Can You Track Google AI Mode in GA4? The Honest Answer Is Still No
Google AI Mode and AI Overviews stay inside Organic Search in GA4. Here is what the new AI Assistant channel and Search Console report actually show.
8 min readBranislav Mateas
Copy post as Markdown
On this page
Google made AI traffic clearer, but not clear enough
Google AI Mode is tracked in GA4. It is just not tracked as AI Mode.
Clicks from AI Mode and AI Overviews remain part of Google Organic Search. GA4 cannot distinguish between them. Meanwhile, recognized visits from external assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude now belong to a separate AI Assistant channel.
That distinction matters. If you put every visit related to AI into one report, you are mixing two very different things: Google Search traffic and referrals from external assistants.
I understand why people want one neat AI number. I would like one too. But the neat number would be misleading.
What changed in GA4 on 13 May 2026?
On 13 May 2026, GA4 introduced a native AI Assistant channel. According to the Google Analytics release notes, recognized referrals from assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can now receive the medium ai-assistant, the campaign value (ai-assistant), and the AI Assistant default-channel classification.
This removes some of the manual work analysts previously handled with custom channel groups and lists of referrer domains.
But Google also drew a firm boundary. Its default-channel documentation says that clicks from Search features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode remain Organic Search. The separate Gemini assistant can qualify as AI Assistant, but Google Search does not.
Same company. Different surface. Different channel.
This means the source of the visit matters more than whether AI helped create the answer.
Google AI Mode click: Organic Search
Google AI Overview click: Organic Search
Recognized ChatGPT referral: AI Assistant
Recognized Gemini assistant referral: AI Assistant
Recognized Claude referral: AI Assistant
How does a Google AI Mode visit appear in GA4?
When somebody clicks from AI Mode to your site, GA4 typically records the session source and medium as google / organic and places it in the Organic Search channel. The same is true for a click from an AI Overview.
You can analyse the landing page, engagement, events, and conversions as you would for other organic visits. What you cannot do is add a reliable GA4 dimension that says this session came from AI Mode rather than an AI Overview or a traditional Google result.
No native AI Mode channel exists inside GA4.
This is not a tracking bug that another GTM tag will solve. The required distinction is not exposed in the GA4 reporting described by Google. A custom channel group can reorganize information GA4 receives, but it cannot create a missing source signal.
Can Search Console separate AI Mode from AI Overviews?
Not yet, based on Google's current reporting.
On 3 June 2026, Search Console began testing a dedicated generative-AI visibility report. The Search Central announcement says it combines impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode. You can break the data down by page, country, device, and date, but not by the type of AI feature.
The report documentation also notes that the first rollout covered only a subset of sites. So if you cannot see the report, that does not prove your site has no visibility in Google's generative results.
Then another change arrived. From 16 June 2026, AI Mode data began contributing to Search Console's overall Performance totals, according to the Google Search documentation changelog. Google's measurement methodology explains how AI Mode clicks, impressions, and positions are counted.
The methodology recognizes AI Mode as a distinct experience. The available reporting still blends it with broader Web search data, or with AI Overviews inside the generative-AI report.
That is progress, but it is not full separation.
GA4 and Search Console answer different questions
GA4 measures what happens after a person reaches your site. Search Console measures visibility and clicks within Google Search.
For Google generative search, Search Console is now the better place to inspect combined AI Overview and AI Mode visibility. GA4 remains the better place to study the behaviour and business results of organic visitors after the click.
You still cannot join the tools and recover a dependable AI Mode-versus-AI Overview split. GA4 lacks that distinction, while Search Console combines both features in its generative-AI report.
Use the two systems together, but do not pretend their data is more precise than it is.
Use Search Console to monitor combined impressions from Google's generative-AI features.
Use GA4 to measure landing-page behaviour, key events, and conversions from Organic Search.
Use the GA4 AI Assistant channel to analyse recognized external assistant referrals separately.
Do not label all Organic Search traffic as AI traffic.
