ChatGPT mobile app traffic lands as Direct – any way to capture it?

Reports and working with data
1

Hi all,

I’ve been testing how ChatGPT traffic is attributed in Piwik PRO, and I’d like to hear how others handle this.

What I found (September 2026):

  • ChatGPT on the web (desktop): citations, source links and the business/map cards all include utm_source=``chatgpt.com. The first pageview is attributed correctly as AI referral.
  • ChatGPT mobile app: when the answer turns a company name into a plain text link (not a citation), the link has no UTM and no referrer. It opens in the in-app browser and is recorded as Direct / Direct, with the browser shown as “Mobile Safari” on iOS. On Android I assume it shows up as regular Chrome Mobile (Custom Tabs).
  • There’s no user agent or browser marker that separates ChatGPT’s in-app browser from normal Safari or Chrome.

For a local service business in Norway, where the app is heavily used, I suspect a large share of AI-driven visits ends up as Direct.

Questions:

  1. Has anyone found a signal (user agent, landing page pattern, anything else) that identifies ChatGPT in-app traffic?
  2. Is the issue from this thread fixed by the March 2026 update, where sessions with only utm_source=chatgpt.com and no referrer/medium ended up as Direct? Does the AI referral channel now match on source alone?
  3. How do you estimate “dark” AI traffic? For example: Direct + mobile + deep landing pages, trend analysis, or a “how did you find us” form field?
2

Hello @Treffsikker_Kjetil

I was the author of the post about utm_source=chatgpt.com showing up as direct due to the absence of a utm_medium. As best as I can tell from my data, PP implemented my recommendation shortly after I posted. However, I am currently seeing a few sessions where the medium falls into one of the following categories:

  1. Is blank
  2. Contains something other than the official mediums (example: An agency using “utm_medium=sbd” instead of “utm_medium=display”)

Back to your original question! I just accessed my website from the ChatGPT app and checked the result in PP’s tracker/debugger feature. I can see there that chatgpt provided both utm_source and utm_medium.

direct-visit
direct-visit501×660 59.5 KB

Is it possible that you’re getting hit by a lot of traffic from outside Norway? I’m U.S. based and must filter reports down to the U.S. only or my traffic is about 90% direct visits (bots).