AI Search Traffic: Live Index and Measurement Guide (2026)

Name: AI Search Traffic Index
Creator: Trakkr
Keywords: AI search traffic, ChatGPT traffic, AI referral data, Claude traffic, Gemini traffic, Perplexity traffic

ChatGPT still leads. Claude is catching up.

Each column is one month of AI referral page views, split into 100. ChatGPT has held 80 to 92 of them since June 2025. Claude went from 2 to 16 in four months.

Swipe back to Jun 2025, all 17 months

Source share: percentage of AI referral page views by month. Source: Trakkr AI Search Traffic Index, 1 Jun 2025 to 27 Oct 2026. October is partial.

How we count

Read the monthly shares

Share of identifiable AI referral page views by month, as cells out of 100 and exact percentages.
Month	ChatGPT	Claude	Gemini	Everyone else	Days
Jun 2025	90 (89.6%)	0 (0.5%)	2 (2.1%)	8 (7.9%)	30
Jul 2025	90 (89.8%)	0 (0.5%)	2 (2.0%)	8 (7.8%)	31
Aug 2025	90 (90.1%)	0 (0.5%)	2 (1.8%)	8 (7.6%)	31
Sep 2025	91 (91.1%)	0 (0.5%)	2 (1.7%)	7 (6.7%)	30
Oct 2025	92 (92.0%)	0 (0.4%)	2 (1.4%)	6 (6.2%)	31
Nov 2025	91 (91.4%)	1 (0.7%)	2 (2.0%)	6 (6.0%)	30
Dec 2025	88 (88.3%)	1 (0.7%)	4 (3.7%)	7 (7.3%)	31
Jan 2026	81 (80.7%)	1 (0.8%)	5 (5.7%)	13 (12.8%)	31
Feb 2026	84 (84.3%)	1 (1.3%)	8 (7.5%)	7 (6.8%)	28
Mar 2026	81 (80.5%)	3 (3.2%)	10 (9.9%)	6 (6.4%)	31
Apr 2026	81 (81.3%)	3 (2.7%)	10 (10.0%)	6 (5.9%)	30
May 2026	90 (89.7%)	2 (1.7%)	5 (5.2%)	3 (3.5%)	31
Jun 2026	91 (90.7%)	2 (1.8%)	4 (4.5%)	3 (2.9%)	30
Jul 2026	91 (90.9%)	2 (1.9%)	4 (4.6%)	3 (2.6%)	31
Aug 2026	89 (89.2%)	6 (5.9%)	3 (3.3%)	2 (1.7%)	31
Sep 2026	84 (83.6%)	11 (11.2%)	4 (3.9%)	1 (1.3%)	30
Oct 2026 (partial)	80 (79.4%)	16 (16.2%)	3 (3.1%)	1 (1.3%)	27

Every AI source, ranked.

Each source’s share of the last 30 days of AI referral page views, next to the month before. Each little grid is that source’s 100.

As of 27 Oct 2026. Growth compares AI referral page views with the prior 30 days. “Websites” counts sites with at least one page view from that source. A dash means the base a month ago was too small to compare.

AI sources ranked by share of AI referral page views, 30 days to 27 Oct 2026
Source	Share now	A month ago	Views, 30 days	Websites
1ChatGPT	79.4%	83.9%	+5.2%	6,564
2Claude	16.3%	10.9%	+65.4%	2,866
3Gemini	3.1%	3.8%	−11.5%	4,871
4Microsoft Copilot	0.5%	0.5%	+18.5%	4,287
5Perplexity	0.5%	0.5%	+7.6%	4,561
6You.com	0.2%	0.3%	−2.5%	692
7Grok	<0.1%	<0.1%	+40.2%	626
8Poe	<0.1%	<0.1%	+89.7%	411
9DeepSeek	<0.1%	<0.1%	–	359

Where 79.4% comes from.

Check the sum, then quote it. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link.

About this number

Live data, asAs of 27 Oct 2026

ChatGPT page views

Page views from sessions GA4 credits to chatgpt.com, chat.openai.com or an OpenAI alias

All AI referral page views

Page views credited to any of the 10 AI sources we track

79.4%

Source: Google Analytics 4, from connected sites
Sample: 6,600 websites
Window: 28 Sep to 27 Oct 2026
History: Daily since 1 Jun 2025, 514 days
Updated: Every day
Licence: CC BY 4.0
GA4 filter: Session source regex

Quote it

“ChatGPT sent 79.4% of AI referral page views to 6,600 websites in the 30 days to 27 October 2026.”

