How to Track ChatGPT Traffic in GA4 (and See If It Brings Enquiries)

Picture a hypothetical dental practice owner in Warrington (an invented example, not a client). She opens Google Analytics to find out whether ChatGPT sends her any patients, and spots a channel called “AI Assistant” that she never set up. Is that the whole picture? Not quite.

If you want to track ChatGPT traffic in GA4, you’re starting from a better place than you would have a year ago. Google added an AI Assistant channel to GA4 on 13 May 2026, according to its Analytics release notes. It picks up ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and a few others. It doesn’t pick up every assistant, and no GA4 report can see a visit that arrives without a referrer or tag.

This guide covers the visits AI sends to your website. Whether AI mentions your business at all is a separate measurement, and our AI visibility tracking guide covers that half.

You need GA4 installed and Editor access for Steps 3 to 5. Budget about 20 minutes once, then 5 minutes a month. We checked every menu path against Google’s help pages in October 2026.

Step 1: Check the AI Assistant Channel GA4 Already Gives You

Your first AI traffic number is already sitting in GA4. Plenty of tutorials still tell you to build an AI channel from scratch because they predate May 2026. This takes under a minute.

1. Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition (path checked October 2026 against Google’s Traffic acquisition help page).
2. Leave the table on its default dimension, Session default channel group.
3. Set the date range to the last 90 days.
4. Look for the AI Assistant row.

Can’t find the report? The left-hand menu is customisable, so a user with Editor access can add it back.

When a visitor arrives from an assistant GA4 recognises, it sets the medium to ai-assistant, the campaign to (ai-assistant), and files the visit under AI Assistant. Google’s default channel group definition says this channel covers “sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot, or Grok”. Note the word “like”. Those are examples, and Google doesn’t publish the full list.

Two gaps to know about straight away:

• Google’s own AI features aren’t in it. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode count as Organic Search.
• Perplexity isn’t named. Practitioners report Perplexity visits land in Referral (Terminus, Clickport). Claude was named in coverage at launch but isn’t named in Google’s current definition, so treat it as uncertain.

Google hasn’t said whether the channel applies to visits before 13 May 2026, so don’t read much into the row for earlier dates.

By now you should have a baseline AI Assistant number. If it shows only a handful of sessions, that’s normal for a local business (see Step 6).

Step 2: Find Every AI Referrer in Your Traffic Acquisition Report

The AI Assistant row gives you a total, but it can’t tell you who sent each visit. Perplexity and possibly Claude visits are hiding in your Referral row. Here’s how to list every AI source sending you visitors.

1. Stay in Traffic acquisition.
2. Change the table’s dimension drop-down to Session source / medium.
3. Type each name into the search box in turn: chatgpt, perplexity, gemini, copilot, claude.

What each assistant usually looks like in GA4 (checked October 2026):

Sources: Google’s channel definitions, Terminus (updated 16 September 2026) and Clickport.

You may also spot utm_source=chatgpt.com in your landing page URLs. OpenAI’s publisher FAQ says ChatGPT adds that tag to links in its answers automatically, so chatgpt.com shows as the source even when the browser strips the referrer. The same FAQ says your site must not block OAI-SearchBot if you want to appear in ChatGPT search; our guide on how to rank in ChatGPT covers that side. If Perplexity turns up, our Perplexity guide for local businesses explains how it picks sources.

By now you know which assistants send you anyone. If Perplexity or Claude appear, do Step 3.

Step 3: Build a Custom AI Channel Group to Catch Perplexity and Claude

You can’t edit GA4’s default channel group, but you can copy it and add one channel that catches every assistant. These steps follow Google’s custom channel groups help page, checked October 2026.

1. Go to Admin > Data display > Channel groups. You need Editor access or above.
2. Click Create new channel group. GA4 copies the default group for you.
3. Name it “Channels with AI”.
4. Click Add new channel and call it “AI assistants”. When you search reports for it later, type “assistants”: typing “AI” also matches “Email”, as Analytics Mania points out.
5. Set the condition to Session source, matches regex, and paste this pattern:

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

6. Add a second condition, Session medium exactly matches ai-assistant, and set the two to match either one (not both). That catches everything GA4’s own rule recognises.
7. Drag “AI assistants” above Referral, click Apply, then Save group.

Why so fussy? GA4 regex is full match by default, according to Google’s regex help page, so the pattern must match the whole source. The ^ and $ anchors are therefore harmless, and the backslashes make each dot a literal dot. Even Google’s own example uses loose wildcards such as .*gpt.*, which can sweep in sources that have nothing to do with AI. Test the pattern in your own property before relying on it.

Order matters. GA4 puts each visit in the first channel it matches, so an AI channel below Referral catches nothing. Google suggests it could sit above Organic Search too.

Standard properties get two custom channel groups, they apply retroactively to existing reports, and Google says to update the regex when assistants or their web addresses change.

Then switch Traffic acquisition’s dimension drop-down to your new group (it can take a while to appear).

Skip this step if Step 2 showed only ChatGPT and Gemini. The native channel already covers you.

