Analysis: ChatGPT referrals represent less than 1% of Google organic search traffic across 100 websites

Marie Haynes analyzed 12 months of GA4 data across 100 websites covering more than 145 million sessions and found that ChatGPT sent just 0.62% as many sessions as Google organic search, rising to 0.73% when including other LLM referrals. Among sites tracking conversions, ChatGPT visitors converted at a higher rate (13.8%) than Google organic visitors (3.02%), but Google still drove 27 times as many conversions overall. Haynes noted that ChatGPT referral traffic stopped growing exponentially in August 2025 and subsequently declined, calling generative engine optimization (GEO) a "distraction" given current traffic scales—though the data doesn't rule out how AI search visibility may evolve longer-term.