Trakkr AI Search Traffic Index

Reference

Trakkr (2026). AI Search Traffic Index. Retrieved 28 October 2026.

https://trakkr.ai/ai-search-traffic

Leaves out

Clicks that lose their referrer (they show as Direct)
Google AI Overviews
AI answers nobody clicks
Site names

Questions, answered.

The ones we hear most about this data.

Which AI search engine sends the most traffic to websites?

Use the current source ranking on this page. It orders the panel by each platform's share of identifiable AI referral page views over the latest 30-day period, so the answer can change as the data changes.

What does the AI Search Traffic Index measure?

Is AI referral traffic growing?

Does the index show AI traffic as a percentage of all website traffic?

How do you track traffic from different AI platforms?

How is source mix calculated?

Why can an AI click appear as Direct in GA4?

Can GA4 separate Gemini and Google AI Overview traffic?

Does an AI source row reveal the prompt or citation?

How can I check my AI search traffic in Google Analytics?

How can I measure AI referral traffic in PostHog?

How can I track AI traffic to my own website?

Ask anything else, like “How do I track Claude visits in GA4?”Ask anything else

The Agent answers from our docs, methods and pricing, and links to the source.

Find AI referral traffic in your own GA4

Start with GA4’s current AI Assistant channel, then audit the underlying sources and keep traffic that analytics cannot attribute in a separate evidence layer. The public panel’s source mix is a panel benchmark, not global market share.

Reference: Google’s default channel definitions, Google’s GA4 landing page report and PostHog web analytics.

Traffic acquisition report

Open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. Check Session default channel group = AI Assistant first.
Set the primary dimension to Session source / medium and compare the last complete month with the previous month.
Add a Session source Matches regex filter to audit recognized assistant hostnames. Use the broad collector expression only when you can inspect aliases.
Add Landing page + query string as a secondary dimension. Review Sessions, Engaged sessions, Key events, and Total revenue.

^(([a-z0-9-]+\.)*chatgpt\.com|chat\.openai\.com|openai\.com|chatgpt|openai|(www\.)?perplexity\.ai|perplexity|(www\.)?claude\.ai|claude|anthropic|gemini\.google\.com|gemini|bard|copilot\.microsoft\.com|copilot|bing-chat|deepseek\.com|deepseek|grok\.com|x\.ai|grok|you\.com|phind\.com|phind|poe\.com|poe|meta\.ai|meta-ai)$

Use a Matches regex filter on Session source. Keep the anchors so tagged campaigns do not match by accident.

Use the conservative audit regex

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

Use a Matches regex filter on Session source. Keep the anchors so tagged campaigns do not match by accident.

Free-form exploration

Rows: Session source, then Landing page + query string
Values: Views, Sessions, Engaged sessions, Key events, Total revenue
Filter: Session source matches AI source regex
Date: Last 30 days compared with the previous 30 days

Views align with this index’s GA4 screen-page-view measure. Sessions and key events answer a different question: what happened after the click.

Measure AI landing pages and conversions in PostHog

Use the same source domains, but measure the entrance page and the conversion event in one funnel. This keeps referral volume separate from what visitors did after the click.

Referral and landing-page report

Open Web analytics, set the last 30 days, and review Acquisition or Referrers for the AI source domains in the table below.
Compare visitors, sessions, views, and conversion goals by referring domain. Keep broad aliases separate until you have checked the raw values.
Open Product analytics and create a funnel. Make the first step $pageview, filtered where $referring_domain matches the AI source regex.
Use your real signup, lead, checkout, or purchase event as step two. Break down the entrance $pageview by $pathname to compare landing pages.

PostHog fields to use

Referrer: $referring_domain on the entrance $pageview
Source filter: Matches the same anchored AI domain regex used for GA4
Landing page: $pathname on the filtered entrance $pageview
Conversion: Your real lead, signup, checkout, or purchase event
First touch: $initial_referring_domain only when the question is first acquisition, not the current visit

Filter the entrance event, not every funnel step. A conversion event may not carry the original referrer property.

