AI traffic analytics
AI traffic analytics: see what ChatGPT sends you and which AI crawlers read your site
Lantern puts ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and other assistants in their own channel, shows which AI crawlers read which pages, and which of those visitors become customers.
Two kinds of AI traffic
| Who | In GA4 | In Lantern | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI visitors | People who click a link in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Gemini | Mixed into Referral, or Direct | Their own AI channel, by assistant |
| AI crawlers | GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot… | Invisible | By company, purpose and page |
Both matter. Crawlers decide whether assistants know about you. Visitors from assistants are often your highest-intent traffic: they arrive after asking which tool to use.
AI assistants as their own channel
Lantern sorts every visit into Organic Search, Social, AI, Direct, Referral, Email and Paid. Anything sent by an assistant lands in AI, from the first visit, with no regex or custom channel group. Switch to Referrer to see each assistant on its own.
Want to do this in GA4 instead? Here's how to track ChatGPT traffic in GA4, and why Lantern is less work.
AI crawlers, by company and page
Crawlers never run JavaScript, so script-based analytics can't see them (that's why GPTBot never shows up in GA4). Lantern takes a few lines on your server and reports every crawler by the company that runs it and what it was doing: Training, AI search, or Assistant, a live fetch because a person asked about you.
Which pages AI reads
From AI answer to paying customer
Connect your payment provider and the AI channel gets a revenue column too. You see how much the customers ChatGPT and Perplexity sent went on to pay, credited to their first visit even when they bought later. See revenue analytics.
What Lantern recognises
- Assistants (visitors): ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI, Mistral, Poe, You.com, Phind and Kagi.
- Crawlers: about 35, including GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, CCBot, Amazonbot, Applebot, Googlebot and Bingbot.
Setting up crawler reporting takes a few lines: a ready-made proxy.ts for Next.js, or one HTTP endpoint for any other server. See the docs.
Questions
What is AI traffic?
Two things: people who arrive from an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Gemini, and the AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others) that read your pages so assistants can learn about you and cite you.
Can Google Analytics show AI traffic?
Partly. GA4 counts people who click through from an assistant, usually mixed into Referral. It can't see AI crawlers at all, because they don't run JavaScript.
Which AI assistants does Lantern recognise?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI, Mistral, Poe, You.com, Phind and Kagi, grouped into one AI channel.
How does Lantern see AI crawlers?
A few lines on your server report requests from crawler user agents. Lantern recognises about 35 crawlers and groups them by the company that runs them and by purpose: training, AI search, or a live fetch for a user's question.