# How to track ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini traffic in GA4 > GA4 now has an AI Assistant channel. Where to find it, how to build your own AI channel with a regex, how ChatGPT’s utm_source helps, and what analytics will never show. Canonical: https://crawlwise.site/guides/visibility/track-ai-traffic-in-ga4 Last updated: 2026-10-29 GA4 now sorts visits from many AI assistants into a default channel called AI Assistant, covering sources such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot and Grok. For your own list, add a custom channel group with a “matches regex” rule on Source. Visits from Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode stay in Organic Search. by Adnan Arodiya Updated October 29, 2026 · 7 min read ## Key takeaways - GA4’s default channel group has an AI Assistant channel for referrers on Google’s list. - A custom channel group with a regex on Source lets you decide what counts; put it above Referral. - ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends, so its visits keep their source. - AI Overviews and AI Mode count as Organic Search, and mentions without a click never reach analytics. AI assistants send visitors, and for a long time GA4 filed most of them under Referral, mixed in with blogs and forums. That has changed, though not completely. This guide covers what GA4 now does by itself, how to build a channel you control, and what analytics will never show you. ## Does GA4 track AI traffic automatically? Partly. GA4’s default channel group now includes an **AI Assistant** channel. Google describes it as covering users who arrive “from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot, or Grok.” A session lands there when its medium exactly matches `ai-assistant`, or when the referrer is on Google’s list of AI assistants, in which case GA4 sets the medium to `ai-assistant` itself. The full list is a spreadsheet linked from Google’s help page, so check it for the assistants that matter to you. One exclusion matters: Google’s definitions put AI Overviews and AI Mode in **Organic Search**, not AI Assistant. ## Where do you see it? 1. Open the **Acquisition → Traffic acquisition** report. 2. Find the **AI Assistant** row in the channel column. 3. To see which assistant sent the visits, switch the table’s dimension to session source. 4. Add the landing page as a secondary dimension to see which pages assistants send people to. ## How do you build your own AI channel? The default channel follows Google’s list. If you want to decide what counts — for example, to add an assistant the list misses — build a custom channel group: 1. In **Admin**, under **Data display**, click **Channel groups**. You need the Editor role or above on the property. 2. Create a new channel group, or copy the default one so the other channels stay as they are. 3. Click **Add new channel** and name it, for example “AI assistants”. 4. Add a condition on **Source** with **matches regex**, and paste a pattern such as the one below. 5. Move the new channel **above Referral**. GA4 gives a session to the first channel whose rules it matches, so a channel listed below Referral never receives these visits. 6. Save. Google says custom channel groups “can be applied to your reports retroactively.” ``` .*(chatgpt\.com|openai\.com|perplexity\.ai|claude\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com|deepseek\.com|grok\.com).* ``` The leading and trailing `.*` make the pattern work whether GA4 compares the whole value or only part of it. Keep the list short and add a source when you notice a new one in your Referral rows. Google’s limits: a standard property can have two custom channel groups, each with up to 50 channels. ## What does ChatGPT’s utm_source do? OpenAI’s publisher FAQ says “ChatGPT automatically includes the UTM parameter utm_source=chatgpt.com in referral URLs.” So ChatGPT visits carry their source even when a browser or app drops the referrer, and they appear as `chatgpt.com` in the source dimension, which the pattern above catches. > Analytics sees the visit, never the mention. Measure the clicks here and the answers somewhere else. > > Adnan Arodiya, Crawlwise ## What will GA4 never show? - **Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode as their own channel.** They are Organic Search in GA4. Use Search Console instead: its generative AI performance report shows how often your URLs appeared in AI features. See [how to show up in Google AI Overviews](https://crawlwise.site/guides/ai-search/how-to-show-up-in-google-ai-overviews). - **Visits with no referrer and no UTM tag.** These land in Direct, whichever app they came from. - **Mentions without a click.** If ChatGPT names you and nobody clicks, nothing reaches your analytics. Checking the answers themselves is the only way to see it — see [how to get your website mentioned by ChatGPT](https://crawlwise.site/guides/ai-search/how-to-get-mentioned-by-chatgpt). - **AI crawlers.