Owners keep asking me some version of the same question. “Should I be doing something about AI search?” My answer is to start by finding out whether it is doing anything for you now. Not visits. Calls and quote requests.
Google now puts AI Overviews and AI Mode inside its search results. ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity answer “who fixes furnaces in Canton” with links to real businesses. Some of those links are yours, or could be.
The catch is that nobody hands you a report called “leads from AI.” Google says traffic from its AI features is counted inside the normal Search Console Performance report, under the Web search type, mixed in with everything else. Bing added an AI Performance report in February 2026, but it shows how often you were cited, not how many people clicked. So if you want to know what AI search is worth to your business, you have to count it on your own site.
That is a half-day job. Here is how I set it up.
Step 1: Count the two things that pay the bills
Before you worry about where visitors come from, make sure your site counts what they do. For a service business that is two actions: someone taps your phone number, or someone sends your quote form.
- Phone taps. Every phone number on the site should be a tap-to-call link, and each tap should be recorded as an event in Google Analytics 4.
- Form sends. The form should land on its own thank-you page or fire an event only after a real send. A click on the button is not a lead if the form errored.
- Mark both as key events. GA4 defines a key event as one “that measures an action that's particularly important to the success of your business.” Marking them lets every report show leads next to visits.
- Add your Google Business Profile calls. Its performance screen counts taps on the call button on your profile. Those people never touched your website, so GA4 never sees them.
Then send yourself a test. Fill in your own form from your phone and check that the email arrives and the event shows up. I find broken forms on small business sites all the time, and the owner usually had no idea. Our lead checklist covers the rest of what to test.
Step 2: Find the AI visitors in Google Analytics
In GA4, open Reports › Acquisition › Traffic acquisition and switch the first column to Session source. AI assistants usually show up under their own names:
- chatgpt.com
- perplexity.ai
- gemini.google.com
- copilot.microsoft.com
- claude.ai
Add your key events as a column and you can see, row by row, whether those visitors called or sent the form. Two honest limits. Some AI clicks arrive with no referrer and get filed under Direct, so whatever you see is a floor. And clicks from Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode come in as ordinary Google organic traffic, so you can't split them out.
Google does say that when people click through from results pages with AI Overviews, “these clicks are higher quality.” That is their claim, not a number I can check for you. Your key events will tell you whether it holds for your business.
Step 3: Give AI search something to quote
Google says there are “no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” That matches what I see. The pages that get cited are the ones that plainly answer the question. For a local service business that means:
- One page per service. “Furnace repair” and “AC install” each get a page, not one line on a Services page.
- The towns you actually serve, in text. Not in an image, not only on a map widget.
- Your phone number and hours as real text on every page, with the number as a tap-to-call link.
- A short FAQ with your real answers. Do you charge for estimates, how soon can you come out, what brands you work on.
- Let the crawlers in. OpenAI says sites that block its OAI-SearchBot crawler “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.” Check your robots.txt. Also check that nobody set a nosnippet tag, which Google lists as a way to limit what it shows from your pages.
Step 4: Run a 30-day baseline
Don't change anything else for 30 days. Just count. A plain spreadsheet with one row per week is enough:
- Search Console clicks for the week
- GA4 sessions from AI sources (the domains above)
- Phone taps and form sends, split by source
- Calls from your Google Business Profile
- What callers told you when you asked “how did you find us?”
That last line matters more than people think. Someone who asked ChatGPT for a roofer and then typed your name into Google shows up as a Google visit. The only way to catch that is to ask, and write it down.
After 30 days you have a baseline. Make your page changes from Step 3, then keep counting. If AI sources start showing up with calls attached, you know it is worth more work. If they bring visits but never calls, the pages they land on need a clearer way to reach you.
The checklist
- Every phone number is a tap-to-call link
- Phone taps are recorded in GA4
- Form sends land on a thank-you page or real-send event
- Both are marked as key events
- Test form sent from your own phone this month
- Traffic acquisition report saved with Session source
- One page per service, towns listed in text
- robots.txt allows search and AI crawlers
- Google Business Profile calls in your weekly sheet
- Front desk asks every caller how they found you
When to get help
If your site already has a thank-you page and you can log in to Google Analytics, you can do all of this yourself. Most of it is clicking through settings and writing things down.
Bring someone in when:
- Your form has no thank-you page, or its emails go to an inbox nobody checks.
- Your site builder won't let you add analytics or edit robots.txt.
- You only have a home page and a contact page, so there is nothing for search to quote.
- You can't tell which of your leads are real and which are spam.
Those are website problems, not AI problems, and they cost you calls from regular Google too. When we build or rebuild a site, service pages, tap-to-call numbers and a form that is counted are part of the plan from the first draft. If you want us to look at yours, send it over and we'll tell you what we'd fix first.
Questions
Can I see AI Overviews traffic separately in Search Console?
No. Google says traffic from AI features is reported in the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, mixed in with the rest of your Google traffic. Count the calls and form sends on your own site instead.
Do I need special code or a new kind of page to show up in AI answers?
Google says there are no additional requirements or special optimizations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The page still has to be indexed and actually answer the question. ChatGPT search needs its crawler, OAI-SearchBot, allowed in your robots.txt.
Where do ChatGPT and Copilot visits show up in Google Analytics?
In GA4, open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and look at Session source. AI assistants usually show as their own domains, such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com or copilot.microsoft.com. Some clicks arrive with no referrer and land in Direct, so treat the number as a floor.
What should I count as a lead?
Two things: a tap on your phone number and a quote or contact form that was actually sent. In GA4, mark both as key events. Add the calls from your Google Business Profile, which counts taps on the call button on the profile itself.
How long before I know if AI search is worth anything to my business?
Give it 30 days of clean counting before you change anything. After that, compare month to month. A month is short, so watch the direction and the kind of jobs that come in, not one number.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results)
- Google Analytics Help: About key events
- Google Analytics Help: Traffic acquisition report
- Google Business Profile Help: Understand your Business Profile performance
- Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools (Feb. 10, 2026)
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
Drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above on October 30, 2026.
