How to Create a 3D Pie Chart in Google Analytics with AI
You want to create a 3D pie chart using your Google Analytics data, but finding the option in the GA4 interface feels impossible. That's because it doesn't exist directly within Google Analytics. This article will show you the traditional way to get it done by exporting your data, and then introduce a much faster, more powerful method using AI to create any visualization you need in seconds.
Why Can't You Make a 3D Pie Chart in Google Analytics?
Modern analytics platforms like Google Analytics 4 prioritize data accuracy and flexible, clear reporting over flashy but often misleading visualizations. While colorful charts are great for presentations, the primary goal of the GA4 interface is to provide you with raw, explorable data in tables and standard charts like bar graphs, line charts, and scatter plots.
There's another reason you won't find this feature: data visualization experts generally advise against using 3D pie charts. The 3D perspective can distort the proportions of the slices, making it difficult to accurately compare them. A slice in the foreground can appear much larger than a slice of the same value in the background. For this reason, most modern business intelligence tools favor 2D pie charts or, more commonly, bar charts for comparing parts of a whole.
But what if you really need one for a specific report or presentation? You can still get it done, it just requires a couple of extra steps.
The Manual Method: Exporting Data to Google Sheets
The classic way to create custom charts from your analytics data is to export it from Google Analytics and import it into a spreadsheet program like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. This gives you full control over the visualization style, including the ability to create a 3D pie chart.
Let's walk through the process using a common example: visualizing your website traffic by country.
Step 1: Get the Data in Google Analytics
First, you need to find the data you want to visualize inside your GA4 property.
Log in to your Google Analytics account.
From the left-hand navigation menu, go to Reports > Tech > Tech details.
From the "Primary dimension" dropdown menu at the top of the table, select Country. This will generate a table showing various metrics (like Users, Sessions, and Engagement rate) broken down by country.
Adjust the date range in the top-right corner to match the period you want to report on, such as "Last 30 days" or the "Last quarter."
Step 2: Export Your Data to Google Sheets
Once you have the report configured correctly, it's time to export it. GA4 makes this part easy.
In the top right corner of the report, look for the "Share this report" icon (a box with an upward-pointing arrow). Click it.
A "Share & export" menu will appear. Click on Download File.
Choose Download CSV. A CSV (Comma-Separated Values) file containing the data from your report will be downloaded to your computer.
Step 3: Create the 3D Pie Chart in Google Sheets
Now, open Google Sheets (or Excel, the steps are very similar) and turn that raw data into your chart.
Open a new, blank Google Sheet.
Go to File > Import > Upload and select the CSV file you just downloaded from Google Analytics. Google Sheets will automatically parse the data into columns and rows.
Clean up your data. You'll likely see several rows of metadata at the top from Google Analytics. Delete these rows so that your column headers (Country, Users, etc.) are in the very first row.
Select the data you want to chart. For a pie chart, you typically need two columns: a label and a value. Click and drag to highlight the Country column and the Sessions column (or Users, whichever you prefer). Be sure to include the header row.
With the data selected, go to the menu and click Insert > Chart.
Google Sheets will automatically suggest a chart type. If it's not a pie chart, go to the Chart editor pane on the right side, and under the "Setup" tab, change the "Chart type" to Pie chart.
To make it 3D, navigate to the Customize tab in the Chart editor. Click on the Chart style section, and simply check the box that says 3D.
That's it! You now have a 3D pie chart based on your GA4 data that you can customize further with titles, colors, and labels for your presentation.
The Problem with the Manual Method
While the export-and-build method gets the job done, it's far from perfect. If you need to produce reports regularly, you'll feel these pain points quickly:
It's time-consuming. The process involves dozens of clicks across multiple different platforms. What seems quick for one chart becomes a major time sink when you need to create weekly or monthly reports with multiple visualizations.
The data is static. The moment you export your data, it's a snapshot in time. Your CSV file won't update when new data comes into Google Analytics. To get the latest numbers, you have to repeat the entire export and chart-building process from scratch.
It's easy to make mistakes. Manually selecting data ranges in a large spreadsheet or misconfiguring the chart settings can easily lead to inaccurate visualizations, defeating the purpose of data-driven reporting.
For decades, this manual reporting drudgery was just a part of the job. But modern AI is changing the workflow entirely, turning hours of tedious work into a simple conversation.
The AI Alternative: Just Ask for a 3D Pie Chart
Imagine skipping all the exporting, importing, and chart-building steps. What if you could connect your Google Analytics account to a tool and simply ask for what you want in plain English? That's exactly what AI-powered analytics tools enable you to do.
Instead of clicking through menus and wrestling with spreadsheet settings, you use a natural language prompt like:
Create a 3D pie chart from my Google Analytics data showing sessions by country for the last 30 days.
An AI data analyst would instantly connect to your live GA4 data, process the request, and generate the chart for you. No CSVs, no manual formatting, and no wasted time.
This approach transforms report creation from an administrative task into an interactive dialogue with your data. The real power isn't just in creating a single chart faster, it's in the ability to explore your data at the speed of thought.
Go Beyond the 3D Pie Chart with Deeper Questions
Once you've made a pie chart, a good analyst (human or AI) would have follow-up questions. Natural language analytics platforms allow you to ask them instantly.
You could follow up with more detailed prompts, such as:
"Okay, that’s great. Now change it to a bar chart to better compare the top 10 countries."
"What's the session-to-conversion rate for traffic from the United States versus Canada?"
"Create a time-series line chart showing session trends from German traffic over the last 90 days."
"Build a full dashboard with my top 5 traffic sources, engagement rates by device type, and most visited pages."
Each question allows you to drill down deeper, uncovering insights that would be incredibly time-consuming to find manually. Instead of just taking orders, the AI acts as a brainstorming partner. It can even suggest better chart types. If you ask for a 3D pie chart with 20 categories, a smart system might suggest a horizontal bar chart instead, explaining that it’s a much clearer way to display that kind of data.
This method doesn't just save you time, it helps you become more data-driven by removing the friction between asking a question and getting an answer.
Final Thoughts
While you can't create a 3D pie chart inside Google Analytics, you can get it done through the tedious manual process of exporting to a spreadsheet. However, this old method is slow, static, and prone to error, robbing you of valuable time you could be spending on strategy.
We built Graphed to eliminate this exact frustration. Instead of wrestling with CSV files and pivot tables, you can connect your Google Analytics data source once and simply ask for what you need in plain English. Your charts and dashboards are built in seconds, update in real-time with live data, and empower anyone on your team - not just data experts - to get the answers they need to grow the business.