How to Make a Bar Graph in Looker with AI
Creating a bar graph in Google's Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) is one of the most effective ways to compare different data categories at a glance. What used to involve several minutes of clicking, dragging, and dropping can now be done in seconds with a simple sentence. This guide will walk you through both the traditional method and the newer, AI-powered way to build bar graphs, so you can start visualizing your data more effectively, no matter your skill level.
Why Use a Bar Graph for Your Data?
Before jumping into the "how," it’s helpful to understand the "why." Bar graphs are perfect for comparing distinct categories of data. They use rectangular bars - either vertical (a column chart) or horizontal - to represent specific values, making it incredibly easy to see which category is performing best or worst without having to scrutinize a spreadsheet.
Here are a few common scenarios where a bar graph is the perfect choice for your dashboard:
Comparing Marketing Channel Performance: Visualize which channels (e.g., Organic Search, Paid Social, Email) are driving the most website sessions or conversions.
Analyzing Sales by Product: Quickly identify your top-selling products or services by comparing their total revenue side-by-side.
Tracking Regional Performance: See which countries or cities are generating the most user engagement or sales.
Monitoring Ad Campaign Results: Compare metrics like clicks, impressions, or return on ad spend (ROAS) across different campaigns.
In short, if you want to answer a question like "Which of these is the most/least?" or "How do these items compare?", a bar graph is almost always the right tool for the job.
Getting Started: Connect Your Data to Looker Studio
You can't create a chart without data. The first step in any Looker Studio project is to connect your data source. Think of this as telling Looker Studio where to find the numbers you want to visualize. Looker has native "connectors" for a wide range of Google products and third-party platforms.
The most common data sources for marketers and business owners include:
Google Analytics: For website traffic and user behavior data.
Google Sheets: An incredibly flexible option for any data you can get into a spreadsheet.
Google Ads: For paid search campaign performance.
YouTube Analytics: For video engagement metrics.
Connecting a source is straightforward:
From the Looker Studio homepage, click Create and select Report.
You’ll immediately see a panel to add data to your report. Find and select the connector you need (e.g., Google Analytics).
Authorize the connection by logging into your account.
Select the specific account, property, and view you want to pull data from.
Click Add to finalize the connection. Your report is now linked to your live data.
A Quick Note on Dimensions and Metrics
Once your data is connected, you'll see a list of fields in the right-hand panel. These are broken down into two types:
Dimensions: These are your categories - the qualitative data you want to group things by. Think of them as the 'what' or 'who'. Examples include Campaign Name, Country, Device Category, or Date. Dimensions appear in green.
Metrics: These are your numbers - the quantitative data you want to measure. Think of them as the 'how many' or 'how much'. Examples include Sessions, Revenue, Clicks, or Users. Metrics appear in blue.
Understanding this distinction is fundamental to building any chart in Looker Studio, whether manually or with AI.
The Traditional Way: Manually Build a Bar Graph
Learning the manual method is great for understanding how Looker Studio works under the hood. It gives you full control and helps troubleshoot if an AI-generated chart isn’t quite right.
Let's build a bar graph showing Website Sessions by Country using data from Google Analytics.
Step 1: Add a Chart to Your Report
Once your data source is connected, navigate to the top menu and click Add a chart. Under the 'Bar' section, you'll see several options. For this example, let's select the first option, the standard Bar chart (which is technically a vertical column chart).
Click and drag your mouse on the report canvas to place and size your new, empty chart.
Step 2: Configure Your Dimensions and Metrics
With your new chart selected, a Chart panel will appear on the right side of your screen. This is where you tell the chart what data to display.
Under the Setup tab, look for the 'Dimension' field. By default, it might be populated with something like Date. Click on it and search for or select Country.
Next, look for the 'Metric' field. If it's not already there, drag the Sessions metric from your available data fields on the far right and drop it into the 'Metric' box.
Instantly, your chart will populate. You'll now see a bar graph showing a bar for each country, with the height of the bar representing the total number of sessions from that country.
