How to track Gemini traffic (and why it’s not the same as AI Overviews)

Short answer: visits from the Gemini app and gemini.google.com can arrive with that referrer. GA4 puts them in its AI Assistant channel. Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside Google Search arrive as ordinary Google organic traffic, and no tool can reliably separate them.

Gemini vs AI Overviews vs AI Mode

Where the person was	What it looks like in analytics	Trackable as AI?
Gemini (gemini.google.com or the Gemini app)	gemini.google.com referral, or Direct if the referrer was stripped	Yes, when the referrer arrives
AI Overview at the top of Google results	google / organic	No
AI Mode tab in Google Search	google / organic	No

Treat any tool that claims to split AI Overviews out of your Google traffic with caution. Google doesn’t pass anything that would let it. GA4’s own AI Assistant channel explicitly excludes them.

Why some Gemini visits show as Direct

• Gemini opened from the Android assistant or inside other Google apps often doesn’t pass a referrer.
• Links that open in an in-app browser can lose the referrer on the way.
• Copy-pasted links never carry one.

Those visits are counted as Direct, and nothing recovers the source after the fact. Asking customers how they found you is the only way to count them.

See Gemini visits in GA4

1. Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition, find the AI Assistant channel.
2. Add Session source as a secondary dimension and look for gemini.google.com (older visits may show bard.google.com).
3. For data from before May 2026, use a custom channel group: step-by-step, with the regex from our generator.

Count the Gemini customers analytics can’t see

Gemini is built into Android phones and Google’s apps, so a lot of Gemini-driven customers never click: they ask, get a name, and call. Which AI Sent handles this two ways:

• Confirmed: a tracked visit from gemini.google.com within 90 days before the lead.
• Declared: the customer answered “Gemini” to “How did you first hear about us?”, on your form or on the phone.

A customer who says “Google” is recorded as Google, even if they might have seen an AI Overview. We don’t guess. That keeps the AI number a true minimum you can defend to a client or a boss.

Getting recommended by Gemini

Gemini draws on Google’s index and Google’s understanding of businesses. For local businesses, that means your Google Business Profile, reviews and consistent details across the web matter a lot. Allowing Google-Extended in robots.txt lets Google use your content for Gemini. Blocking it doesn’t affect normal Google Search rankings.

Related: tracking ChatGPT, tracking Perplexity, all AI assistants.