Build one auditable AI measurement system

The downloadable CSV turns the setup into an owner-by-owner checklist for GA4, product events, CRM fields, the monthly report, and dark-traffic limits. It is spreadsheet-ready and contains no customer data.

Download the measurement kitCSV, 22 implementation and reporting rows, updated 18 August 2026

1. Channel: Use GA4 Session default channel group = AI Assistant. Audit recognized hostnames with the conservative regex.
2. Landing report: Break out Session source / medium by Landing page + query string. Add sessions, engaged sessions, key events, and revenue.
3. Event contract: Join the entrance page to your real signup, lead, checkout, or purchase event. Test the event before it enters the report.
4. CRM contract: Store first and last AI source, landing page, self-reported discovery source, research theme, and attribution confidence.
5. Monthly report: Keep visible referrals, answer visibility, crawler activity, and sourced or assisted pipeline in separate evidence rows.

Four panels, four different claims

Do not force answer visibility, human referrals, bot requests, and revenue into one total. Give each panel its own source and confidence label.

Visible referrals

GA4 AI Assistant channel sessions, landing pages, key events, observed revenue.

Answer influence

Prompt presence, citations, owned and competitor sources. Directional unless joined to a journey.

Crawler access

OAI-SearchBot and other AI bot requests from server or CDN logs. Never human traffic.

Revenue ledger

Sourced, assisted, and directional rows kept separate with evidence links.

Illustrative monthly row: 640 AI sessions → 32 lead events → 6 sourced opportunitiesThat is a 5.0% session-to-lead rate. If the six opportunities total £72,000, call it AI-sourced pipeline only when each record has a captured referral or matched event. The example is fictional and does not estimate dark influence.
Dark-traffic rule: Unknown is a valid resultDirect, branded search, and later organic visits can contain AI-influenced journeys, but a missing referrer does not prove one. Use self-reporting, CRM timing, and controlled tests as support, not as a relabeling rule.

AI source and referrer values

The values recognized by the current traffic panel, and what to check before you group them.

AI source and referrer values recognized by the current traffic panel
Platform	Known hostname or source	Current collector aliases	What to check
ChatGPT	`chatgpt.com, chat.openai.com`	`chatgpt, openai, openai.com`	Review broad OpenAI aliases before grouping them with ChatGPT.
Perplexity	`perplexity.ai`	`perplexity`	A missing referrer can move an app click into Direct.
Claude	`claude.ai`	`claude, anthropic`	The broad Anthropic alias can include tagged campaigns.
Gemini	`gemini.google.com`	`gemini, bard`	Google AI Overviews and some AI Mode clicks can remain google / organic.
Copilot	`copilot.microsoft.com`	`copilot, bing-chat`	Do not group ordinary bing / organic traffic into Copilot.
DeepSeek	`deepseek.com`	`deepseek`	Low-volume rows can be volatile over short periods.
Grok	`grok.com, x.ai (frontend mapping)`	`grok`	The panel collector currently recognizes values containing grok. Its exact browser hostname is not verified, and x.com is deliberately excluded from the filter.
Other supported sources	`you.com, phind.com, poe.com, meta.ai`	`phind, poe, meta-ai`	The collector recognizes you.com, phind, poe, and meta-ai. meta.ai exists in its normalize map but not its current collection regex, so review it.

Compare your site with the panel

Calculate your AI traffic share

Use GA4 Views for an apples-to-apples comparison with this public index. The index does not expose an industry baseline for AI views as a share of all website views.

AI referral viewsAll website views

Enter your last 30 days of views to create a baseline before connecting anything.

Keep blind spots and bots in separate reports

In-app browsers, app-to-browser handoffs, redirects, privacy settings, and referrer policies can strip the source. Those visits can appear as Direct or have an empty referrer.
Gemini referrals can show as gemini.google.com, but Google AI Overviews and some AI Mode clicks can remain google / organic. Standard web analytics cannot reliably isolate them from conventional Search clicks.
Treat dark AI traffic as an unmeasured remainder, not a number to relabel. Report identifiable AI referrals as the observed minimum and keep Direct and unassigned movement as a separate watchlist.
A source domain identifies the sender when the referrer survives. It does not reveal the prompt, answer, citation, or citation position that caused the click.
AI crawlers are bots, not human referrals. Keep crawler activity in server or CDN logs, and exclude known bots and internal traffic from visit and conversion reporting.

