AI Traffic Tracker for GA4
Pick the AI assistants to track. You get the regex and the steps to see their visits as a channel of their own in Google Analytics 4.
^(.*\.)?(chatgpt\.com|openai\.com|perplexity\.ai|claude\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|grok\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com)$
It matches each assistant's domain and its subdomains, like chat.openai.com.
- 1In Google Analytics, open Admin, then Data display, then Channel groups, and create a new channel group.
- 2Add a channel named AI assistants with one condition: Source matches regex. Paste the regex.
- 3Drag it above Referral and save. GA4 uses the first channel that matches, so below Referral it would never be reached.
- 4In Reports, open Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and switch the table's first column to your new channel group.
GA4 misses AI visits without a referrer and never sees AI crawlers. Citepoint counts both on the server.
Guide
See visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini
Where AI visits go in GA4
Google Analytics files a click from ChatGPT or Perplexity under Referral, next to every other site that links to you, so AI traffic is easy to miss. A custom channel group gives it a line of its own in every acquisition report.
Why the order of channels matters
GA4 checks channels from top to bottom and uses the first one that matches. If the AI channel sits below Referral, Referral claims the visits first, so move it above.
What GA4 can't see
Some AI visits arrive without a referrer, from apps or copied links, and land in Direct. And AI crawlers never run your analytics script, so GA4 can't show when ChatGPT or Claude read your pages. Citepoint counts both on the server.
Questions
Good to know.
Why does ChatGPT traffic show up as chatgpt.com?
ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it cites, so GA4 records the source even when the referrer is missing.
Does the channel group change past data?
Custom channel groups apply to past data too, so you can compare AI traffic before and after a change.
Does it include Google AI Overviews?
No. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode arrive as google / organic, and GA4 can't tell them apart from regular search results.
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