Welcome to this week’s Pulse. The updates affect how you measure AI assistant traffic, what structured data does for visibility, and how a major publisher is planning for life after search.
Here’s what matters for you and your work.
Google Analytics Adds Native AI Assistant Channel
Google Analytics now assigns traffic from recognized AI chatbots to a dedicated “AI Assistant” default channel group. Custom channel groups with regex patterns are no longer the only way to separate AI assistant visits from referrals.
Key Facts
Sessions from recognized AI assistants now receive “ai-assistant” as the medium, route to a new “AI Assistant” default channel, and get a reserved “(ai-assistant)” campaign label. Google named ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude as examples, but hasn’t published the full list of recognized referrers. All three changes happen automatically.
Why This Matters
Anyone running a custom channel group to isolate AI chatbot traffic can now compare their setup against Google’s native version. The custom regex patterns Google recommended last August still cover platforms outside the recognized referrer list. Both can run side by side.
The bigger question is what you do with the data once it’s visible. AI assistant traffic is now a distinct line item in acquisition, user, and channel reports. That makes it easier to compare conversion behavior, session quality, and volume against organic search without filtering or manual workarounds.
Google hasn’t said how quickly the recognized referrer list will expand as new platforms launch. If you track AI assistants beyond the three named examples, keep your custom groups running.
What Industry Professionals Are Saying
Kevin Indig, Growth Advisor at Growth Memo, commented on LinkedIn:
“Was about time! Literally complained about this on stage yesterday”
Johan Strand, Senior Digital Analyst and Partner at Ctrl Digital, wrote on LinkedIn:
“If you already have a Custom Channel Group set up to check for AI traffic, it´s probably a good idea to adapt it now.”
Read our full coverage: Google Analytics Adds AI Assistant As Default Channel Group
Google Completes FAQ Rich Results Deprecation
Google deprecated FAQ rich results, completing a removal that started a few years ago. The company added a notice to its FAQ structured data documentation without a blog post or separate explanation.
Key Facts
FAQ rich results stopped appearing in search results. Google will remove the FAQ search appearance filter in Search Console, the rich result report, and support for Rich Results Test in June. API support ends in August.
Why This Matters
If your reporting pipelines pull FAQ-specific data from the API, those API calls need to be updated before the August cutoff.
Leaving the markup in place shouldn’t create problems, but it no longer produces that visible result. Whether FAQ schema aids AI search is a separate question, and the deprecation doesn’t answer it.
Read our full coverage:
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