AI Traffic Tracker for GA4

02 Your regex for Session source

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

Every dot is escaped, and the ^ and $ anchors make it match whole values only. GA4 reads regex as a full match by default, so the anchors change nothing there and keep the regex safe in tools that read it as a partial match.

03 Give AI assistants their own channel in GA4

These steps follow Google's guide to custom channel groups. You need the Editor role or above on the property.

1. Open Channel groups

   In Admin, under Data display, click Channel groups.

2. Create a group

   Click Create new channel group. It starts as a copy of the default group. Give it a name, such as Channels with AI assistants.

3. Add the channel

   Click Add new channel and name it AI assistants.

4. Set the condition

   Click Add condition group, pick the Source dimension, choose matches regex and paste your regex. Then click Save channel.

5. Move it up

   Click Reorder and drag AI assistants above Referral, then click Apply. Traffic goes into the first channel it matches, and Google's guide asks for this order. If the group also lists GA4's own AI Assistant channel, place yours above that too, so your list decides.

6. Save and report

   Click Save group. Open Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and pick your new group as the primary dimension. Custom channel groups also apply to your past data.

Standard GA4 properties can have 2 custom channel groups, with up to 50 channels in each.

04 Filter an Exploration

1. Add the filter

   Open an exploration. At the bottom of the Settings panel, in the Filters section, click Drop or select dimension or metric and choose Session source.

2. Paste the regex

   Pick a regex match type, paste the same regex and click Apply. Exploration filters are case sensitive.

Source: Google's guide to segments and filters in explorations.

05 Use it in Looker Studio

Add a calculated field with this formula to your GA4 data source, then use it as a dimension or filter on any chart.

CASE
  WHEN REGEXP_MATCH(Session source, R"^(www\.)?(chatgpt\.com|perplexity\.ai|claude\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com|copilot\.com|copilot\.cloud\.microsoft|chat\.deepseek\.com|grok\.com|meta\.ai|chat\.mistral\.ai)$") THEN "AI assistants"
  ELSE "Other sources"
END

REGEXP_MATCH is true when the whole value matches the pattern. The R before the quotes is Looker Studio's raw string prefix, so the backslashes stay exactly as typed. See Google's guide to regular expressions in Looker Studio.

How it works

1. One address per assistant

   Each assistant you tick adds the web address it runs on, as listed on the vendor's own site. When a visit arrives from that address, GA4 can record it as the session source.

2. One regex for every tool

   The addresses are joined into one regular expression with the dots escaped and both ends anchored. The same pattern works in a GA4 channel, an Exploration filter and Looker Studio.

3. Nothing leaves your browser

   The regex is built on this page. Test any source value from your own reports before you save the channel.