A new report shows that artificial intelligence–driven bots are making up a rapidly growing share of web traffic, raising questions about how the internet functions and how content is accessed online. According to data from web-scraping tracker Tollbit, AI bots accounted for roughly 2 % of all web visits in late-2025, up sharply from just 0.5 % earlier in the year — meaning the ratio of bot visits to human visits shifted from about 1 bot per 200 humans to 1 bot per 31 humans over the same period.
These next-generation bots differ from earlier scrapers by ignoring common blockers like robots.txt restrictions, which are meant to tell automated systems which parts of a site they shouldn’t access. Many publishers have already filed lawsuits against AI companies for scraping content without permission, and experts argue that current defenses are inadequate, especially since bots are becoming better at masquerading as human visitors.
Independent research shows this trend isn’t limited to one dataset: broader internet traffic analyses report AI-related automation surging worldwide, with bot activity — driven by both model training crawlers and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) bots used by consumer AI like ChatGPT and Gemini — increasing by double- and triple-digit percentages in recent years. Some studies suggest human web traffic is declining as AI tools become first-stop information sources, altering traditional search and discovery patterns.
The implications of this shift are significant for website owners, publishers, and users alike. As AI bots increasingly dominate web interactions, traditional web analytics, monetization strategies, and infrastructure planning may need to adapt; defenders argue that stronger enforcement mechanisms and industry standards are needed to balance content access, server costs, and intellectual property rights in an AI-driven online environment.
