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.…