Explainer
AI assistants sometimes put a source link under their answer. Whoever clicks it lands on your site as referral traffic, and you can simply see that in your analytics. Here is how to set it up, and how to read it honestly.
AI traffic is referral traffic from AI assistants: a visitor asked ChatGPT or Perplexity a question, got your site as a source under the answer and clicked through. It arrives with a recognisable referrer such as chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai, so you can count it separately from your regular search traffic.
In Emphanic, simply connect your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account in 1 click: we display all your AI sessions, referrals, and lead conversions live in your dashboard. If you prefer manual setup in GA4, you can create a custom channel group using the referral sources listed below (such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, and copilot.microsoft.com).
The referrers on one line, ready to paste
chatgpt.com|chat.openai.com|perplexity.ai|gemini.google.com|copilot.microsoft.com|edgeservices.bing.com
Little, and that is not a bad sign. Most AI answers produce no click: the answer is already there, so the visitor has nowhere left to go. That is why being mentioned in the answer is the first measure, and traffic the second. Our free check measures that first measure: whether the assistants name you when someone asks for your kind of business.
Yes, demonstrably as a correlation: research across ten thousand queries shows a strong correlation between good Google positions and mentions in AI answers, while backlinks show hardly any. It is a correlation, not proof of cause, but your SEO work and your AI visibility pull in the same direction.
The free check asks four assistants twelve customer questions and counts whether your business appears in the answers.
