13 May 2026 · GA4 · medium severity · fix verified 9 Sept 2026
'ai-assistant' channel for ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude referrals
'Dedicated "ai-assistant" channel added to track ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude referrals.'
What it breaks
Rows move out of Referral (and sometimes Direct) into the new channel from the release date; custom channel groups that already carved out AI referrers double up or conflict.
Who it hits: Anyone with a custom channel group for AI referrals; anyone trending Referral.
The fix
Remove your own AI-referrer channel condition or make it consistent with Google's; annotate 13 May 2026 in channel reports.
fix artifact · #A-009
Source group and UTM audit checklist
The checks that keep channel reports honest through Google's dimension changes: the Google tag before custom events, one family of traffic-source dimensions per report, Source Group vs raw source, the primary channel group frozen and documented.
- verified_on
- 2026-09-09
- next re-check
- 2026-12-01
- status
- current
Sources linked on every entry · artifacts stamped and re-verified · ← all changes