A Wired technology report reveals that artificial intelligence–driven bots are rapidly becoming a major component of internet traffic, fundamentally changing how the web functions. New data shared by Akamai and research from tracking firm TollBit shows that automated AI scrapers — programs that crawl websites to gather information — now account for a meaningful share of overall visits to online content. In the fourth quarter of 2025, approximately one in every 50 site visits came from an AI scraping bot — a significant increase from earlier in the year when the ratio was closer to one in 200.
These AI bots aren’t just passive scrapers used for training models; many newer tools fetch real-time information — such as current prices, news updates or schedules — to augment outputs for AI assistants and virtual agents. This shift means that bots are no longer secondary actors on the web: they are actively retrieving useful content on behalf of other systems, which changes traffic dynamics for many publishers and disrupts traditional analytics models that assume human users are the main visitors.
The Wired article also notes that bot traffic is becoming harder to detect and block. Some AI scraping bots are sophisticated enough to mimic human browsing behaviour or bypass restrictions like robots.txt, which websites commonly use to tell automated agents which pages not to crawl. As a result, many publishers and content owners are investing in advanced bot-mitigation technologies or exploring ways to monetise AI crawling, such as charging for machine access or using generative engine optimisation (GEO) strategies.
Experts warn this trend could reshape the internet economy. As AI-driven bots grow in prominence, the traditional value exchange between content creators and human visitors — where human attention drives advertising dollars — may weaken. Instead, websites may increasingly serve automated agents that consume content without meaningful engagement or revenue generation, prompting a reevaluation of business models and online infrastructure in the AI era.
