_source tag, and visits from an assistant Google doesn't recognise yet.
It is ours to change. When a new assistant starts sending visits, we add one hostname. Custom channel groups also apply to past data: Google's custom channel groups page (opens in a new tab) says they "can be applied to your reports retroactively".

How to set up the custom channel group#

These are the steps we followed for marketlube.in. You need Editor access to the GA4 property.

Go to Admin, then Data display, then Channel groups, and choose Create new channel group. GA4 starts it as a copy of the default group. We named ours "Marketlube channels".
Add a channel called "AI assistants".
Set the condition to Source, matching a regex, and paste the pattern below. Then add a second condition joined with OR: Medium exactly matches ai-assistant, so the channel also takes every visit GA4 has already labelled.
Move "AI assistants" above Referral, and above Google's AI Assistant channel if your copy includes it. Channels are matched from the top down, so a visit that Referral or Google's channel claims first never reaches yours.
Save, then choose your new group as the dimension in the Traffic acquisition report. A standard property allows two custom groups with up to 50 channels each.

The pattern:

^(.*\.)?(chatgpt\.com|chat\.openai\.com|perplexity\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|bard\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com|claude\.ai|meta\.ai|chat\.deepseek\.com|grok\.com)$

Watch for one trap: GA4 matches a regex against the whole source, not part of it (Google's regex help (opens in a new tab), read 4 October 2026). Our first version, set up on 2 October 2026, began with (^|\.) instead of ^(.*\.)?, and under full matching that counts only the bare hostnames, so a visit from www.perplexity.ai (opens in a new tab) would fall through to Referral. The pattern above allows any subdomain; because anything before the name must end in a dot, "notchatgpt.com" still doesn't count, and the $ stops lookalikes such as chatgpt.com.example.net. We are moving our own group to it.

A word of caution about copying patterns from the internet, including Google's own. The example on Google's custom channel groups page begins with ^.*ai, which sweeps in any source ending in "ai", so a link from any company website on a .ai domain would be filed as an AI assistant. Name the assistants instead, and check your Referral report now and then for new ones to add.

Can you see visits from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode?#

Not separately in GA4. Google's AI features and your website (opens in a new tab) (updated 10 December 2025) says sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in Search Console's Performance report "within the 'Web' search type", and GA4's default channel page confirms these clicks sit in Organic Search. A visit from an AI Overview looks like any other Google organic visit.

What you can now see is how often you appear. On 3 June 2026 Google announced Search generative AI performance reports (opens in a new tab) in Search Console, with dedicated views for Search and Discover, and since 31 August 2026 they have been available to all websites. The help page (opens in a new tab) (read 4 October 2026) lists what the Search report covers: impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. It shows impressions, not clicks.

Use it to answer two questions each month: are your pages appearing in AI answers more or less often, and which pages are they? If a page earns AI impressions but few clicks, its summary may already answer the question, which is fine if the page's job is to build trust and hard if its job is to bring leads.

Pair it with the branded queries filter (opens in a new tab) in the Performance report (introduced 20 November 2025, available to all eligible sites since 11 March 2026). When AI answers mention you, some people search for your name afterwards, so a rising branded line is one of the few visible signs of AI exposure that never sent a click.

What does Bing show for Copilot?#

Bing Webmaster Tools added an AI Performance report (opens in a new tab) in public preview on 10 February 2026. It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and some partner integrations, and shows:

Total citations: how often your pages were shown as sources in AI answers.
Average cited pages: unique pages cited per day.
Grounding queries: the phrases the AI used when it retrieved your content.
Page-level citation activity and trends over time.

Like Search Console's report, it counts citations, not clicks. The grounding queries are the most useful part for a small business, because they show the questions an AI system was trying to answer when it chose your page. Search Console's generative AI report goes into our weekly 30-minute SEO check and Bing's AI Performance into the monthly scorecard. Expect both to be empty for a new site.

How do you tie AI visits to leads?#

Count leads with the same events you use for every other channel, then read them by your AI channel.

On our site, GA4 records four key events: generate_lead for a form our server accepted, and whatsapp_click, call_click and email_click for taps on those links. The three taps are intent, not leads: a lead is a WhatsApp conversation, a call or a form that actually arrives. Since our contact form now hands each brief to WhatsApp, it shows up as a whatsapp_click from the contact form, and the chat that follows is what we count.