Step 4: Save a One-Click AI Traffic Report

Nobody remembers seven clicks a month later. Save the view once and it sits in your menu.

The goal is an “AI traffic” report in the left-hand menu. This method comes from Analytics Mania, with paths checked October 2026.

1. Open Traffic acquisition and click the pencil icon (Customise report).
2. Add a filter: Session custom channel group exactly matches “AI assistants”.
3. Change the dimension to Session source and set it as the default.
4. Click Save > Save as a new report and call it “AI traffic”.
5. Go to Reports > Library, edit the Life cycle collection, drag “AI traffic” under Acquisition and save.

Why filter by the channel group instead of pasting the regex into the filter? Report filters cap at roughly 250 characters, according to Analytics Mania, while a channel group can hold a longer pattern.

Once it’s saved, look at which landing pages AI sends people to. The Ahrefs AEO course makes the point that these are pages AI already recommends, so keep them current and give them a clear call to action.

Want to dig deeper? Explore > Free form with the same dimension works too.

By now you have a five-minute monthly check.

Step 5: Connect AI Visits to Calls and Form Fills

Visits don’t pay the bills. The goal here is an AI enquiries number next to your AI visits.

First, your calls, form fills and booking clicks need to be key events. Go to Admin > Data display > Events and click the star next to the event (checked October 2026 against Google’s key events help page). Standard properties allow 30 key events. If phone taps aren’t tracked yet, our local SEO tracking guide walks through the setup.

1. Open your AI traffic report from Step 4.
2. Add the Key events metric and pick the specific event, such as your phone click or form submit.
3. Read the AI assistants row.

GA4 only sees part of the story, so add a second signal. Put “ChatGPT or another AI assistant” as an option in the “How did you hear about us?” field on your forms, and have reception ask the same question on the phone.

Ahrefs does exactly this. In its AEO course, it says around 3% of its conversions over the past year came from AI, based on self-reported data, and that it “would never have known that without asking.” Ahrefs is a software company, so treat that as proof the method works, not as a benchmark for a plumber or solicitor.

A hypothetical illustration (invented, not real data): a St Helens roofer might log two calls a month from people who “asked ChatGPT” while GA4 shows one AI session. Neither number is the full total.

By now you should have two monthly numbers: AI sessions, and AI enquiries (GA4 plus self-reported).

If you only do one thing from this guide, add the AI option to your enquiry form.

Step 6: Read the Number Honestly: What GA4 Can’t See

Seen four AI sessions this month and thought AI doesn’t matter for you? Look at the national picture first.

SE Ranking’s study of 101,574 sites using Google Analytics (published 18 June 2026) put AI platforms at 0.16% of UK website traffic in 2026, against 0.32% globally. ChatGPT sent 74.78% of AI referrals in the same study. So a few sessions a month for a local business is normal.

Your AI number is also a floor, not a total. Four things push it down:

• App and copy-paste visits. Native apps often send no referrer, and copied links never do, so those visits land in Direct (Clickport). In one test reported by Clickport, Wheelhouse DMG’s server logs showed 56 visits from Gemini on iPhone while GA4 recorded 5. That’s one test, not a rule.
• Brand searches. Someone hears your name from ChatGPT, then Googles you or types your web address. GA4 records that as Organic Search or Direct, as the Ahrefs AEO course points out.
• AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google counts these clicks as Organic Search (definition page), so GA4 can’t separate them from ordinary Google clicks.
• Tagging glitches. Relevant Audience reported, citing Adobe’s Cedric Huesler, that ChatGPT links stopped carrying utm_source=chatgpt.com from about 8 October 2026 until a fix from 15 October, pushing ChatGPT visits into Direct. OpenAI hasn’t commented publicly. Add a GA4 annotation for 8 to 15 October 2026 and don’t read that week’s dip as lost interest.

So what do you do with the number? Track it monthly as a trend, and pair it with whether AI mentions you at all, using the method in our AI visibility tracking guide. If you’d rather we set it up and report on it each month, that’s part of our AI visibility tracking service.

FAQ

Does GA4 track ChatGPT traffic automatically?

Partly. Since 13 May 2026, GA4’s default channel group includes an AI Assistant channel for recognised assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. Perplexity isn’t named in Google’s definition, and visits that arrive without a referrer or tag still show as Direct. See Steps 1 and 6 above.

What does utm_source=chatgpt.com mean in GA4?

It’s a tag OpenAI adds to links in ChatGPT answers so analytics tools can identify the visit. In GA4 you’ll see chatgpt.com as the session source. The tag reportedly went missing between 8 and 15 October 2026, so expect a dip that week.

Do Google AI Overviews show up as AI traffic in GA4?

No. Google counts clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode as Organic Search, not AI Assistant, so GA4 can’t show them separately. See Step 6 above for the other visits GA4 misses.

Will a custom AI channel group change my old GA4 data?

Yes, in a useful way. Google says custom channel groups apply retroactively to existing reports, so you’ll see past AI visits in your new channel too. Standard properties can have two custom groups. See Step 3 above.

Want this set up and reported on for you? Request a quote or call 07932 237512. We can’t promise AI will recommend you, but we can show you clearly what it sends you.