Ahrefs recently conducted a study to understand how much traffic is made up of AI, including where it is directly coming from, the most common referral sources, and how that differs depending on the size of the website.
We know that Google announced that AI overviews get a higher click-through rate than normal web search results, and that generative AI is already impacting website rankings and traffic – there’s no denying that it’s here to stay.
The study analysed the differences between sites driving greater than 10,000 visitors, between 1,000 and 9,000 visitors, and below 999 visitors per month, across the following AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Jasper, and Mistral.
The results? According to data, there is roughly a 2 in 3 chance of receiving a site visit via AI. Knowing this, you can monitor your AI traffic which can show you which sources send users your way, which pages on your site act as AI magnets, and how that traffic is changing or growing over time.
ChatGPT sent over half of the AI traffic, while Perplexity sent 30.7% and Gemini referred 17.6%. If you want traffic from AI, pay attention to these ‘big three’ chatbots.
