Analyst reviewing an AI visibility tracking dashboard on a tablet at home

AI visibility analytics

AI visibility tracking for AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity

AI visibility tracking shows whether Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity cite your pages or name your brand for the questions buyers ask, and how many visits they send. Waftr checks a fixed prompt set by hand and in tools, gives AI referrals their own GA4 channel, and reads both against your key events.

Prompt-set tracker

The prompt-set tracker: AI visibility tracking you can run by hand

Search Console and GA4 never see what ChatGPT or Perplexity say about you. A fixed prompt set does. Ask the same questions in each assistant and log the date, whether the answer cited your page, whether it named your brand and which competitors it named. Click the cells to see how share of voice falls out of the log.

P01

Prompt, category intent“What is the best CRM for a 20-person B2B sales team?”

Illustrative entries

Prompt-set tracker: one prompt checked in five AI assistants, with cited or not, brand named or not, competitors named and the date checked. Example entries you can change.
Prompt	Assistant	Date checked
P01	ChatGPT	2026-10-14
P01	Perplexity	2026-10-14
P01	Gemini	2026-10-14
P01	Copilot	2026-10-14
P01	Claude	2026-10-14

A, B and C stand for the three competitors you named before the first check.Download the blank tracker (CSV)

How to choose the prompts

Start from your buyers' words. Sales call notes, support tickets and the longer queries in Search Console are where real prompts come from.
Cover three intents. Category prompts such as “best CRM for a small sales team”, comparisons such as “alternatives to” a competitor, and problems such as “how do I stop losing leads”. Prompts that already contain your brand go in a separate group, because the answer names you by default.
Freeze the wording. A prompt keeps the same words on every check. A reworded prompt is a new row with its own start date.
Name the competitors first. The same short list goes against every prompt, or share of voice compares different races.

How to re-check them

Same conditions each time. A fresh chat, signed out where the assistant allows it, no saved memory or custom instructions, the same country. Personalization changes answers.
Log the mode. An answer with web search switched on can differ from one without it. Note the model or mode whenever the assistant shows one.
Judge trends, not single answers. One prompt can return different answers minutes apart, so each prompt is read across its dated checks.
Add prompts without swapping them out. A trend only exists for prompts checked on every date in the log.

For AI citations tracking, Waftr runs the set by hand in each assistant and alongside Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Profound, Semrush and Ahrefs. Competitor share of voice comes from the same prompts.

Three sources

Search Console vs a prompt log vs GA4: what each one can see

AI search analytics needs all three, because each is blind somewhere. Search Console counts Google results with AI Overviews and AI Mode folded in. GA4 counts only the clicks that arrive. Your LLM visibility in the answers themselves shows up only in the prompt log.

Which question each source can answer: Google Search Console, the GA4 AI channel group, and the prompt log
The question	Search Console	GA4 AI channel	Prompt log
Did my page appear in an AI Overview or AI Mode answer?	PartlyCounted inside Web search impressions and clicks	NoCannot see it	PartlyFor the prompts you check in Google
Did ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Claude cite my page?	NoGoogle search only	PartlyOnly when someone clicks through with a referrer	YesAnswer by answer
Did an answer name my brand without a link?	NoCannot see it	NoCannot see it	YesLogged per answer
Which competitors did the answer name?	NoCannot see it	NoCannot see it	YesAs share of voice
How many visits did AI assistants send?	NoGoogle clicks only	YesSessions with a referrer, read as a floor	NoCannot see it
Did those visits turn into leads or sales?	NoCannot see it	YesKey events by channel	NoCannot see it
Are clicks falling while impressions hold?	YesBy query and page, branded and non-branded	PartlyOrganic sessions only	NoCannot see it

AI Overviews tracking starts in Search Console because it is Google's own count. Where Google reports AI features as a separate series, the report follows them separately; elsewhere they stay inside the Web totals. How AI Overviews and AI Mode appear in Search Console

Questions

Before you trust an AI visibility number

Eight answers on what can and cannot be measured, written to be read one at a time.

What is AI visibility tracking?

AI visibility tracking measures how often Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude cite your pages or name your brand, and how many visitors they send. It combines a dated prompt log, Search Console data and an AI referral channel in GA4, read against your key events.

What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO tracking?

SEO tracking measures classic search: queries, clicks and positions in Search Console. AEO tracking measures whether answer engines and AI assistants cite you and send visitors. GEO tracking measures inclusion in generative results such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. The three share sources, which lets one monthly report hold all of them.

What is LLM tracking?

LLM tracking measures how assistants built on large language models, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, cite your pages and send visits. GA4 counts the sessions that arrive with a referrer in an AI channel group, and a fixed prompt set, checked by hand and in tools, shows which answers cite or name you.

Do you need an AI Overview tracking tool?

Not for the basics. Search Console already counts AI Overview and AI Mode appearances inside its performance data. It cannot show what ChatGPT, Perplexity or other assistants say about you, which is why Waftr checks a fixed prompt set by hand and in tools such as Profound, Semrush and Ahrefs, logging each result with a date.

