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.”
Most big websites try to limit what content bots can scrape and feed to AI systems for training purposes. (WIRED’s parent company, Condé Nast, as well as other publishers, are currently suing several AI companies over alleged copyright infringement related to AI training.)
But another kind of AI-related website scraping is now on the rise as well. Many chatbots and other AI tools can now retrieve real-time information from the web and use it to augment and improve their outputs. This might include up-to-the-minute product prices, movie theater schedules, or summaries of the latest news.
According to the data from Akamai, training-related bot traffic has been rising steadily since last July. Meanwhile, global activity from bots fetching web content for AI agents is also on the upswing.
“AI is changing the web as we know it,” Robert Blumofe, Akamai’s chief technology officer, tells WIRED. “The ensuing arms race will determine the future look, feel, and functionality of the web, as well as the basics of doing business.”