AI referral traffic shows up in analytics with referrers like chat.openai.com, perplexity.ai, claude.ai, and gemini.google.com. In 2026 it is growing ~10x year-over-year for brands with active GEO programs and near-zero for brands without.
The sessions are high-intent — users have already read a synthesised answer and clicked through to buy. Shopify stores routinely see 2-4x conversion rates on AI-referred sessions compared to organic search.