Generative AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT are becoming a new and significant source of website traffic. While they’re not entirely replacing traditional search, they’re rapidly expanding how users find information, offering personalized experiences, and easily digestible content and conversational tones. To stay on top of industry trends and make data-informed decisions as users gravitate toward AI-driven search, you’ll need to segment traffic from these tools.
In the context of attribution measurement, platforms like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) group traffic from AI sources into the “Referral” channel by default, lumping it in with visits from traditional blogs or websites. You should segment it out and get a more accurate view by setting up a custom AI channel in GA4. Once you do, you can:
- Identify top-performing AI platforms and see exactly which AI tools are sending the most traffic to your site.
- Measure AI traffic conversions to understand if users from AI tools are converting and achieving your business goals.
- Create targeted audiences based on AI traffic for use in your marketing campaigns.
- Optimize your content for AI to attract more of this traffic.
How to Set up a Custom AI Channel
Ready to get started? First, navigate to Admin > Data Display> Channel Groups. Select ‘Create new channel group’, or click into an existing custom channel group to add this channel.
Next, select ‘Add new channel’. Name your channel something like ‘AI Traffic’ or ‘AI Chatbots’.
Then, define AI traffic sources. Some popular AI traffic sources include Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Use ‘matches regex’ to ensure you’re capturing all potential AI channels.
Below is a regex example that Google provides:
^.*ai|.*.openai.*|.*chatgpt.*|.*gemini.*|
.*gpt.*|.*copilot.*|.*perplexity.*|
.*google.*bard.*|.*bard.*google.*|.*bard.*|
.*.*gemini.*google.*$
As more AI agents are popping up, here is a more inclusive list for defining AI traffic:
.*gemini.*|.*gpt.*|.*neeva.*|.*perplexity.*|
.*claude.*|.*copilot.*|.*writesonic.*|
.*deepseek.*|.*bard.*|meta.ai.*|.*mistral.*|
.*anthropic.*|.*nimble.*|.*outrider.*|
.*edgeservices.*|.*astastic.*|.*copy.ai.*|.*.ai
Pro Tip: Be sure to check this against your actual AI traffic sources to ensure the regex is capturing all traffic that should be sorted as AI.
GA4 sorts through channel groupings in top-down order, so be sure to place the AI channel before Referral.
What Next?
Updates to channel groupings are retroactive in the GA4 UI, so this new channel can be tested in GA4 Explore. This is done by pulling in the session source/medium and session custom channel grouping. Then, you can review the source against the updated channel rule to ensure it falls under AI traffic.
Keep in mind that now that more users are leveraging AI tools for search, you may notice a decrease in overall traffic YoY (specifically for content/publisher sites). However, segmenting out traffic from AI sources will help you tell a more accurate data story moving forward.
Have questions about AI and search? Check out our AI solutions or reach out to connect with our knowledgeable team.
