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Can AI see it

Know what AI sees. Measure what it's worth.

What is ChatGPT-User?

Direct Answer: ChatGPT-User is for user actions in ChatGPT and Custom GPTs. When users ask ChatGPT or a Custom GPT a question, it may visit a web page to help answer.

Operator: OpenAI Type: AI Assistant Purpose: AI assistant content fetching

ChatGPT-User is the user-agent used when ChatGPT or a Custom GPT browses the web on behalf of a user during a conversation. It is not used for automatic crawling. Because these actions are initiated by a user, robots.txt rules may not apply. ChatGPT-User is separate from GPTBot (training), OAI-SearchBot (search), and ChatGPT Agent (autonomous browsing).

User-Agent Identification

The following user-agent strings identify ChatGPT-User in your live traffic data:

  • Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot

robots.txt Rules for ChatGPT-User

Respects robots.txt: Not documented

Use the following robots.txt rules to control ChatGPT-User access:

# Block ChatGPT-User
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

# Allow ChatGPT-User
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

Robots.txt has limited effect on user-initiated bots

ChatGPT-User is triggered by user actions within OpenAI's products. While OpenAI states it respects robots.txt, the bot operates differently from autonomous crawlers — it fetches specific URLs on demand rather than systematically spidering your site. Server-log monitoring is the only reliable way to verify what actually happens.

Need continuous verification across 500+ bots? Can AI See It automates this.

Crawl Behavior

Request Pattern:Not documented

Crawl Activity Index

Relative crawl activity for ChatGPT-User over the past 28 days. Higher values indicate increased crawling intensity compared to the period baseline.

View recent activity data (last 7 days)
Date Activity Index
Mar 28, 2026 69.8
Mar 29, 2026 68.6
Mar 30, 2026 71.1
Mar 31, 2026 69.5
Apr 1, 2026 69.2
Apr 2, 2026 67.5
Apr 3, 2026 56.4

Source: Cloudflare Radar

Why track ChatGPT-User traffic?

Measure what OpenAI gives back. ChatGPT-User fetches your pages for AI-assisted answers — but do users actually click through to your site? Track referral visits from OpenAI's AI assistant relative to how many pages it fetches.

Track real-time content usage by AI assistants. ChatGPT-User fetches your pages when a user explicitly asks OpenAI's AI assistant to look something up. Each request represents a real user seeking your content through an AI intermediary.

Attribute AI-driven sessions. When someone clicks a link provided by OpenAI's assistant, that visit can be tracked in your analytics. Connect ChatGPT-User crawls to referral sessions to measure the full path: AI fetch → user click → conversion.

Understand content authority signals. The pages ChatGPT-User fetches most often reveal what OpenAI's AI considers authoritative on your site.

Detect 4XX and 5XX errors before users do. When ChatGPT-User hits a broken or unavailable page, it can't serve your content to users asking about it. Catching these errors early in your logs prevents lost visibility in AI-assisted answers.

Every ChatGPT-User request = a real person looking for your content

Unlike autonomous crawlers, ChatGPT-User only fetches your page when a real user asks for it. Every request in your logs represents someone who specifically wanted information from your site through OpenAI's AI assistant.

1User asks OpenAI's assistant

"Find me information from [your domain]"

2ChatGPT-User fetches your page

Logged in your server access logs with timestamp and URL

3Assistant shows your content + link

User sees your information with a citation link

4User clicks through to your site

Trackable as a referral session in your analytics

This makes ChatGPT-User the most directly measurable AI traffic source. Can AI See It connects these dots with the Crawl-to-Referral Ratio (CRR) — showing what percentage of AI-fetched requests translate into actual site visits and conversions.

What Can AI See It measures for ChatGPT-User

User-initiated fetches

How many real users asked AI to fetch your content

Crawl-to-Referral Ratio

What % of AI-fetched visitors actually land on your site

Top requested pages

Which content AI users ask about most

Revenue attribution

Conversions from AI assistant referrals

Blocking ChatGPT-User means cutting off a channel where real users are actively seeking your content. Before deciding, measure how many of these requests convert.

How is this different from prompt testing tools? Prompt testing checks if AI mentions your brand in simulated queries. Can AI See It measures what actually happens: real crawls, real referrals, real conversions — from your live traffic data.

Read: Why live traffic monitoring beats prompt testing →

Log Verification

To verify ChatGPT-User traffic in your live traffic data:

  1. Search access logs for the user-agent strings listed above
  2. Check if the IP addresses match documented ranges (if provided by OpenAI)
  3. Verify the crawl pattern matches documented behavior
  4. Use reverse DNS lookup for additional verification if available

Note: Observed behavior in production environments may differ from official documentation. Live traffic monitoring provides the only reliable verification of actual bot behavior.

Undocumented Information

The following information is not officially documented for ChatGPT-User:

  • Request behavior
  • Crawl frequency
  • IP ranges

OpenAI operates multiple crawlers with different purposes. Understanding each helps you make granular access decisions:

  • ChatGPT Agent — ChatGPT Agent is OpenAI's agent mode that uses a visual browser to navigate websites and perform tasks on behalf of users.AI Assistant
  • GPTBot — GPTBot is used to crawl content that may be used in training OpenAI's generative AI foundation models.AI Training Crawler
  • OAI-SearchBot — OAI-SearchBot is used to link to and surface websites in search results in OpenAI's SearchGPT and ChatGPT search features.AI Search Crawler

Live traffic monitoring vs prompt testing

Prompt testing toolsCan AI See It
What it measures Does AI mention your brand in test prompts? Does AI bot activity lead to real visits and conversions?
Data source Simulated AI queries Your live traffic data + analytics
Covers which bots ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini (chat interfaces only) 500+ bots including crawlers, assistants, and training bots
Business metric Brand mention frequency Crawl-to-Referral Ratio, revenue attribution
Tells you "AI mentions you 34% of the time for keyword X" "ChatGPT-User crawled 8,200 pages and OpenAI sent 290 visitors who generated $4,100 in revenue"

Prompt testing shows visibility. Live traffic monitoring shows value. They're complementary — but only one connects to revenue. Read the full comparison →

Measure your Crawl-to-Referral Ratio for ChatGPT-User

See how much traffic OpenAI actually sends back to your site relative to how much content ChatGPT-User takes.

  • Connect ChatGPT-User crawls in your logs with referral sessions in analytics
  • Calculate your CRR — the metric prompt testing tools can't provide
  • Make data-driven block/allow decisions for every AI bot
Start measuring for free → See how it works →

Measure business impact from ChatGPT-User

The real question is: does ChatGPT-User activity translate into referrals, sessions, and conversions on your site?

  • Crawls: pages fetched by ChatGPT-User
  • Referral tracking: ChatGPT-User takes — measure what OpenAI gives back. Track actual visits arriving from OpenAI's products to your site.
  • CRR: your Crawl-to-Referral Ratio — referrals per 1,000 crawls
Measure crawl-to-conversion for ChatGPT-User →

Based on your live traffic data and analytics — not synthetic prompt tests.

Official Documentation

View Official ChatGPT-User Documentation →

Information sourced from official documentation. Content generated with AI assistance.