Step 3: Style Your Bar Graph to Make It Clearer
A functional chart is good, but a well-styled one is even better. Click on the Style tab in the right-hand panel to customize its appearance.
Here are some common adjustments to improve readability:
Colors: Change the bar color to match your brand.
Data Labels: Check the box for 'Show data labels' to display the exact value on top of each bar. This saves your viewers from having to guess values based on the Y-axis.
Axis Titles: Give your X and Y axes clear titles like "Country" and "Total Sessions."
Grid Lines: You can adjust the color or remove grid lines to give your chart a cleaner look.
Chart Header: Tell your audience what they are seeing! Use a clear and concise title. Click the text tool (the ‘A’ in a box) in the toolbar and add a title like “Website Sessions by Country (Last 28 Days).”
The Fast Way: Create a Bar Graph with Looker Studio AI (Gemini)
The manual method is powerful, but this is where things get really interesting. In 2024, Google integrated Gemini into Looker Studio, allowing you to generate charts using plain English prompts. This turns a multi-step process into a single command.
This "create with prompt" feature is perfect for quickly exploring your data, answering one-off questions, and speeding up your dashboard creation workflow.
Step 1: Locate the AI Prompt Feature
The easiest way to use AI is to click Insert from the top menu and select Report with prompt (still in Preview). You'll usually see an "Experiment with prompts" panel somewhere on your canvas or right-hand sidebar. You will most often find the tool directly in your toolbar represented by a sparkle icon.
This prompt window connects directly to your pre-selected data. No need to select a chart type or add anything to your canvas first. Just start typing and ask for what you need.
Step 2: Write Your Prompt
This is where the magic happens. Think about the chart you want to create and simply describe it. Let's recreate our bar graph from the last example.
Instead of clicking through menus, type this into the prompt box:
create a bar chart showing Sessions by Country
After you type your command, click the Create button (your call-to-action on the button might be slightly different).
Step 3: Review and Refine
In a few seconds, Looker Studio will analyze your prompt, identify the requested dimension (Country) and metric (Sessions), and auto-generate the exact bar chart you asked for, placing it on your canvas.
The chart it creates is a fully editable Looker Studio object. You can still select it, go to the Setup and Style tabs, and make manual adjustments just like you did in the traditional process. If the AI misunderstood or you want to change something, you can either edit it manually or refine your prompt. For example, you could follow up with:
create a bar chart sorted by sessions descending and only show the top 10
This iterative process allows you to quickly build and perfect visualizations without ever having to drag and drop a single field.
Tips for Writing Effective AI Prompts
While Looker’s AI is smart, the quality of your output depends on the quality of your input. Here are some tips to get better results:
Be Specific: Instead of "show traffic," which is vague, write "create a bar chart of website Sessions by Date for the last 30 days." The more detail, the better.
Specify the Chart Type: Clearly state if you want a "bar chart," "column chart," "stacked bar chart," or "100% stacked bar chart."
Name Your Dimensions and Metrics: Use the exact names of your dimensions and metrics as they appear in your data source for the best accuracy. For instance, say "Campaign Name" not "campaigns."
Include Timeframes: If your analysis is time-based, specify the period you're interested in. Use phrases like "this quarter," "last 7 days," or "for the full year 2023."
Build in an Order: Need your chart sorted? Add phrases like "sorted by Revenue descending" or "ordered by Date ascending."
Final Thoughts
Whether you prefer the control of the manual drag-and-drop method or the speed of AI-powered prompts, Looker Studio makes it easier than ever to turn raw data into a clear and compelling bar graph. Mastering both techniques allows you to work quickly while still having the ability to fine-tune every detail of your report.
Building charts in a single platform is a big leap forward, but the real time-sink is often bringing data together from multiple sources in the first place. This is what we wanted to solve for marketing and sales teams. Instead of wrestling with connectors and multiple reports, with Graphed you can connect all your tools – like Google Analytics, Salesforce, HubSpot, and your ad platforms – and generate complete, cross-channel dashboards with a single prompt. Just ask for what you need in plain English and Graphed builds it for you in real-time, helping you get the answers you need without needing to be a data expert.