** Crawlers such as GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot rarely run analytics scripts, so their visits are in your server or CDN logs, not in GA4 — see [how to check AI crawler access](https://crawlwise.site/guides/ai-search/check-ai-crawler-access). ## What should you do with the numbers? Look at which landing pages AI assistants send people to. Those are pages an answer engine already used for something, so keep them accurate, keep the answer near the top, and link from them to the next step a visitor needs. Compare the AI Assistant channel month over month rather than day by day; small numbers swing easily, and one busy day proves nothing. ## How Crawlwise tests this Crawlwise does not replace GA4 here. On a verified site you can connect Search Console and GA4 to see Google’s measured data beside your audits — [how the connection works](https://crawlwise.site/docs/tools/search-console). What Crawlwise adds is the part analytics cannot see: whether AI crawlers can reach the page, with the free [AI crawler checker](https://crawlwise.site/tools/ai-crawler-check), and whether ChatGPT names you for a question, with the free [AI mention checker](https://crawlwise.site/tools/ai-mention-checker). Every check, what counts as a block, and what the checks cannot see are written up on the [methodology page](https://crawlwise.site/methodology). ## What a plan actually costs The free tools stay free. You can open them, run them, and leave without an account. A plan is for the moment you want the report saved, a few sites watched, or the same checks from the API. The price on this table is the price at checkout. A yearly plan is ten months of the monthly price, so two months are on us. | Plan | Monthly | Credits | A good fit when | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Starter | $4.99 | 10 | You look after one site and check it now and then | | Pro | $14.99 | 40 | A few sites, plus the API and a handful of watched URLs | | Studio | $49.99 | 150 | Client work that would burn through Pro mid-month | | Agency | $99.99 | 400 | Many locations, reported under your own name | A single-page audit is about 1.25 credits, and that includes the live probe of answer-engine crawlers. You see the estimate before anything runs. If a hold is not used, it comes back to your balance. Extra credits, when you already subscribe, are $9.99 for 20. ## Frequently asked questions ### Why does some AI traffic still show as Referral? The default AI Assistant channel only covers referrers on Google’s list. A source missing from that list stays in Referral. Add it to a custom channel group, placed above Referral. ### Does GA4 count AI Overviews clicks as AI traffic? No. Google’s channel definitions put AI Overviews and AI Mode in Organic Search. Use Search Console’s generative AI performance report to see how often your pages appeared there. ### Can GA4 show which prompt sent the visitor? No. GA4 sees the source and the landing page, not the conversation that led to the click. ### Do custom channel groups change past reports? Google says custom channel groups can be applied to your reports retroactively, so you can build one today and read last month through it. ## Sources Every page below was read on 2026-10-29. Vendors change prices, limits and documentation without notice, so check the original before you act on a detail. - [Analytics Help — Default channel group](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891) - [Analytics Help — Custom channel groups](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13051316) - [OpenAI Help Center — Publishers and developers FAQ](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856-publishers-and-developers-faq) - [Google Search Central — AI features and your website](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features) - [Google Search Central Blog — Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console (June 3, 2026)](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/06/gen-ai-performance-reports) ## GA4 and Crawlwise for AI traffic | What you get | Crawlwise | GA4 | | --- | --- | --- | | Counts visits from AI assistants | No, that is analytics’ job | Yes, the AI Assistant channel | | Shows whether AI crawlers can reach the page | Yes, live, per crawler | No — crawlers rarely run analytics | | Shows whether ChatGPT named you without a click | Yes, as a snapshot | No | | Price | Free tools | Free | ## Meet the author Adnan Arodiya Crawlwise Writes about what Crawlwise actually measures: on-page evidence, crawler access, and performance signals — with the limits stated up front. ## Related guides [Site crawls, monitors, and rank tracking](https://crawlwise.site/guides/visibility/site-crawls-and-monitoring): Move from one URL to whole-site structure and change detection. [Generative search readiness review: a calm step-by-step playbook](https://crawlwise.site/guides/visibility/visibility-playbook): Inspect the source signals a retriever can see. No score: actual citations are not measured here. [llms.txt generator: a calm step-by-step playbook](https://crawlwise.site/guides/visibility/llms-txt-playbook): Create a Markdown overview for tools that support this format. Experimental: it does not improve Google rankings or guarantee AI citations.