How to see traffic from ChatGPT and other AI assistants in Google Analytics

Before you spend money on "AI visibility", find out whether AI assistants already send you visitors. You can do that for free in Google Analytics 4.

What to look for

OpenAI's publisher FAQ says ChatGPT automatically adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral URLs from its search results. In GA4 those visits show up with session source chatgpt.com.

Other assistants usually show up as referrers rather than UTM tags. Look for sources such as perplexity.ai, claude.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. Check your own data for others. This list isn't exhaustive, and services change their domains.

Build the report (5 minutes)

1. In GA4, go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
2. Change the primary dimension to Session source.
3. Add a filter: Session source matches regex
   chatgpt|perplexity|claude|gemini|copilot
4. Save it to your library so it's one click next time.

For a cleaner long-term view, create a custom channel group with an "AI assistants" channel using the same rule, placed above "Referral".

Why the numbers undercount

• Plenty of people read the AI answer and never click. Those visits don't exist to measure.
• Apps and some browsers strip the referrer, so visits arrive as "Direct".
• Tagging isn't guaranteed. Between 8 and 16 October 2026, many ChatGPT links went out without the UTM tag. Profound, an analytics company, reported that tagging recovered to about 99% of answers on 16 October. Read reports covering those days with care.

So treat GA4 as a floor, not the full picture. To see whether you're mentioned at all, clicks or not, run the AI Visibility Quick Scan.

Sources

• OpenAI Help Center: publishers and developers FAQ
• Profound: ChatGPT's missing UTM tags, 8–16 October
• Google Analytics Help: custom channel groups