Connect the same workflow to Trakkr. Trakkr’s Visitors view connects Google Analytics, categorizes identifiable AI referrers, and reports landing pages and conversions alongside visibility data.

See Trakkr’s traffic analytics

Industry movement

Percentage change in identifiable AI referral page views. Groups describe the observed panel; they do not establish market-wide trends.

AI referral industry movement as of 27 Oct 2026
Industry	30-day change	7-day change	Websites
Lifestyle & Health	+10.8%	+24.4%	1,645
Technology & Finance	+20.5%	+15.4%	966
Commerce	+4.0%	+23.1%	2,839
Other	+7.4%	+32.1%	464
Education & Public	-11.3%	+9.3%	314
Entertainment	+12.3%	+15.2%	242

Full evidence and methods

Published metrics keep their source, observation period and coverage limits. Verified snapshots keep their own dates when a current feed is unavailable.

Metrics

Qualifying GA4 properties6,600Current feed · 27 Oct 2026

Definition: Distinct connected GA4 properties contributing at least one detected AI referral in the aggregation window.
Numerator: Not applicable
Denominator: Not applicable
Sample: 514 daily observations
Dates: 1 Jun 2025 to 27 Oct 2026
Model scope: Traffic sources are detected from GA4 sessionSource values. This measures visible referrals, not model usage or total AI search volume.
Geography: Geography and device are not published.
Limits and confidence: The connected-property panel changes over time and is not representative of the whole web. Direct distinct count from the verified public aggregate.
Review: Verified 27 Oct 2026. Reviewed by Mack Grenfell.

AI Search Traffic Index

ChatGPT share of visible AI referrals79.4%Current feed · 27 Oct 2026

Definition: ChatGPT-attributed pageviews divided by pageviews attributed to all detected AI referral sources in the latest 30-day window.
Numerator: ChatGPT-attributed pageviews in the latest 30 days
Denominator: Pageviews attributed to all detected AI referral sources in the latest 30 days
Sample: 6,600 qualifying GA4 properties
Dates: 1 Jun 2025 to 27 Oct 2026
Model scope: Traffic sources are detected from GA4 sessionSource values. This measures visible referrals, not model usage or total AI search volume.
Geography: Geography and device are not published.
Limits and confidence: This is panel source mix, not AI search market share. Dark or direct traffic is not recoverable. Calculated from visible GA4 referrers; display rounded to one decimal place.
Review: Verified 27 Oct 2026. Reviewed by Mack Grenfell.

AI Search Traffic Index

AI referral index, 30-day change+11.2%Current feed · 27 Oct 2026

Definition: Change in smoothed AI-attributed pageviews across the panel between the latest 30-day period and the preceding 30-day period.
Numerator: Latest 30-day smoothed AI referral pageviews
Denominator: Prior 30-day smoothed AI referral pageviews
Sample: 6,600 qualifying GA4 properties
Dates: 1 Jun 2025 to 27 Oct 2026
Model scope: Traffic sources are detected from GA4 sessionSource values. This measures visible referrals, not model usage or total AI search volume.
Geography: Geography and device are not published.
Limits and confidence: Panel composition and referral visibility can change. It is not a forecast. Calculated from aggregated GA4 sessions; display rounded to one decimal place.
Review: Verified 27 Oct 2026. Reviewed by Mack Grenfell.

AI Search Traffic Index

Datasets

Dataset: AI Search Traffic Index · Verified snapshot, verified 13 Oct 2026
Records: 6,286 qualifying GA4 properties and 500 daily observations
Dates: 1 Jun 2025 to 13 Oct 2026
Sampling: A changing panel of connected GA4 properties. Source rows require at least 3 properties and source-by-industry rows require at least 25.
Model scope: Traffic sources are detected from GA4 sessionSource values. This measures visible referrals, not model usage or total AI search volume.
Geography: Geography and device are not published.
Privacy: Public downloads contain normalized trends and aggregate source shares only. Property identifiers and absolute panel volumes are excluded.
Not included: Property identities, Absolute public pageview totals, Landing pages, Conversions, Geography, Device, Citation-to-click joins
Source: Aggregated Google Analytics 4 session-source data

Downloads

AI traffic daily index CSV
Daily normalized aggregate and source trends. Absolute traffic volumes and property identifiers are excluded. 1 Jun 2025 to 13 Oct 2026.
AI traffic source mix CSV
Latest source shares, 30-day change, 7-day change, and contributing property counts. Latest observation 2026-10-13.