To see what AI visitors do:

In Traffic acquisition, switch the primary dimension to your custom channel group and add the key events column. You now see AI assistant sessions next to Organic Search and Referral, with the key events each brought.
Add landing page as a secondary dimension. AI visitors often land deep on a guide or a case study rather than the home page, which tells you which pages AI answers cite.
Compare the key event rate per session with Organic Search, using your own numbers rather than anyone's benchmark, and confirm the leads in your CRM.

If you put a value on leads or send closed sales back to Google and Meta, the same events carry through. Our guide to offline conversion tracking explains how to connect CRM outcomes to those key events.

What will you never see, and how do you fill the gap?#

Several things, and it is better to know them before reading too much into a small number.

Visits without a referrer. If someone copies a link out of an answer, or an app opens it without passing a referrer, GA4 files the visit under Direct. No channel rule can recover it.
Google's AI clicks. They stay in Organic Search, as above.
Answers that never send a click. Pew Research Center tracked 900 US adults in March 2025 (opens in a new tab) (published 22 July 2025): users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary in 1%. Being cited and being visited are different things.
Visitors who decline analytics. On our site GA4 loads only after a visitor accepts cookies, so every GA4 number is a subset of real visits.

To fill the gap, ask. Add "How did you hear about us?" to your form or your first WhatsApp reply, with "An AI assistant such as ChatGPT or Gemini" as one of the options, and note the answer against each lead. Then keep a fixed panel of buyer questions and ask them in ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity every month, recording who is named and cited. Our panel for Marketlube is ten fixed prompts for five assistants, never reworded, so each month compares with the last. AI answers vary between runs and users, so read the panel as a trend.

A monthly AI visibility report#

Put the pieces on one page, once a month, with last month's numbers beside them. This is the template we work from.

Line	Where it comes from	What to note
AI assistant sessions, by source	GA4 Traffic acquisition, custom channel group	Total, and the split between ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and others
Key events from AI sessions	Same report, key events column	Form, WhatsApp, call and email events; leads confirmed in your CRM
Top landing pages from AI	Same report, landing page dimension	Which pages AI answers send people to
AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions	Search Console, generative AI report	Total, and the top five pages
Copilot and Bing AI citations	Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance	Citations, cited pages and the main grounding queries
Branded searches	Search Console, branded queries filter	Clicks and impressions for your name
"How did you hear about us?"	Your form or CRM	Leads that named an AI assistant
Prompt panel	Your monthly log	How many of your buyer questions name or cite you

Two rules make the report useful. Compare months, not single numbers, because at this scale one enthusiastic customer can double a line. And write one sentence under the table saying what you will change next month: a page to improve, a fact to correct, a directory to fix.

For what moves those numbers, our guide to generative engine optimisation covers the strategy. If you are wondering whether an llms.txt file would help, our llms.txt explainer sets out what the evidence shows.

Frequently asked questions#

Does GA4 track ChatGPT traffic automatically?#

Since May 2026, yes, partly. GA4's default channel group includes an AI Assistant channel for visits whose referrer matches a recognised assistant, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek or Grok. Visits that arrive without a referrer still show as Direct, and Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted under Organic Search.

Can I see AI Overviews traffic in Google Analytics?#

No. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted inside Organic Search in GA4 and inside the Web search type in Search Console. Search Console's generative AI performance report, available to all sites since 31 August 2026, shows how often your pages appeared in those features, as impressions only.

Why does ChatGPT traffic show as referral in my GA4 reports?#

Before May 2026, GA4 had no AI channel, so assistant visits fell into Referral by default (or Unassigned, when a link carried a source tag but no medium), and reports built before then may still group them that way. Assistants GA4 doesn't recognise still land in Referral. Use the default channel group's AI Assistant row, or a custom channel group with an AI assistants channel placed above Referral.

Is a custom channel group applied to past data?#

Yes. Google's documentation says custom channel groups can be applied to reports retroactively, so a group you create today also classifies earlier sessions. A standard GA4 property can have two custom channel groups, each with up to 50 channels.

How much traffic do AI assistants send to websites?#

Still a small share for most sites. Ahrefs found AI sent about 0.1% of referral traffic across roughly 35,000 websites in early 2025. Previsible's 2026 report of 166 GA4 properties found shares from 0.08% in publishing to 1.71% for small businesses, with ChatGPT sending most of it.

Set it up once, read it monthly#

The set-up takes under an hour; the value comes from reading the same report every month and acting on it. If you'd like us to set up AI tracking on your GA4 property and build the monthly report with you, send us a brief, or see how our SEO and AI search programme handles measurement. Or go through it in an AI search consultation with Althameem Ali.

Changelog#

2026-10-10: The closing paragraph now offers an AI search consultation with Althameem Ali.