Confirmed vs Declared: how to read an AI attribution report
What each label means, how much to trust each number, and why we’d rather show you a smaller figure you can defend than a bigger one you can’t.
An AI attribution report that just says “AI: $14,800” invites the obvious question: how do you know? Every AI lead in a Which AI Sent report carries a label that answers it. Here’s what they mean.
Confirmed: we saw it happen
A Confirmed AI lead is one where the same visitor arrived on your website from an AI assistant, then got in touch or bought within 90 days. The proof is either a referrer from the assistant (like chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai) or a source tag the assistant added itself (like utm_source=chatgpt.com).
Example: clicked a link in ChatGPT, read three pages, came back a week later and filled in the quote form.
How much to trust it: most of all. It’s in the data, and you can click through to every visit.
Declared: the customer told you
A Declared AI lead has no tracked AI visit, but the customer named an AI tool when asked “How did you first hear about us?”, on the form or on the phone.
Example: “I asked Gemini for plumbers in Austin and you came up.” They called straight from the answer, so the website never saw them.
How much to trust it: a lot, in aggregate. People occasionally misremember, but they rarely invent an AI assistant. For phone-led businesses, Declared is often the biggest bucket, because those customers never touch the website.
Assisted: written evidence of influence
An Assisted lead came in through another channel (usually Google), but there’s written evidence that an AI assistant shaped the choice.
Example: came in through a Google search, but told the rep on the call that ChatGPT had shortlisted them. The rep wrote that down.
How much to trust it: as supporting evidence. A claim without a written note is ignored, and an old AI visit on its own never counts.
Everything else
Leads with no AI evidence stay in their normal channel: Google, Facebook, Yelp, referral, direct. They’re reported just as clearly, so AI’s share is measured against your whole business, not in a vacuum.
What’s deliberately left out
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Clicks from them look identical to ordinary Google search. We don’t guess them into the AI column. If the customer says they used Google’s AI, that’s Declared.
- Modelled or estimated AI influence. No “we think 30% of your direct traffic is really AI”. No evidence, no AI credit.
The result is that every AI figure is a minimum. The true number is at least this, probably higher. That’s a deliberate trade: a figure you can put in front of a client, a partner or a finance team and back up line by line.
Reading the report in 30 seconds
- AI revenue and share of total: the headline.
- The Confirmed / Declared / Assisted split: how solid the headline is. Mostly Confirmed means strong web evidence. Mostly Declared means your intake process is doing the work.
- Asked rate: the share of leads where “How did you hear about us?” was asked. Below 70%, Declared is undercounted. Fix the process before judging AI.
- By assistant: where to focus. ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Perplexity.
More: AI search attribution · AI revenue attribution · asking the source question well.
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