A recent study by cybersecurity firm Imperva reveals that bots now account for nearly half of all internet traffic, raising concerns that the internet is increasingly dominated by automated systems rather than human users. According to Imperva’s “Bad Bot Report,” bots generated 49.6% of internet traffic last year, a 2% increase from the previous year and the highest percentage recorded since the report’s inception in 2013.
The situation is more pronounced in certain regions, with Ireland experiencing 71% of its internet traffic from bots. This surge in bot activity is partly driven by the rise of generative AI and large language models, which rely on bots to scrape the web for data to enhance their capabilities.
“Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications,” said Nanhi Singh, general manager for application security at Imperva. “As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent.”
The proliferation of bots has already impacted online platforms like X, formerly Twitter, where posts often attract numerous bot-generated comments, including spam and advertisements. The platform’s owner, Elon Musk, recently announced plans to charge users for posting and interacting on the site as a countermeasure against these automated accounts.
Other social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok are also grappling with similar challenges posed by the influx of bot-generated content that mimics genuine interactions.