Can you track brand mentions in AI answers?

Yes, as share of voice. On the same fixed prompt set, Waftr records whether each assistant names your brand and which competitors it names, then repeats the check on a schedule. The trend shows whether your share of AI answers grows or shrinks against those competitors. A citation and a mention are logged separately, because either can appear alone.

Can GA4 show traffic from ChatGPT and other AI assistants?

Yes, for clicks that arrive with a referrer. Since May 2026 the default AI Assistant channel groups recognized assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini. A custom channel group with a regex on source adds unlisted tools and past data. Clicks from AI mobile apps or copied links often land in Direct instead.

Why does AI traffic show up as Direct in GA4?

Because the referrer is missing. AI mobile apps, copied links and some privacy settings send visitors without a referrer, and GA4 files a session it cannot attribute under Direct. No GA4 setting recovers those visits. Read AI referral numbers as a floor, and tag the links you control with UTM parameters.

Will Waftr improve our rankings or AI citations?

No ranking or citation is promised. Waftr measures search and AI visibility and ranks what the data shows; your SEO team or agency changes content and code. In the US SaaS case the client's teams shipped the roadmap, and AI platform visits reached about 350 a day. Nobody controls how Google or an assistant picks its sources.

US SaaS, measured in GA4

The US SaaS case: from 30 to 40 AI visits a day to about 350

Branded and non-branded clicks dropped in Search Console while impressions stayed flat, a pattern the analysis traced to AI Overviews. Waftr measured it and wrote the roadmap. The client's own teams shipped it, and about 3 months later GA4 counted about 350 AI platform visits a day.

BeforeSearch Console
Clicks down for branded and non-branded terms, impressions steady. The analysis pointed to AI Overviews.
BeforeGA4
30 to 40 visits a day from AI platforms.
The roadmapClient teams
Short answers and schema on about 120 pages, crawl fixes, a sitemap, a robots file and llms.txt.
About 3 months laterGA4 and search
About 350 AI platform visits a day, AI Overview citations, and a slight lift in organic search.

AI platform visits a day

30 to 40~350

Measured in GA4, after about 3 months. One site's result after its own team shipped the roadmap. Read it as evidence of what is possible, never as a forecast.

Read the US SaaS AI search case

AI traffic in GA4

How do you track AI referral traffic in GA4?

GA4’s default AI Assistant channel, added in May 2026, covers recognized assistants from that date. For earlier data and unlisted tools, add a custom channel group: a regex rule that matches AI assistant sources, moved above Referral, because GA4 assigns each session to the first channel it matches. Custom groups also apply to past data.

Admin/Data display/Channel groupsIllustrative

AI referral sourcesCustom group

Channel nameAI assistants

Sourcematches regex

Channel order

AI assistantsMoved to top
Direct
Organic Search
Referral

1
Create the group
In Admin, Data display, Channel groups, create a new group and add a channel named AI assistants.
2
Match sources by regex
Set the condition to Source matches regex and list the AI domains you care about. Extend it when a new assistant starts sending visits.
3
Move it above Referral
GA4 uses the first channel a session matches. A rule sitting below Referral never receives a single AI session.

What it still misses

Clicks from AI mobile apps and copied links often arrive with no referrer and land in Direct. Treat the channel's number as a floor.

Step-by-step guide: how to check AI traffic in GA4 GA4 consulting for the key events this report reads against

Scope

Where AI visibility tracking stops and SEO work starts

The tracking stops at the report. Content, schema, links and code belong to your SEO team or agency, who ship them in their own release cycle; the US SaaS roadmap was delivered exactly that way.

Waftr delivers

The dated prompt log, with share of voice against your named competitors
An AI referral channel group in GA4, read against key events
Search Console trends by page, branded and non-branded
Core Web Vitals and structured data checks on key templates
A ranked list of what the data shows

Your SEO team or agency owns

Content and on-page changes
Schema and code deployment
Links and digital PR
Ranking and citation targets
Which fixes ship first

Once

A baseline sprint

Search Console trends, AI referral sessions in GA4 and the first dated prompt log, delivered as a one-off analytics sprint.

Monthly

Inside Tracking Care

AI visibility analytics is the one module on Tracking Care Plus, or one of all three on Care Pro, with a 3-month minimum and month to month after that.

Quote

Fixed and in writing

Agreed before work starts and set by how many sites and GA4 properties are in scope. Nothing is billed by the hour.

AI numbers sit on top of GA4. If key events or channels are in doubt, start with the free GA4 audit tool or a full Google Analytics audit. The same Tracking Care plans carry Conversion analytics, also sold once as a CRO audit, and social media analytics.

Start

Send us the prompts your buyers type

Paste a few questions buyers ask an assistant before they shortlist, plus the competitors you lose deals to. We reply within one business day with what a first baseline would cover and a written quote.