# See Which Visitors Come From ChatGPT or Perplexity

To see ChatGPT traffic, you need a tool that labels each visit's source, because standard analytics often lumps AI visits into Referral or Unassigned. whoisbrowsing labels every live visitor who arrives from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Claude, so you can watch an AI-referred visitor land on your page as it happens.

## Why AI traffic is hard to see

Studies of AI referral traffic report the same problem: visits from AI assistants are grouped under Referral or Unassigned in GA4, and some arrive with no referrer at all. See [Ahrefs' AI traffic research](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-traffic-research/) and [Abmatic's guide to tracking AI referral traffic in GA4](https://abmatic.ai/blog/track-ai-referral-traffic-ga4). The fixes they describe are mostly custom channel groups and filters in GA4, set up after the fact. ChatGPT itself helps a little: [OpenAI's publisher FAQ](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856-publishers-and-developers-faq) says ChatGPT adds `utm_source=chatgpt.com` to referral URLs from ChatGPT search, which gives tools a tag to read even when the referrer is missing.

The volume is small but real. Statcounter figures reported by MediaPost put ChatGPT at about 78% of chatbot referrals in March 2026, with Gemini passing Perplexity ([MediaPost](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/414030/google-ai-overtakes-perplexity-becomes-no-2-refe.html)). Small numbers are exactly where a per-visitor live view helps: you can see each one.

## Two ways to see it

| Approach | What you get | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Custom channel group in GA4 | Reports of AI visits over time | Setup, then reading reports |
| whoisbrowsing live view | Each AI-referred visitor, live, with page and city | One script tag |

They are complementary. GA4 gives you history; a live view gives you the moment.

## How to see AI visitors live with whoisbrowsing

1. Add the tag:

```html
<script src="https://live.whoisbrowsing.com/s.js" data-site="YOUR_SITE_ID" defer></script>
```

2. Open your own site (after one Watch click, or automatically in Chrome when signed in).
3. In the side panel, each person has a source. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude are labelled, alongside Google, Bing, other sites and direct.
4. Turn on browser notifications to be told when someone new arrives, with the landing page and the source. Alerts come from the open dashboard tab, which holds the live connection, so keep that tab open to get them. See [get notified when someone visits](/learn/get-notified-when-someone-visits).

## What you can learn

- **Which pages AI assistants send people to.** The landing page is on each visitor's line.
- **What they do next.** Watch the cursor or scroll band to see whether they read, scroll or leave.
- **How a recommendation lands.** If you wrote content to be cited, this is the first place you see a person actually arrive.

## A caution on labels

whoisbrowsing reads two things in the visitor's browser: the referrer, and a `utm_source` tag on the landing address. A tag that names an assistant's domain, such as `utm_source=chatgpt.com`, is labelled ChatGPT even when no referrer arrived. Only the label leaves the browser; the query string itself never does. If an assistant sends neither, the visitor shows as "direct", and we cannot invent a source that was never sent. Use the label as a strong hint, not a count of everything AI sends you. For a full tally, combine it with your analytics, and read [referrers, direct traffic and AI assistants](/learn/referrer-vs-ai-referrer) for the details.

## Privacy

Your visitors' browsers send the page, pointer position, clicks, scroll, device type, source, browser and operating system, and time on site. Never keystrokes, form values or page text. Nothing about your visitors is stored on our servers. No cookies on your visitors. You see an approximate city, never an identity. Visitors from the EU/EEA, UK and Switzerland, and browsers with Global Privacy Control, are never shown. See [privacy](/privacy); this is not legal advice.

## When whoisbrowsing is not the right tool

whoisbrowsing is live only, so it cannot give you last month's AI traffic. For history, use GA4 with the custom setup the sources above describe. Read more about [where visitors come from](/learn/see-where-visitors-come-from-live), see [how it works](/how-it-works), or [try it free](/try).

## Common questions

**Can I see what the visitor asked ChatGPT?** No. You see the source, the page, an approximate city and device. The prompt that led them there is not visible to you or to us.

**Will it catch every AI visit?** No. Only visits whose browser reports an AI assistant as the source can be labelled. Some arrive with no referrer and look direct.

**Does this replace GA4?** No. Use GA4 for history and this for the live moment.

**How do I add it?** Paste the tag above, or give your coding agent this prompt: `Add whoisbrowsing (live visitor view) to this project. Follow https://whoisbrowsing.com/SKILL.md exactly.` See the [install guides](/install).

**Which assistants are labelled?** ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, next to Google, Bing, other sites and direct. The labels follow what the browser reports, so they are as good as the referrer information each assistant sends. Open your site from an assistant's answer to see how your own visit is labelled, using a private window so you are counted as a visitor.