Bots now represent more than fifty percent of internet traffic, and they are causing a lot of disruption.

      Humans have become the minority on the internet, primarily due to the rise of bots.

      Although humans were the architects of the internet, they are not the most prevalent users in today’s online environment. A recent report from Thales indicates that in 2025, bots represented over 53% of all web traffic, an increase from 51% the year before. In contrast, human engagement has decreased by 47%, indicating that automated traffic is now the primary force on the web. However, this is just part of the concerning news.

      The impact of AI on the bot issue

      The significant increase in online bots is largely fueled by AI automation. As reported in the 2026 Thales Bad Bot report, 40% of overall web traffic comes from malicious bot activity, with AI-driven bot attacks having surged by 12.5 times compared to the previous year. These AI bots are emerging as a new category of web traffic, in addition to the traditional "good" and "bad" bots. They can interact with applications and APIs, extract data, and execute tasks in ways that may appear legitimate externally.

      In essence, the challenge is now not just to identify whether something is automated but to determine the intentions of that automation. Thales notes that 27% of bot attacks now target APIs, bypassing the front-end interface to interact directly with backend systems at machine speed. Financial services have been particularly affected, representing 24% of all bot attacks and 46% of account takeover incidents.

      The internet is increasingly operated by machines

      Not every bot is harmful; many serve as search crawlers, monitoring tools, accessibility services, and genuine AI agents. The challenge lies in the fact that the widespread nature of automation is beginning to strain existing security models.

      This also lends a bit more credibility to the classic "dead internet theory." For those unfamiliar, this theory suggests that a considerable portion of the web is no longer driven by genuine human activity but rather by bots, algorithms, synthetic content, and automated engagement loops. While it's traditionally regarded as more of an internet myth than a substantiated truth, the latest figures from Thales add an unsettling dimension to this concept.

      It’s important to clarify that this doesn’t imply that the internet is artificial or that humans have vanished from it. However, with bots constituting over half of web traffic and a significant portion of that being malicious, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the extent to which modern web experiences are influenced by machines.