Definitions

Visible AI referral: A GA4 sessionSource value matching a known AI assistant referrer. Visits without a visible referrer cannot be attributed.
Traffic index: A smoothed series normalized to a peak value. It shows movement, not the public panel’s absolute traffic volume.
Source mix: A source’s share of detected AI-attributed pageviews in the selected panel and period. It is not global AI market share.
Verified snapshot: A point-in-time value regenerated from an attributable public aggregate and checked against its numerator, denominator, and coverage metadata.

What this dataset can answer

Referral source mix Available: Latest 30-day share of pageviews attributed to detected AI referrers in the qualifying GA4 panel.
Daily movement Available: Smoothed daily aggregate and source indexes. Published values are normalized, not absolute traffic volume.
Broad industry movement Limited: Available for six broad groups. Industry assignment and changing panel composition limit comparisons.
Property coverage Available: Distinct contributing property counts are published for the aggregate, each source, and each broad industry.
Absolute public volume Unavailable: The public index deliberately withholds total pageview counts to reduce exposure of the underlying panel.
Engagement and conversions Unavailable: The aggregate does not publish engagement rate, revenue, leads, or conversion events.
Landing page type Unavailable: Landing paths and page classifications are not included in the public panel.
Geography and device Unavailable: Country, region, device, and browser breakdowns are not published.
Citation-to-click rate Unavailable: There is no validated row-level join between Citation Index responses and GA4 referral sessions.

Update history

14 Oct 2026: Live evidence refresh. Rebuilt the Citation Index, public rankings and AI Search Traffic Index evidence from 80,769,585 citation appearances, 9,231 ranked brands and 6,286 qualifying GA4 properties, to match the live pages.
18 Aug 2026: Flagship evidence refresh. Rebuilt the three public research surfaces from 48,422,016 citation appearances and 4,928 qualifying GA4 properties.
6 May 2026: Markdown experiment added. Added the randomized 9,033-page crawler experiment as a reviewed State of AI Search dataset.
30 Mar 2026: Longitudinal citation study added. Added citation persistence and volatility findings with an explicit 177-day citation observation window.

Corrections

18 Aug 2026: Citation headline and Wikipedia share. Removed the stale 1.3M citation and 17% Wikipedia claims. The page now resolves current values from the verified Citation Index and records the snapshot date.
18 Aug 2026: Traffic loading values. Removed invented placeholder growth and source-share values. Loading and failed requests now render as unavailable.
18 Aug 2026: Live-data description. Replaced “every number is live” with dataset-level status because several reviewed studies are point-in-time snapshots.

Keep reading

Measuring AI search revenueJoin referrals to pipeline without inventing dark traffic.
Citation gap analysisFind the pages AI cites for your rivals and not for you.
CMO reporting templateReport visibility, citations and visits as separate claims.
Citation trackingSee which pages AI answers cite, and for which questions.

More context: brand mentions in ChatGPT, citation source research, Trakkr’s features, the OpenAI publisher guidance and Trakkr documentation.

NikeAI revenue by source

$12,847+23%from AI visitors, last 30 days

Out of every $100 AI visitors spend

ChatGPT$6,84153%
Perplexity$2,84722%
Claude$1,85314%
Gemini$1,30610%

See your own 100.

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ChatGPT still leads. Claude is catching up.

Every AI source, ranked.

Where 79.4% comes from.

About this number

Quote it

Reference

Leaves out

More numbers, out of 100.

Questions, answered.

Find AI referral traffic in your own GA4

Traffic acquisition report

Free-form exploration

Measure AI landing pages and conversions in PostHog

Referral and landing-page report

PostHog fields to use

Build one auditable AI measurement system

Four panels, four different claims

Visible referrals

Answer influence

Crawler access

Revenue ledger

AI source and referrer values

Compare your site with the panel

Calculate your AI traffic share

Keep blind spots and bots in separate reports

Industry movement

Metrics

Datasets

Downloads

Definitions

What this dataset can answer

Update history

Corrections

Keep reading

See your own 100.