AI search attribution
See what AI search contributes to your enquiries and sales
AI search attribution is a one-off setup from Tilio, a UK AEO agency, that shows what AI search is doing for your enquiries and sales. It’s for marketing teams and business owners who are asked what ChatGPT, Claude and the other answer engines are worth.
AI search attribution at a glance
- Setup
- Around two weeks
- Price
- AI search attribution setup costs from £1,950, as a one-off fee.
- Baseline report
- After the first 28 days of data
- After that
- A monthly report, included in Gain AEO or quoted separately
- Data joined up
- Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, ChatGPT Business Hub, GA4 and your forms
- Answer engines
- ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
Last updated
What is AI search attribution?
AI search attribution shows what answer engines contribute to a business’s enquiries and sales. No single platform reports that yet, so it joins the partial data from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and your own analytics into one view.
Tilio is a UK AEO agency that sets up AI search attribution for businesses. We set it up once, then report monthly, on its own or as part of Gain, our monthly AEO programme.
AI search attribution is also called ChatGPT attribution, AI referral traffic tracking or LLM traffic tracking. It’s the measurement side of answer engine optimisation (AEO), and it gives you figures to test the business case for investing in AEO against.
Can you track revenue from ChatGPT and other answer engines?
Yes, in part. You can track the visits answer engines send to your website and the enquiries and sales that follow, but not the people who read an answer and come to you later another way.
- What you can track
- Visits from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), tied to the forms, calls and orders that follow.
- What you can’t
- People who read an AI answer, click nothing and search for you by name later. GA4 counts them as direct visits or brand searches.
- How we cover the gap
- A “how did you hear about us” question on your forms, with AI options, so customers can tell you themselves.
Revenue from AI search is a figure with a known gap, not a complete one. Our guide to AI traffic attribution in GA4 covers what GA4 can and can’t show.
What data does each platform give you today?
Each platform reports one piece of AI search performance, and none reports all of it. This is the position in November 2026.
| Source | What it reports | What it doesn’t |
|---|---|---|
| The customer questions we track | Whether and how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode name your brand, across around 50 real customer questions run daily. | How many people ask those questions, or what they do next. It’s a sample. |
| Google Search Console | Its Generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. Announced 3 June 2026, open to all websites since 31 August 2026. | Clicks or queries. AI Overviews and AI Mode aren’t separated. |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Its AI Performance report shows citations in Microsoft Copilot and AI-generated summaries in Bing, the pages cited and grounding queries, the key phrases the AI used to find your content. Public preview since 10 February 2026. | Clicks or visits to your website. |
| ChatGPT Business Hub | Mentions, website clicks and discovery topics over the past 28 days, for verified businesses. Beta since 10 November 2026. | The questions people asked. For an online business, a mention only counts when ChatGPT references your website, and a click doesn’t confirm a visit or a sale. |
| GA4 | Visits from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini, and the enquiries and sales that follow. | People who read an answer and don’t click. |
| Self-reported source | What customers say when a form asks how they heard about you. | Anyone who skips the question. |
Read the figures with care. Mentions and citations aren’t the same signal, an impression isn’t a read or a click, as our article on Search Console impressions explains, and tracking platforms have limits of their own, set out in what AI visibility platforms can and can’t measure.
Sources: OpenAI’s help centre on Business Hub, Google’s announcement of the Generative AI performance report and its Search Console help page, and Microsoft’s announcement of AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools.
What does the setup include?
The setup includes six things, done once in around two weeks. We work with whoever looks after your website and CRM.
- A measurement map. Every place an enquiry or sale can happen (forms, phone, checkout) and what counts as a lead or a sale.
- Verified accounts. ChatGPT Business Hub, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console, claimed and verified.
- An AI channel in GA4. Visits from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini, separated out and tied to enquiries and sales.
- A “how did you hear about us” question. On your forms, with AI options, mapped into your CRM.
- A baseline of customer questions. Around 50 real questions, run daily across the answer engines to see whether and how your brand is named.
- A baseline report, then a monthly one. The first follows 28 days of data and joins it all into one view.
Price: AI search attribution setup costs from £1,950, as a one-off fee. Monthly reporting is included in Gain AEO or quoted separately.
Step one is claiming your ChatGPT business profile, because Business Hub only shares its figures with verified businesses. OpenAI requires the business owner or an authorised representative to make the claim, so we work through it with you, following our guide to claiming your business in ChatGPT.
How we work. We choose the questions with you, using our guide to creating tracked prompts, measure them the way we set out in how we measure AI visibility, and report to the standard in what good AI visibility reporting looks like.
