By Will Knight
Publication Date: 2026-02-04 10:30:00
The viral virtual Assistant OpenClaw – formerly known as Moltbot and before that Clawdbot – is emblematic of a broader revolution underway that could fundamentally change the way the internet works. Instead of a place inhabited primarily by humans, the web could soon be dominated by autonomous AI bots.
A new report measuring bot activity on the web and related data shared with WIRED by internet infrastructure company Akamai shows that AI bots are already making up a significant share of web traffic. The findings also shed light on an increasingly sophisticated arms race playing out as bots use clever tactics to bypass website defenses designed to keep them out.
“Most of the internet will be bot traffic in the future,” says Toshit Pangrahi, co-founder and CEO of TollBit, a company that tracks web scraping activity and published the new report. “It’s not just a copyright issue, it’s a new visitor appearing on the internet.”
Most major websites try…
