GA4 AI Traffic Setup
See how much traffic AI assistants send you. Pick the assistants, copy the regex, and follow the short GA4 steps. It runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.
2. Add it in GA4
- In GA4, open Admin. Under Data display, click Channel groups.
- Create a new channel group and add a channel named “AI assistants”.
- Add a condition: Source, “matches regex”, and paste the regex from above.
- Reorder the channels so “AI assistants” sits above “Referral”. You can also place it above “Organic Search”. A visit goes into the first channel whose rule it matches.
- Save. Google says custom channel groups can be applied to your reports retroactively.
- Check the result against your Source report. If an assistant is missing, add its exact source name here and update the regex.
Based on Google's help pages for default channel groups and custom channel groups, opened 20 October 2026.
How it works
- Google Analytics 4 now has a built-in AI Assistant channel. Google describes it as visits from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot or Grok. Its rule is that the medium exactly matches “ai-assistant”.
- That built-in channel only catches visits that arrive labelled that way. A custom channel group lets you catch assistants by their source name instead. This tool builds the regex for it.
- Pick the assistants you care about, add any others, and test a source name against the pattern. Then copy the regex into a new channel in your own property.
What it cannot tell you
- Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode count as Organic Search in GA4, so these reports cannot separate them from normal Google traffic.
- Some AI tools do not pass the page they came from, so those visits can show as Direct. GA4 cannot see those visits as AI. Treat the AI number as a floor, not a total.
- The source names above are the ones we expect. Assistants change their domains. Your own Source report is the truth, and the regex needs updating when they change.
- Standard GA4 properties allow 2 custom channel groups (5 for GA4 360), with up to 50 channels per group, so check you have a free slot.
Questions
Does GA4 already track AI traffic?
Partly. GA4 has a built-in AI Assistant channel for sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot and Grok, based on the medium. A custom channel group is useful if you want to include more sources or check what the built-in rule misses.
Where do Google AI Overviews and AI Mode show up?
In Organic Search. Google's channel definitions say Organic Search includes AI Overviews and AI Mode, and the AI Assistant channel excludes them. So GA4 channel reports cannot separate them from other Google organic traffic.
Why is my AI traffic so low?
AI assistants may be a small share of your visits today, and some of their visits are recorded as Direct when no referrer is passed. Self-reported attribution, such as asking “how did you hear about us?” on forms, helps fill that gap.
Why does the regex use .* around each term?
Google's own worked example on its channel group help page wraps each term in .* so it matches anywhere in the source name. We follow the same pattern.
Do I need to be an admin?
Creating a channel group is an admin-level setup. If you cannot see the Channel groups page under Data display, ask whoever manages your analytics property to add it or to give you access.
Built by
Rahil Jain
Rahil built this tool for the same method Chalk Labs uses on client work. It is free, and it is not a sales funnel: nothing here requires an email.