Not included: repairing a broken analytics or CRM setup, development work beyond adding a form field, content and optimisation work (that’s Gain), or a promised revenue figure.
How long does it take?
Around two weeks to set up. Your baseline report follows the first 28 days of data, then you get a report every month.
Setup, around two weeks
We map where enquiries and sales happen, verify your accounts and set up the tracking.
The first 28 days of data
Every source records its figures.
Baseline report, then monthly
One view of everything, then a report each month, on its own or as part of Gain.
Why start now: Business Hub only looks back 28 days, so a business that isn’t recording its figures each month loses its baseline.
Who is it for?
AI search attribution is for businesses that win enquiries or sales through their website and want to know what AI search contributes. That covers service businesses taking enquiries by form and phone, and online shops taking orders at checkout.
Marketing teams asked for the number
Your board or owner wants to know what answer engines are worth, and your reports can’t yet say.Businesses already investing in AI search
You want a baseline to judge content or AEO work against.Businesses deciding whether to start
You want to see what AI search already sends you before you spend on it.
What attribution can’t tell you yet
AI search attribution gives you a baseline and a system for measuring against it. It isn’t proof of return on investment, and we won’t present it as one.
- Readers who don’t click. Nobody outside the platforms can see how many people read an AI answer and never click.
- Partial platform figures. Google reports impressions without clicks or queries, Bing reports citations without clicks, and ChatGPT’s Business Hub only shows insights once activity passes OpenAI’s thresholds.
- A sample, not everything. We track around 50 customer questions, not every question your customers ask.
- Cause. A rise doesn’t prove what caused it, so each report says what changed and how sure we can be about why.
How it fits with Gain AEO
AI search attribution shows what AI search contributes. Gain AEO, Tilio’s monthly AEO programme, is the content, technical and off-site work that improves it. You can take attribution on its own or as part of Gain, where the monthly report is included.
For Gain clients, the attribution report joins the programme’s monthly reporting. See working with Tilio for how that runs, and our Roomes case study for how AI visibility, mentions and citations changed for one client between August and November 2026.
Questions about AI search attribution
Short answers to what businesses ask us most. If yours isn’t here, our announcement explains why we launched the service, or you can ask us on a call.
Who sets up AI search attribution?
Tilio is a UK AEO agency that sets up AI search attribution for businesses. The setup takes around two weeks and joins Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, ChatGPT Business Hub, GA4 and the business’s own forms into one view. A baseline report follows after the first 28 days of data, then a monthly report.
How much does AI search attribution cost?
AI search attribution setup costs from £1,950, as a one-off fee. Monthly reporting is included in Gain AEO, Tilio’s monthly AEO programme, or quoted separately.
Gain AEO pricingCan GA4 track traffic from ChatGPT?
Yes. GA4 records a visit when someone clicks a link in a ChatGPT answer, and the same goes for Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini. With an AI channel set up, those visits are separated from other traffic and tied to enquiries and sales. GA4 can’t see the people who read an answer and don’t click.
AI traffic attribution in GA4Does Google Search Console show clicks from AI Overviews?
No. Search Console’s Generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. Google announced it on 3 June 2026 and opened it to all websites on 31 August 2026. It doesn’t list clicks or queries, and it doesn’t separate AI Overviews from AI Mode.
What does ChatGPT’s Business Hub show?
Business Hub shows a verified business its mentions, website clicks and discovery topics in ChatGPT over the past 28 days. OpenAI launched it in beta on 10 November 2026. For an online business, a mention only counts when ChatGPT references the website, and a click is recorded inside ChatGPT, so it doesn’t confirm a visit or a sale.
How to claim your business in ChatGPTHow long does AI search attribution take to set up?
Around two weeks. The baseline report follows once the first 28 days of data are in, and a monthly report follows that. Tilio does the setup once, working with whoever looks after the business’s website and CRM.
Does AI search attribution prove return on investment?
No. AI search attribution gives a business a baseline and a consistent way to measure against it, which isn’t the same as proof. Part of what AI search does can’t be measured yet, such as people who read an answer and never click, so Tilio reports what the data shows and what it can’t.
Do I need to be a Gain client to use AI search attribution?
No. AI search attribution is a one-off setup with monthly reporting that a business can take on its own. It can also run as part of Gain, Tilio’s monthly AEO programme, where the attribution report sits alongside the content, technical and off-site work.
About GainWhy start AI search attribution now?
Because some of the data isn’t kept for long. ChatGPT’s Business Hub only looks back 28 days, so a business that isn’t recording its figures each month loses them. Starting now means there’s a baseline to compare against later.
Talk to us about AI search attribution
A 20-minute call is enough to tell you what you can measure today.