Do not present the combined Search Console figure as AI Mode alone.
External AI assistants are a genuinely different traffic source
A click from ChatGPT or the separate Gemini assistant leaves one product and enters your site. GA4 can recognize supported referrals of this kind and classify them as AI Assistant.
A click from AI Mode or an AI Overview stays within the Google Search ecosystem until it reaches your site. Google keeps that visit under Organic Search.
This is why saying that AI traffic increased can now hide more than it reveals. Did external assistant referrals grow? Did Google generative-search impressions increase? Did total organic traffic change? Those are separate questions.
The traffic volumes can also be tiny. In accounts I have worked with, AI referrals represented between 0.001% and 0.015% of total traffic for a B2C e-commerce client across several Central European markets. A well-established SaaS site saw 0.008% on product pages. Content magazines performed better at 0.2% to 1.2%, but one example still produced only about 70 AI sessions per month.
So yes, measure external assistant traffic. Just do not promote it to a business north star because the channel name looks exciting. I use AI citations as a diagnostic layer and keep organic users and conversions closer to the actual business outcome, which is also the logic behind my KPI framework for AI search.
A practical reporting setup that does not overclaim
I would build the report in three layers.
The first layer is total Organic Search performance in GA4. Track users, conversions, conversion rate, and landing pages. AI Mode and AI Overviews live here, together with traditional Google Search clicks.
The second layer is the native AI Assistant channel. Review it by source, landing page, engagement, and conversions. This tells you what recognized external assistants actually send.
The third layer is Search Console. Use the generative-AI report, if it is available for your property, to monitor combined AI Overview and AI Mode visibility. Keep the label explicit in every dashboard.
Before trusting any comparison, check GA4's Unassigned traffic too. More than 10% is a useful reason to investigate, although the acceptable level depends on the setup. At around 30%, I would treat channel classification as clearly broken.
Boring labels are useful here. I would rather show Combined Google generative-AI impressions than write AI Mode performance and quietly overstate what the data proves.
Validate GA4 channel quality, key events, and conversion tracking.
Report Google AI Mode and AI Overview visits within Organic Search.
Report recognized external assistants through the AI Assistant channel.
Add the Search Console generative-AI report as a visibility layer.
State clearly that Google currently combines AI Mode and AI Overviews in that report.
Keep traffic, visibility, and citations as separate measures.
[IMAGE: Create a simple three-layer diagram: GA4 Organic Search for on-site outcomes, GA4 AI Assistant for external referrals, and Search Console for combined AI Mode and AI Overview visibility.]
What should you tell stakeholders?
The shortest accurate answer is this: GA4 tracks clicks from AI Mode and AI Overviews as Organic Search, and it cannot distinguish between the two. Recognized external assistant referrals use the separate AI Assistant channel. Search Console can isolate combined visibility from Google's generative-AI features, but it still does not provide an AI Mode-versus-AI Overview dimension.
That wording is less impressive than an AI dashboard with five bright charts.
It is also true.
If somebody asks how much revenue came specifically from AI Mode, the honest answer is that the current Google reporting does not support a reliable calculation. You can report broader organic outcomes, combined generative-AI visibility, and external assistant conversions. You cannot safely turn those into one AI Mode revenue figure.
The takeaway is to preserve the boundaries
Google's 2026 updates improved AI measurement. GA4 gained a native channel for recognized external assistants on 13 May. Search Console started testing a combined generative-AI report on 3 June. AI Mode data entered overall Performance totals from 16 June.
But the central limitation remains.
AI Mode and AI Overviews are indistinguishable inside GA4. Search Console groups their generative-AI visibility together. External assistant traffic is a separate category and should stay separate in your analysis.
Measure what the tools genuinely expose. Name every blended metric clearly. And when the answer is we cannot separate this yet, say it without dressing it up.
Thanks for reading. If you are trying to untangle AI, organic search, and conversion reporting in your own setup, feel free to reach out. I am always happy to talk through the messy parts.
