Published numbers on AI referral traffic
Eight figures from other people's studies and posts, with sample, period, definition and source, and an honest note on what we did and did not read. They disagree; the section after the table says why.
Last checked · How we check
The numbers
| Source | Figure | Sample | Period | Definition | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Ranking | AI platforms 0.32 % of traffic; ChatGPT 74.78 % of AI referralsOther shares in the same study: Gemini 11.56 %, Perplexity 7.23 %, Copilot 3.51 %, Claude 2.62 %. | 101,574 websites | Jan 2025 to Apr 2026 | Not stated in the text we read | Original read |
| Conductor | AI referrals 1.08 % of traffic; ChatGPT 87.4 %Reached through a post that cites the study. The original report is still to be found. | 13,770 enterprise domains | Not stated in the summary we read | Not stated | Secondary only |
| Clickport | AI sessions 0.7 % of all sessions; ChatGPT 76.1 %Self-selected sample. Shares: Perplexity 13.8 %, Gemini 6.5 %, Copilot 1.8 %, Claude 0.5 %. | 2,619 detected AI sessions on its own customers' sites | 30 days to 23 Apr 2026 | Sessions detected by referrer and/or utm tag | Original read |
| Previsible | ChatGPT 92.4 % of standalone LLM referralsWe only have a secondary summary and could not find the original report. | Not stated | Not stated | Standalone LLM referrals | Secondary only |
| Similarweb | ChatGPT 52.7 % of visits to AI platforms (Jul 2026); 64.5 % (Jan 2026)The link supports the January figure only. A different measure: it counts use of the assistants, not clicks they send out. Do not compare with the rows above. | Similarweb panel | Jan and Jul 2026 | Visits to the AI platforms themselves, not referrals to websites | Secondary only |
| One affiliate site (post on X) | ChatGPT 618 of 709 AI sessions (87 %)Self-measured, unchecked. The post also lists Perplexity 32, Copilot 30, Gemini 16 and Claude 13. | 1 website, 709 AI sessions | 12 months | GA4 AI sessions as reported by the owner | Original read |
| Visibility Labs | ChatGPT conversion 1.81 % vs organic 1.39 %Reached through a post that cites the study. | 135,000 ChatGPT sessions vs 10 million organic, 94 brands | Not stated | Conversion rate | Secondary only |
Retrieved . Rows marked Secondary only should be checked against the original before you rely on them.
How we cite
- Figures are quoted with their sample, period and definition as far as the source states them. "Not stated" means we could not find it.
- Original read means we read the published study or post. Secondary only means we have the figure through a summary or a post that cites the study; the original still has to be read.
- We link to posts on X without naming individuals. The numbers are theirs, unchecked by us.
- We do not copy charts from the reports.
Why the numbers differ
Published figures for the AI share of traffic range from 0.32 % to 1.08 %, and for ChatGPT's share of AI referrals from 74.78 % to 92.4 %. They are not contradicting each other as much as counting different things.
- The denominator. All websites, enterprise domains or the customers of one analytics vendor. Large and small sites behave differently.
- The definition. Only visits with a matching referrer, visits with a tag too, or visits to the AI platforms themselves (Similarweb counts those, which is not traffic to your site).
- Direct. In Clickport's sample 35.7 % of detected AI sessions had a tag and no referrer. A study that counts referrers only misses them. Another vendor, Loamly, reports 70.6 % of AI visits without a referrer; its sample size is stated inconsistently (20,428 or 446,405 visits depending on the source), so we only mention it here and do not rely on it.
- Apps. Mobile and desktop apps often send no referrer, so they are invisible to referrer-based counts.
- The period. Behaviour changed during 2025 and 2026, and again in October 2026.
That is why this site does not publish a single "AI share of the web". It shows each number with its sample, period and source.