An analytics panel listing traffic channels with the AI Assistant row highlighted, beside a list of AI assistant sources such as chatgpt.com and gemini.google.com.
An example of what AI visits look like once they are separated from referral traffic. The numbers are usually small, and the people behind them are close to buying.

Many small-business owners now have a quiet worry. They have heard that customers ask ChatGPT for recommendations instead of searching Google, and have no idea whether it is happening to them.

The good news is that this is now measurable. Not perfectly, but well enough to act on, using free tools you probably already have.

The short answer: look at the AI Assistant channel in Google Analytics, the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, your Search Console performance report, and the "how did you hear about us?" answers on your enquiry form. Each one shows a different part of the same picture.

What counts as AI traffic?

Three different things get mixed together under that phrase.

Citations are when an AI answer mentions or links your business. Visits are when someone clicks that link and lands on your site. Enquiries are when one of those visitors contacts you.

You can be cited often and get very few visits, because the answer already told the person what they needed. That is not always a failure. But if it never turns into enquiries, something on your side needs work.

Why is AI traffic so hard to see?

Because a lot of it does not arrive labelled. Analytics tools work out where a visit came from by reading the referrer, a small piece of information the browser passes along. When it is missing, the visit is recorded as direct.

This happens often with AI assistants. Someone reads an answer inside a phone app, copies your web address into a message, or simply searches your business name afterwards. The AI did the work, and your reports credit something else.

Google's own AI features add to this. Google says that sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console, rather than reported separately.

1. Google Analytics: the AI Assistant channel

This is the quickest check, and it recently got easier. Google Analytics 4 now groups visits from AI assistants into their own default channel, AI Assistant, instead of leaving them buried in referral traffic.

Google describes it as the channel for users who arrive from sources such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot or Grok. It does not include Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode, which stay inside organic search.

To find it, open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. The channel column now lists AI Assistant alongside Organic Search, Direct, Referral and Social.

Then change that column to session source and medium. You will see the addresses behind the visits, such as chatgpt.com or gemini.google.com. Scan the whole list: the recognised set of assistants changes, and a newer one may still sit in referral.

What to write down: the number of AI assistant sessions in the past 28 days, and which pages they landed on. Those pages are the ones AI tools currently treat as your best answers.

2. Bing Webmaster Tools: the AI Performance report

This one shows citations rather than visits, and it is free. Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report, currently in public preview, that shows when your content is cited in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and some partner integrations.

It reports total citations, which pages were cited, how that changes over time, and the grounding queries — the phrases the AI was working from when it pulled in your page. It does not report clicks.

Those grounding queries are the useful part: real questions that led an assistant to your site, in the words customers use. They make excellent material for your next FAQ answers.

If you have never set up Bing Webmaster Tools, it takes about ten minutes, and you can import your site straight from Search Console.

3. Google Search Console: the questions behind the visits

Search Console will not separate AI Overview clicks, so do not go looking for that number. What it does show is which queries your pages appear for — still the best map of what people ask before they find you.

Open the performance report and sort queries by impressions. Look for question-shaped queries: anything starting with how, why, what, which or best. These are the searches most likely to be answered by an AI summary rather than a click.

A pattern worth watching: impressions holding steady or rising while clicks fall on a page. That usually means the answer is being read without a visit. The response is not to write vaguer pages. It is to make sure that when the answer mentions you, it mentions you correctly — which is a job for your service pages and your structured data.

4. Your enquiry form: the report nobody sets up

Add one question to your contact form: "How did you hear about us?" Include an option that says "ChatGPT or another AI assistant".

This sounds too simple to matter. In practice it is often the most honest number you have, because it catches the people the other three reports miss — the ones who read an AI answer, remembered your name, and came back through a search two days later.

Keep it optional; one dropdown with five choices is enough. If your form cannot take an extra field, that is a reason to look at the website itself — a form you cannot change is a form you cannot learn from.

What to write down: the count each month, and what those enquiries were worth. Ten AI enquiries that became three jobs tells you more than any chart of sessions.

What about the AI crawlers in your server logs?

If you can see your server logs, there is one more signal. AI companies use named crawlers, and OpenAI documents several: GPTBot collects content that may be used for model training, OAI-SearchBot surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and ChatGPT-User visits a page when a person asks ChatGPT something.

That last one is the interesting one. A ChatGPT-User visit means a real person asked a question and your page was fetched to help answer it. It is a leading indicator: it happens before any citation or click.

Check too that you are not blocking these crawlers by accident. A robots.txt copied from an old site, or a security plugin set to block unknown bots, can quietly keep you out of AI answers.

How much AI traffic is normal?

There is no published benchmark, and anyone quoting one is guessing. For the small businesses we see, AI assistant sessions are a small share of traffic today, and growing.

Judge it on quality instead. Compare the enquiry rate of AI assistant visits with organic search visits over the same period. These visitors have often read a comparison before arriving, so they decide faster.

Set your baseline today, write the four numbers on a single page, and check again in 90 days. That comparison is the measurement. A single month's figure is not.

What should you do with what you find?

Three results, three fixes.

No citations and no AI visits. The assistants do not know enough about you yet. Start with our 10-minute ChatGPT test, then work through the six sources AI tools read.

Citations but almost no visits. Your facts are being used, but nothing gives anyone a reason to click through. Clearer service pages, prices or service areas usually help. This is the core of an xEO optimisation.

Visits but no enquiries. The problem has moved to your website and your follow-up. Work through the website checklist and look at how quickly enquiries get a reply.

Which official sources support this guidance?

AI traffic FAQs

How do I see ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics?

Open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and look for the AI Assistant channel. To see individual assistants, change the first column to session source and medium and look for entries such as chatgpt.com. Compare the past 28 days with the previous period.

Why does my AI traffic show up as direct?

Because no referrer was passed. This happens when someone reads an answer in a phone app, copies your address into a message, or searches your business name after reading about you. Analytics has nothing to attribute the visit to, so it records it as direct.

Can I see how often ChatGPT mentions my business?

Not directly. OpenAI does not publish a report for site owners. Bing Webmaster Tools shows citations across Microsoft Copilot and Bing AI answers, which is the closest free equivalent. For the rest, ask the assistants the questions your customers ask and record what comes back.

Does Search Console show AI Overview clicks separately?

No. Google says traffic from AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in your overall search performance rather than split out. You can still watch for pages where impressions stay flat while clicks drop, which often points to answers being read without a visit.

Should I block AI crawlers from my website?

Only if you do not want to appear in AI answers. Blocking a search crawler such as OAI-SearchBot removes you from that assistant's results. Some businesses do block training crawlers while allowing search ones. Check your robots.txt file so the choice is deliberate, not accidental.

How long before AI traffic changes after I fix my pages?

Expect weeks rather than days. Pages must be crawled again, and assistants that rely on a search index wait for that index to update. Ninety days is a fair first review point. Compare the same four reports rather than watching them daily.

Once AI visits arrive, the next question is what happens to them. Green Kauri can build that follow-up into a custom AI agent, so every enquiry gets a fast, useful reply while you are on a job.