How to Create a Donut Chart in Google Analytics with AI

A donut chart is one of the quickest ways to see how a whole is divided into its parts, like showing which channels drive the most traffic to your website. But creating one in Google Analytics 4 isn't as straightforward as it used to be. This article will show you how to do this, from workarounds within GA4 itself to using AI to get the exact chart you need in seconds.

So, What Exactly Is a Donut Chart and Why Use It?

Think of a pie chart, but with a hole in the middle. That's a donut chart. Both charts excel at showing the proportions of categorical data, helping you quickly understand the composition of a specific metric.

Each slice represents a different category, and the size of the slice shows its percentage of the total. For example, if you want to know what percentage of your website users come from Organic Search versus Paid Social, a donut chart displays this relationship beautifully.

When to Use a Donut Chart:

To show parts of a whole: They are perfect for visualizing compositions like traffic sources, device categories (mobile vs. desktop), user demographics (age or gender brackets), or product sales by category.
To highlight simple proportions: The visual is immediate. At a glance, anyone can see which slice is the biggest and tell the dominant category.
For a clean look in dashboards: The empty center of a donut chart can be used to display the total value being shown (e.g., "Total Users: 15,280") which makes for a very tidy and informative visual on a report or dashboard.

The key is simplicity. Donut charts work best when you have a handful of categories (ideally 2 to 5) that you want to represent as a percentage of 100. If you try to cram ten different traffic sources into one chart, you’ll end up with a rainbow-colored mess of tiny slivers that is hard to read - a bar chart would be better in that case.

The Challenge in Google Analytics 4

If you're coming from Universal Analytics or another reporting tool, you might be frustrated looking for a simple "change chart type" button in GA4's standard reports. In an effort to streamline reporting, Google Analytics 4 moved a lot of the deep customization features out of the default report views.

The standard reports ("Acquisition," "Engagement," etc.) are primarily made of line charts, bar charts, and data tables. While some overview cards might display data in a pie chart, you can't click into a report on Traffic Acquisition and instantly transform the table into a donut chart for your slide deck. For that, you need to head over to the "Explore" section to build a report from scratch.

Method 1: Create a Pie Chart in GA4's Explore Tab

The closest you can get to a donut chart without leaving Google Analytics is by creating a pie chart within an Exploration. This tool gives you the power to build custom reports using the dimensions and metrics you care about.

Let's walk through an example of building a chart to visualize sessions by channel.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Navigate to Explore: From the left-hand navigation menu in Google Analytics, click on the "Explore" section.
Start a New Exploration: Choose "Free form" as your starting point. This template offers the most flexibility for creating visualizations.
Set Your Time Frame: In the top left corner, adjust the date range to match the period you want to analyze (e.g., "Last 30 days," "This quarter").
Import Your Dimension: In the "Variables" column on the left, click the + icon next to "Dimensions." Search for the dimension you want to slice your data by. For our example, search for "Session default channel group" and check the box next to it. Click the "Import" button.
Import Your Metric: Now, do the same for your metric. Click the + icon next to "Metrics" in the "Variables" column. Search for "Sessions," check the box, and click "Import."
Build the Chart in the "Tab Settings" column:
- Drag your Session default channel group dimension from "Variables" and drop it into the "Rows" box under "Tab Settings."
- Drag your Sessions metric from "Variables" and drop it into the "Values" box under "Tab Settings."
At this point, you will see a data table appear on the right.
Switch to Pie Chart Visualization: Look for the set of icons above the "Tab Settings" column under the "Visualizations" header. Click on the pie chart icon (a circle). Your table will instantly be converted into a pie chart.

While technically a pie chart and not a donut chart, it serves the exact same purpose of showing the composition of your sessions by channel. You can hover over each slice to see the exact session count and its percentage of the total. You can then use the "Share" icon in the top right to export this report as a PDF or Sheets file.

