We just saw ChatGPT Traffic Just Grew Another 57% in Three Months

Here's what the latest three months of first-party data say about how fast AI-referred traffic is growing across our client portfolio.

Key Findings

• ChatGPT referral traffic grew 56.8% across our portfolio in three months. That figure is pulled up by the fastest-growing accounts, and for most brands, growth sat closer to 26.5%.
• Seven in ten brands saw their ChatGPT traffic grow, including several that had none at all three months earlier.
• 15% of brands at least doubled their ChatGPT traffic. The fastest tripled or more.
• Ecommerce brands grew nearly seven times faster than every other business type, accounting for 88% of all growth.
• Nearly one in ten brands received their first ever visit from ChatGPT.

We pulled GA4 ChatGPT referral sessions for every client account with consistent tracking, then compared the most recent three months (March to May) against the three before that (December to February). It covers the full active portfolio, using the same first-party data as the original study, zoomed in on one platform across a single three-month window.

Seven in ten brands grew or started receiving ChatGPT traffic over the three months, and the lift shows up across industries and account sizes. Around one in seven brands more than doubled their ChatGPT traffic, and most of those tripled it.

Growth this period, by share of brands:

• Tripled or more (+200%+): 9%
• Doubled (+100% to +200%): 6%
• Up 50% to 100%: 22%
• Up 25% to 50%: 7%
• Up to 25%: 17%
• New source (from zero): 9%

Split the portfolio by business type, and the divide is hard to miss. Ecommerce brands grew their ChatGPT traffic far faster than the service-based, lead-gen, and hospitality brands sitting alongside them.

Ecommerce:

• Share of brands: 29%
• Median growth: +76.8%
• Aggregate growth: +92.5%
• Share of growth: 88%

Everything else:

• Share of brands: 71%
• Median growth: +11.5%
• Aggregate growth: +14.4%
• Share of growth: 12%

The typical ecommerce brand grew its ChatGPT traffic nearly seven times faster than brands in every other category, and more than four in five ecommerce brands grew at all. 

Step back and the concentration stands out: ecommerce makes up under a third of the brands we tracked, yet it accounts for 88% of all the growth. If you sell products online, this channel is moving for you right now whether you're watching it or not.

That matches what we found in the original study. The catch, also from that study: the funnel behind those visits is still maturing. Add-to-cart and purchase rates from AI traffic currently trail organic, and average order value sits slightly lower. The visits are arriving well ahead of the conversions, and that gap is worth getting in front of early.

The original study measured all four major AI platforms across 115 businesses over a full year. This update is a tighter slice: ChatGPT only, three months rather than twelve. The numbers aren't directly comparable on their face, but they point in the same direction.

The year-on-year number has come off its early peak, which is normal as a channel matures. The month-on-month pace, though, has barely moved, and compounding at roughly 8% a month could still double a brand's ChatGPT traffic inside a year.

• Platforms: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude in the 2025 study, versus ChatGPT only in this update.
• Median growth: +1,200% year-on-year in the 2025 study, versus +26.5% in three months in this update.
• Monthly equivalent: +18.8% month-on-month in the 2025 study, versus approx +8% month-on-month in this update.
• Brands receiving AI traffic: 88.5% in the 2025 study, versus over 90% in this update.
• Top traffic driver: ChatGPT, by a wide margin, in the 2025 study, and ChatGPT, still pulling away, in this update.

Close to one in ten brands recorded their first ever ChatGPT sessions over the last three months. New regions came online, and several brands started appearing in AI answers for the first time, including one that had just completed a platform migration. The channel is growing for brands already in it, and it’s switching on for brands that previously had nothing at all.

A few things worth keeping in mind before drawing too many conclusions.

• This update covers ChatGPT only. ChatGPT drives the most referral traffic by a wide margin, but the total AI picture across all platforms is larger than what's captured here.
• It's just three months, not a year. We're showing it because the direction matches everything in the 12-month study, not because a single short window proves a trend on its own.
• The numbers are almost certainly conservative. Many AI-assisted sessions don't pass on referral information and land in GA4 as direct or organic traffic, so the real figures are likely higher than what we can measure.

Worth saying plainly too: in absolute terms, AI traffic is still a small share of most brands' overall visits. AI revenue share for ecommerce clients in the original study sat at around 0.1%. This isn't a story about AI traffic being big today. It's a story about how fast it's compounding, and how low the cost of getting ahead of it still is.

If you haven't looked at your AI-referred traffic yet, here's the practical read.

Check it first. Most GA4 setups can isolate ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini referrals in a few minutes, and you can't manage a channel you're not measuring. Keep in mind the referral data will undercount reality too; AI brand mentions and branded search lift are part of the same picture, even if they don't show up in the same report.

The brands seeing the strongest growth aren't doing anything exotic. They have clear, structured, authoritative content that AI models can read and trust. The gap between brands that appear in AI answers and those that don't is widening every month. Right now it's a head start. Left alone, it becomes a deficit.