The internet that was once built largely for humans is now more than ever in the hands of machines.
According to Ionna, the latest data from Cloudflare shows that robots have surpassed humans in the volume of web requests for the first time; such that 57.4 percent of requests recorded across a set of websites covered by the company were automated and only 42.6 percent were generated by human users.
This shift is not limited to traditional search engine bots or crawlers. The rapid growth of AI agents that can automatically search the web, read pages, compare information, and even take actions on behalf of a user is one of the main factors behind the increase in non-human traffic.
The internet is becoming an environment for machines
For years bots comprised a significant portion of internet traffic, but their growth rate has accelerated in recent months.
Cloudflare's data shows that crawler activity related to training AI models has also increased sharply. According to the company's report, in June 2026 about 52 percent of crawler requests were related to training AI models, while this figure was about 22 percent in spring 2025.
Alongside training crawlers, another category of bots operates to use search engines, respond to user requests, and perform various tasks. Cloudflare says multipurpose bots that combine activities like searching, using AI agents, and training models account for more than 36 percent of crawler activity.
This trend creates a fundamental change in the nature of the web. Previously, a user would visit several websites to find information; but now an AI agent can simultaneously examine a much larger volume of pages, extract their information, and deliver the result directly to the user.
A big problem for publishers and websites
The increase in bot traffic does not necessarily mean increased revenue for websites. A human user might view multiple pages after visiting a site, see ads, or buy a product; but an AI crawler can read thousands of pages in a short time without generating direct revenue for the publisher.
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, previously stated that AI is changing the internet and leading to a reduction in user clicks, because responses are generated in an AI service and the user may never visit the original site again.
This issue can put pressure on one of the web's economic foundations, namely the advertising and direct-visit based model.
Not all bots are malicious
Of course, bots exceeding human traffic does not mean that 57.4 percent of web traffic is malicious. Bots have many legitimate uses; from search engine crawlers and security monitoring to accessibility tools, data analysis, and AI agents.
Therefore, the main issue for website owners is not merely distinguishing humans from bots, but identifying the type of bot and determining the appropriate level of access for each.
Cloudflare is likewise separating AI traffic into categories such as search, AI agents, and model training so that website owners can have greater control over how machines access their content.
Are humans becoming a minority on the web?
In terms of user numbers, the answer is no; the discussed data concerns web requests, not the number of humans or real visitors. An AI agent can send thousands of requests to different websites to perform a simple task, while a human might generate only a few requests.
However, this same difference shows that traditional metrics for measuring "internet traffic" are changing. In the future, a large portion of web activity may be driven not by humans directly viewing pages but by agents searching and acting on the web on behalf of humans.
This transformation could lead to the emergence of something like an "agent-centric web"; an environment in which humans mostly receive the result while machines perform the bulk of searching, comparing, and interacting with sites.
In such circumstances, an important question for the tech industry will be who pays for this machine activity and who benefits from the value it creates. If AI agents continue to grow at the current pace, future competition on the internet will not only be about attracting human users; controlling and managing machine access to the web will also become one of the main issues.