Method 2: Use "Ask Analytics Intelligence" for Quick Answers

Google Analytics 4 has a powerful AI-powered search bar at the very top of the page. This feature, known as Analytics Intelligence, lets you ask questions about your data in plain English. While it doesn't always build you a perfect donut chart, it's incredibly fast for getting the underlying numbers.

You can use this feature to quickly check proportions without having to build a full Explore report.

How to Use It:

Simply click on the search bar and type in your question. Be direct and clear. The AI is pretty good at understanding what you mean.

Example Prompts to Try:

sessions by device category last month
user breakdown by country last 90 days
conversions by landing page this week
number of users from USA vs Canada last quarter

The Analytics Intelligence function will provide an answer on a pop-up "card." For a question like "sessions by device category," it will often present a table showing Mobile, Desktop, and Tablet and the number of sessions from each. It might even include a simple bar chart.

Think of this feature as a quick-lookup tool, not a report creator. It's fantastic for finding a specific data point during a meeting or double-checking a stat, but a dedicated visualization tool is better for creating final, presentation-ready charts.

The Modern Way: Instantly Create a Donut Chart with AI

The friction inside GA4 - clicking through the Explore tab or getting just-okay answers from the search bar - is why a new generation of AI-powered analytics tools has emerged. These platforms connect directly to your Google Analytics account and let you skip the manual report-building entirely.

Instead of adapting your goal (a donut chart) to fit the limitations of the tool, you simply describe the exact chart you want in plain English, and the AI handles the rest.

The process is incredibly simple:

Connect your GA4 data source: This is almost always a one-time step that involves you securely logging into your Google account (a process called OAuth). Your data source is now connected.
Ask for exactly what you want: You use a chat-like interface to type your request. The beauty is you don't need to know the official dimension or metric names. Instead of figuring out GA4 needs "Session default channel group," you can just say "channels."
Get an instant chart: The platform instantly generates a fully interactive, editable donut chart based on your real-time GA4 data.

For example, you could type a prompt like:

"Show me GA4 sessions by channel in a donut chart for the last 30 days."

Seconds later, you have your chart. Want to see conversion rates instead? Just ask:

"Change that to show conversion rate by channel instead of sessions."

This conversational approach completely removes the learning curve. You don't need to learn a software interface, you just need to know what business questions you want to answer. You can go from question to visualization in less than a minute, saving you the time of building a manual report and allowing you to start analyzing the insights immediately.

Pro-Tips for Making Great Donut Charts

Now that you know how to create them, here are a few best practices to ensure your donut charts are effective and easy to interpret:

Keep the number of slices small. A donut chart works best with 2-5 slices. Beyond that, the segments become too small to compare accurately, and the chart feels cluttered. If you have more than five categories, a bar chart is a better option.
Start with the largest slice at 12 o'clock. Conventionally, the largest segment is placed starting at the top of the chart and running clockwise. The next-largest segment follows, and so on. This makes it easier for the viewer's eye to follow the data.
Label clearly and directly. Adding labels for both the category name and its percentage value directly on or next to the slice makes the chart much quicker to read. You shouldn't force someone to check a separate legend to understand what they're looking at.
Use the center for valuable context. Put the chart's total value (e.g., "25,000 Total Sessions") or a summary insight in the donut's empty hole. This prime real estate can transform your chart from just a graphic into a standalone piece of information.

Final Thoughts

Creating a chart to show parts-of-a-whole from your Google Analytics data doesn't have to be a complicated process. While GA4's standard reports don't offer them directly, you can create a functionally similar pie chart using the Explore tab. For even faster insights, the easiest workflow is simply describing the chart you want in plain English and letting AI create it for you.

Here at Graphed, we created our tool to solve this exact frustration. We believe you should spend your time acting on insights, not wrestling with report builders. Instead of navigating menus in GA4, you just connect your account and ask "Show me a donut chart of new vs. returning users last month" or "Compare bounce rate by landing page." Our AI builds a professionally designed, real-time dashboard for you in seconds, so you can stop manually building reports and focus on growing your business.