What counts as AI traffic?
AI traffic is a human visitor who clicked a link in an AI assistant’s answer and landed on your site. TinyAnalytics recognizes an AI referral from the referring source and attributes the session to the assistant it came from. Because attribution happens when the report is read — not from a stored tag — the report works over all of your history the day you first open it, including traffic from before you knew to look for it. Each session is attributed to the assistant it entered from. A visitor who arrives from ChatGPT and then browses your site is counted once, as ChatGPT.Which AI assistants does TinyAnalytics recognize?
The report breaks AI traffic down by assistant, with search-style engines leading and tool-style products grouped together:- ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, You.com — named individually.
- AI Tools — a single row rolling up assistant products that link out (such as coding and writing assistants), so the headline stays about citations without discarding data. Expand the row to see each tool.
- Other AI — recognized AI traffic that doesn’t match a specific assistant.
What does the AI traffic report show?
The report reads top to bottom as one story — measure, attribute, prove, and watch the crawlers:- Five stat cards — AI Sessions (with the change versus the previous period), AI’s share of traffic, AI revenue when you track revenue, the number of assistants sending traffic, and AI Crawl Requests, labeled bot hits · not visits. Crawl requests are a separate unit and are never added to sessions. When some AI sessions arrived through the Paid AI channel, the AI Sessions card also notes the organic share (for example “of 4,120 total · 92% organic”); when no paid AI traffic exists, that note doesn’t appear.
- Per-assistant trend — the top five assistants as separate lines plus a single Other AI line for everything else. The chart opens by assistant; an aggregate toggle collapses it to one AI-sessions line, and clicking a legend entry isolates that assistant.
- By-assistant table — for each assistant: a sparkline, sessions, share of AI traffic, change versus the previous period, and Revenue, Orders, AOV, and Conv. (conversion rate) — shown as ”—” on sites without revenue. An assistant whose first-ever session falls inside the selected window carries an inline first seen date, so you notice the day a new assistant starts sending traffic.
- Conversions from AI — for each goal, the AI conversion rate next to your site’s overall conversion rate. If the site has no goals yet, the section asks you to set one up.
- AI visibility — AI crawlers that read your site in the window, grouped by operator (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others), with a link to the Bots & AI crawlers report. This section renders even when a site has crawls but zero AI clicks — that state is the story: AIs are reading you, nobody clicks yet.
- Pages AI sends people to — the entry pages AI visitors land on, with bounce rate, average duration, engaged time, and a Crawled column: the number of AI-crawler requests to that page in the same window.
How conversions are attributed. The Conversions from AI section counts a goal conversion for any session that had an AI-attributed event, while the AI Sessions headline counts sessions that entered from an AI assistant. The conversion rate compares like with like — its numerator and denominator use the same rule — but the section is not meant to reconcile with the headline card, and it says so in its footnote.
Is my AI traffic growing — and which assistant is driving it?
The per-assistant trend answers both at a glance: each of the top five assistants is its own line, so you can see Perplexity rising while another assistant falls without exporting anything. Hover for a tooltip and click a legend entry to isolate one assistant; the aggregate view collapses the same data into a single line whose total always matches the AI Sessions card. The AI Sessions card carries the change versus the previous period, and each table row gains a change column when you turn on a comparison period. A row with no traffic last period shows as new rather than a misleading “+100%”. Annotations aren’t drawn on this chart.Where do I see AI traffic at a glance?
Each website card on your home grid — the list of all your sites — shows AI Traffic as one of its four glance metrics, next to Users, Pages / Session, and average visit Duration. It’s the count of sessions that entered from an AI assistant over the card’s window, so you can spot which sites AI is sending people to without opening each one. The number matches the AI Sessions headline on that site’s AI traffic report exactly — one attribution rule, wherever it’s shown.Can I get alerted when AI traffic moves?
Yes. Alerts include an AI share of traffic metric with two templates — AI traffic surge and AI traffic drop — that notify you when AI’s share of your sessions rises or falls by 50% versus the previous day. The weekly report email also opens with an AI Traffic section (total, share, and top assistants) whenever the site had AI-referred sessions in the period.How do I use AI traffic across the dashboard?
Because the assistant is a first-class dimension, you can use it everywhere:- Filter any report to a single assistant (for example, “visitors from Perplexity”).
- Save a segment like “arrived via ChatGPT” and apply it across every report.
- Build a cohort such as “AI visitors who bought”.
- Ask AI — the report’s Explain this report button passes which trend view you’re looking at (by assistant or aggregate) into Ask AI, so the explanation matches what’s on screen.
What this report can and can’t see. It counts click-throughs and crawl requests — first-party facts. It cannot see citations that are shown in an AI answer but never clicked; no analytics tool can measure that from your own traffic, and this report never implies it. The honest proxy is the pair it does show: rising crawls with flat clicks means AIs are reading you but not yet sending people. Crawling comes before citation, and citation comes before the click.
Frequently asked questions
Does the AI traffic report show data from before I opened it?
Does the AI traffic report show data from before I opened it?
Yes. The AI traffic report works over all of your history the day you first open it, including traffic from before you knew to look for it. Attribution happens when the report is read rather than from a stored tag, so there’s nothing to enable in advance.
Does the AI traffic report show AI crawlers reading my site?
Does the AI traffic report show AI crawlers reading my site?
Yes, in two places: the AI Crawl Requests card and the AI visibility section list AI-crawler requests by operator, and the landing table’s Crawled column shows requests per page. Crawl requests are bot hits, never visits, and are never added to sessions. For the full crawler breakdown, use the Bots & AI crawlers report. The report still can’t see citations that are shown in an AI answer but never clicked.
Why does the Crawled column not divide clicks by crawls?
Why does the Crawled column not divide clicks by crawls?
Because a crawl-to-click ratio would imply that crawling caused the clicks, and no first-party data can prove that. The two numbers are shown side by side because they correlate per page; the report states that one does not cause the other and deliberately shows no ratio.
What does "first seen" mean next to an assistant?
What does "first seen" mean next to an assistant?
The date of the first session that assistant ever sent to your site — all time, not just the selected window. The note appears only when that first-ever date falls inside the window you’re viewing, so it marks a genuinely new assistant and never re-labels an established one.
How is a visitor counted if they arrive from ChatGPT and then browse my site?
How is a visitor counted if they arrive from ChatGPT and then browse my site?
Once, as ChatGPT. Each session is attributed to the assistant it entered from, so later pages in that visit don’t create a second attribution. Paid AI visits keep their assistant label too — a paid ChatGPT visit still counts as ChatGPT.
Related
Bots & AI crawlers
The full crawler breakdown — every bot and AI crawler reading your site.
Alerts
Get notified when AI’s share of your traffic surges or drops.
Search Console
How people find you through Google Search.
Saved segments
Save “arrived via AI” and apply it everywhere.
Scheduled reports
The weekly email opens with an AI Traffic section.
Dashboard overview
Where AI traffic fits among all your channels.