How to track and analyse traffic from AI Assistants (like ChatGPT) in Matomo reports

Matomo Cloud includes a new referrer channel type, AI Assistant, that makes it easier to identify and segment traffic arriving from AI tools such as:

• ChatGPT
• Copilot
• Gemini
• Claude
• Le Chat
• Meta AI
• iAsk
• Perplexity

By classifying these visits under a dedicated acquisition channel, you can better understand how AI recommendations contribute to your site’s traffic. It also enables custom segmentation and more accurate reporting based on the AI Assistant channel type.

Note: The new AI Assistant channel type only applies to data collected after the Matomo Cloud update is applied. Historical visits still appear in the channels they were originally tracked under (e.g. Referral, Direct), but detailed reports and row evolution charts for the AI Assistant channel are not available for historical data. The Acquisition > AI Assistants report may show past data based on internal filtering of known AI referrers.

This guide explains how to analyse the AI Assistant channel in Matomo reports.

Acquisition reports

The Acquisition Overview and All Channels reports give you a high-level view of how visitors arrive at your site. With the introduction of the AI Assistant referrer channel, these reports now include a dedicated row that groups traffic from AI sources.

You can compare AI-driven traffic against other acquisition sources such as Search Engines, Social Networks, or Campaigns, helping you measure the growing impact of AI tools on discovery and engagement.

1. Navigate to Matomo > Acquisition > Overview to view breakdown of your traffic sources, including the new AI Assistant channel.
   

2. You can also go to Acquisition > All Channels to explore detailed metrics by channel type. The AI Assistant traffic is displayed with the other channel types.
   

3. A dedicated report is available in Acquisition > AI Assistants where you can use standard report tools to view: Total visits from AI assistants, Row evolution, Goal conversions, and Segmented visit logs.
   

Visitors reports

To analyse individual sessions from AI Assistant traffic, you can explore detailed visitor-level reports to identify visits that originated from tools like ChatGPT. These views show how visitors arrived at your site and what actions they took during their session.

1. Navigate to Matomo > Visitors > Visits Log to see a real-time list of tracked visits. If a session originates from an AI Assistant, the referrer is clearly labelled.
   

2. Go to Visitors > Visitor Profile for any individual user to view a timeline of their actions. If the user arrived via an AI Assistant, the referrer source is included in their profile.
   

Behaviour reports

The Transitions report helps you understand how users navigate to and from specific pages or interactions on your site.

1. Go to Matomo > Behaviour > Transitions to view included AI Assistant traffic sources.
2. With the AI Assistant channel type now being included in this report, you can see when a visit began from an AI assistant and what users did after landing on the page. This gives more insight into AI-driven traffic.
   

Custom segments

The AI Assistant channel type can be used to create a custom segment to isolate and analyse visits, originating from AI tools, across all Matomo reports.

1. In the Matomo dashboard, click on the Segment selector to add a new segment.
2. Use the condition: Channel Type Is ai. This allows you to compare user behaviour, goal conversions, and engagement metrics between AI-driven traffic and other acquisition sources.
   

With the AI Assistant channel now available in Matomo Cloud, you can easily track, analyse, and segment traffic from popular AI tools. To get the most out of this feature, explore the new reports under Matomo > Acquisition, build custom segments for deeper analysis, and monitor behaviour patterns across your website.

This feature is not yet available in Matomo On-Premise.