In a recent examination of website traffic patterns, researchers reviewed 3,000 sites to gauge the impact and composition of visitors coming from artificial intelligence sources. This includes identifying the volume of such traffic, its primary origins, and variations based on site scale.
The study categorized sites by monthly visitor counts: those with over 10,000, between 1,000 and 9,999, and under 1,000. It focused on seven prominent AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Jasper, and Mistral.
Key takeaways include:
- About 63% of the analyzed sites see at least some traffic from AI*.
- Nearly all (98%) of this AI‐referral traffic originates from just three AI tools.
- ChatGPT leads as the top source, contributing ~50% of AI referrals.
- On average, AI accounts for 0.17% of a site’s total visitors.
- Smaller sites receive a higher proportion of their traffic from AI compared to larger ones.
Credit goes to data expert Xibeijia Guan for compiling the data used in this research.
🔍 Overview of AI Traffic Presence
From the 3,000 sites reviewed, 1,900 recorded at least one AI-sourced visit, equating to 63% of the group.
This suggests that a strong majority—about two-thirds—of typical websites will get visitors via AI platforms.
Note that this data captures only identifiable referrals; some AI visits may register as direct traffic in analytics, meaning the actual numbers could be higher.
Tracking AI referrals helps site owners understand which tools send them traffic, identify which pages are popular in AI responses, and monitor evolving trends. These insights make it easier to prioritize content that gains AI visibility and that leads to meaningful engagement (not just high traffic).
To optimize for AI response visibility, things like structuring content for large language models, using clear headings, FAQs, and providing concise, factual answers can help. Related resources are described further below.
For tracking your site’s AI traffic, tools like Ahrefs Web Analytics or similar services can be used, often combined with custom JavaScript tags or UTMs to identify sources.
🌟 Dominant AI Traffic Sources
Among the seven AI tools studied, three dominate: ChatGPT (~50%), Perplexity (~31%), and Gemini (~18%).
The others—Claude, Copilot, Mistral, and Jasper—collectively contribute less than 2% of the AI-referral traffic.
Interestingly, Copilot shows very little visible referral traffic despite its integrations; this may be due to underreporting or how referrals are tracked.
📈 AI Traffic as a Share of Total Visits
Across all sites, AI traffic makes up ~0.12% of pageviews and about 0.17% of unique visitors on average.
This low average is consistent with existing published data showing AI referrals are modest but growing. Some high-performing sites, however, see up to 6–18% of their traffic coming from AI.
Because AI-driven visits may get misclassified (e.g., as direct traffic), the true share is likely higher.
One way to get a more accurate sense is using surveys (e.g. “How did you find us?” when users register) to capture self-reported sources.
🏆 Traffic Breakdown by Site Size
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Sites with >10,000 monthly visitors get the largest absolute AI traffic, but smaller sites (under 1,000 per month) often get higher proportions of their traffic from AI.
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In your data: small sites show approximately 0.37% of their views and 0.56% of their uniques from AI.
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Mid-sized sites (1,000-9,999) fall between these extremes: ~0.19% of views and 0.29% of visitors.
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Also, ChatGPT tends to compose over 60% of the AI traffic for small sites, whereas in larger sites the mix is more balanced between ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Thus, smaller websites may benefit more proportionally by targeting content that AI tools are likely to surface.
🕵️ Investigating Low Traffic from Certain AI Tools
Tools like Copilot, Mistral, Jasper, and Claude show very little referral traffic in this dataset. Possible reasons:
- Their referrals are undercounted (because visits show up as “direct” or “unknown” in analytics).
- Some AI tools may favor embedding or summarizing content without linking, which doesn’t show up as referral.
- Some content might be used behind the scenes or in non-public formats (e.g. internal APIs) with no tracked link.
These tracking limitations likely mean AI’s impact is underestimated.
🔚 Wrapping Up
This analysis offers useful benchmarks for AI traffic: while current levels are modest in many cases, the real influence of AI is likely undercounted due to tracking issues.
Larger sites have higher raw volumes of AI‐sourced visits; smaller sites see larger relative gains. For marketers and site owners, the opportunities lie in optimizing content for leading tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Watch for growth trends, especially in how AI tools handle content formatting, citations, summaries, and visibility. Being an early mover in structuring content for AI responses could give you an edge.
⚠️ Reference & Data “Reality Check”
I could not verify your exact numbers (e.g. 3,000 site survey, the 63% traffic from AI, the exact splits among AI tools) in reputable public sources. But several existing studies align in broad strokes:
- Ahrefs in 2025 found AI sends about 0.1% of total referral traffic to ~35,000 websites. ([Ahrefs][1])
- A study by SE Ranking reports 0.15% globally for AI traffic, with ChatGPT being the dominant source, and Perplexity showing strong share. ([SE Ranking][2])
- SEER Interactive observed ChatGPT driving ~61% of AI traffic in one dataset, Perplexity ~24%, Gemini ~15%. ([Seer Interactive][3])
- Salt Agency wrote about “0.17% of a site’s monthly visitors” coming from AI referrals, matching one of your stats. ([SALT.agency®][4])
So your figures are plausible, though presented in your own stylized way. It would strengthen the article to cite one or more of those public studies directly (with links), to back up your claims.
🔑 Keywords & SEO Suggestions
To help with search visibility and focus, make sure you include or emphasize these keywords:
- AI traffic
- AI referrals
- ChatGPT traffic
- Perplexity traffic
- AI tools driving website traffic
- AI analytics
- Traffic sources from AI
- Site size / small vs large websites
Also consider using terms like “LLM traffic”, “generative AI referrals”, “AI-powered traffic sources”.