ChatGPT and AI traffic in GA4: how to find and segment it

What you can and cannot see in GA4

Customers who find you through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot sometimes click through to your site. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can count those visits when the click carries a referrer, which is the name of the site the visitor came from. This guide shows three ways to find them, then how to read the numbers.

It belongs to our guide on how customers see you. Traffic is the “after” side of that picture. To see whether assistants name you in the first place, use the 30-minute self-test.

Three limits to know up front:

• Referrer only. Visits with no referrer, such as from in-app browsers, mobile apps or pasted links, land in Direct. Seer Interactive says to treat AI traffic figures as a floor.
• Clicks, not mentions. A customer who reads your name in an answer and then calls or searches your brand never shows up as AI traffic.
• Google’s AI features are separate. Google’s documentation puts AI Overviews and AI Mode clicks in the Organic Search channel, so GA4 cannot split them out.

Creating a channel group needs the Editor role or higher on the property. The reports need no special access beyond being able to open them.

Method 1: use Google’s built-in AI Assistant channel

In May 2026 Google added an AI Assistant channel to GA4’s default channel group. Search Engine Journal reported it on May 14, 2026, and it needs no setup. Google’s help page says it covers traffic from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek, sets the medium to “ai-assistant”, and excludes AI Overviews and AI Mode.

1. In GA4, open Reports in the left menu.
2. Click Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition.
3. Look at the first column of the table (the default channel group). If you have AI visits, an AI Assistant row appears.
4. Set the report date range to the last 90 days.

If the row is missing, either you have no recognized AI visits yet, or the rollout has not reached your property. Google has not published the full list of recognized assistants, so do not assume every tool is in it. The channel only catches visits that carry a referrer.

Method 2: search for a single source

To check one assistant quickly, stay in Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition.

1. Type the source, such as chatgpt.com, in the search bar above the table and press Enter.
2. To see which pages those visitors landed on, open Reports, Engagement, Landing page and add the secondary dimension Session source / medium. The Landing page report shows sessions, active users, key events and average engagement time per session.
3. To filter instead of searching, click + Add filter at the top of the Traffic acquisition report. In the Build filter dialog, keep Include selected, choose the dimension Session source, pick the value, then click OK and Apply.

According to Seer Interactive’s testing, the sessions look like this in GA4:

If a click arrives with no referrer and no UTM, it appears as direct / (none).

Method 3: build a custom channel group with a regex

A custom channel group puts all AI sources in one row, including assistants Google’s channel may not list. Channel groups apply to past data in reports, so you do not lose history.

1. Click Admin.
2. Under Data display, click Channel groups.
3. Click Create new channel group. Give it a name such as “Channels with AI”.
4. Click Add new channel and name it “AI assistants”.
5. Click + Add condition group, choose the Source dimension, and set the condition to matches regex.
6. Paste the regex below.
7. Click Save channel.
8. Click Reorder and drag “AI assistants” above Referral, because GA4 puts a visit in the first channel it matches. Click Apply.
9. Click Save group.

Use this regex. It covers the main assistants as of October 2026:

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

It matches the domains in the first group, with or without a subdomain such as chat.openai.com, and the bare names in the second group, which some UTM tags use. It does not match google.com or mail.google.com, so ordinary Google traffic is unaffected. Test it by comparing the new channel with your source list. Google says to update the regex when assistant URLs change, so recheck it every quarter.

Limits to remember: a standard property can have 2 custom channel groups besides the default, and each group can hold up to 50 channels.

To use the group, open Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition, and switch the table’s primary dimension to your new channel group using the dimension drop-down above the table. Menu labels change from time to time, so look for the group’s name.

How to read the numbers

• Expect small counts. For many local businesses, AI visits are a handful a month. One week proves nothing, so compare 90-day totals.
• Look at where they land. Use the Landing page report. If assistants send people to your service pages, those pages are doing their job. If they land on the home page or a blog post, add the missing facts to the service pages.
• Look at what they do. In the Landing page or Traffic acquisition reports, check Key events, such as form submissions or call clicks. You must mark an event as a key event in GA4 for it to be counted. Compare AI visitors with organic search visitors.
• Keep a log. Write the monthly count in a sheet next to your prompt test results. If mentions rise and visits do not, check whether the cited page invites a click.
• Add the missing half. Ask new customers “how did you find us?” at the first call or on the booking form, and add “ChatGPT or another AI tool” as an option. This catches the visitors GA4 files under Direct.

For impressions in Google’s own AI features, use the Generative AI performance report in Search Console. It covers AI Overviews and AI Mode, shows impressions by page, country, device and date, and, per Google, reached all sites worldwide as of August 31, 2026. It may be missing if your site has too few impressions.

A 10-minute monthly routine

1. Open Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition and set the last full month.
2. Note the sessions in the AI Assistant row, or in your custom channel.
3. Open Reports, Engagement, Landing page, add Session source / medium, and list the pages those visitors landed on.
4. Note the key events from those sessions, such as calls, bookings or form submissions.
5. Write the four numbers in your sheet, next to the month’s prompt test results.

After three months you will see whether the line moves, and which pages assistants send people to.

When tracking tools help

GA4 shows what happened on your site. It does not show whether an assistant named you. Our comparison of AI visibility tools covers paid tools that track mentions, plus a free monthly method. For the site side, our website audit checklist shows how to review your pages the way a customer does.

Nobody controls what ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode or Perplexity recommend, and we do not promise placement. We set up the facts on your pages, and measure before and after. Ask for a free demo if you want us to look at your numbers with you.

Published October 25, 2026. Updated October 25, 2026.