Increase of AI bots on the Internet sparks arms race
The viral virtual assistant OpenClaw—formerly known as Moltbot, and before that Clawdbot—is a symbol of a broader revolution underway that could fundamentally alter how the Internet functions. Instead of a place primarily inhabited by humans, the web may very soon be dominated by autonomous AI bots.
A new report measuring bot activity on the web, as well as related data shared with WIRED by the Internet infrastructure company Akamai, shows that AI bots already account for a meaningful share of web traffic. The findings also shed light on an increasingly sophisticated arms race unfolding as bots deploy clever tactics to bypass website defenses meant to keep them out.
“The majority of the Internet is going to be bot traffic in the future,” says Toshit Pangrahi, cofounder and CEO of TollBit, a company that tracks web-scraping activity and published the new report. “It’s not just a copyright problem, there is a new visitor emerging on the Internet.”