AI, Bots & the Dead Internet

This article is a direct follow-up to article 008 and is part of a series exploring thematic topics of AI called Synthetic worlds.
I hope you find this series interesting, and as always, I'm available to chat with you on LinkedIn or elsewhere.

Beyond the debates on AI and synthetic content, another trend is quietly taking shape: in 2024, automated traffic officially surpassed human activity for the first time in a decade, accounting for 51% of all global web traffic (1).

Far from the "Dead Internet" conspiracy theories, this reality still points to a partially automated infrastructure, where humans and machines coexist in unprecedented proportions.

Leaving conspiratorial prophecies aside, let’s map this phenomenon. What are these bots, why are they proliferating, and what does this evolution tell us about the transformation of today’s internet?

In 2024, automated traffic surpassed human activity for the first time, reaching 51% of global web traffic.

The Automated Internet in Numbers #

While the composition of synthetic traffic seems precisely documented, it mostly reveals the digital industry's underlying strategies and, unfortunately, their largely exploitative nature.

• 37% of bad bots: scraping, fraud, targeted attacks — a sharp increase from 32% the previous year.
• 14% of good bots: search engine crawlers, indexing, performance tools.
• Meanwhile, human traffic dropped below 49%, confirming the shift toward an automated internet.

Over the past decade, synthetic traffic has — unsurprisingly — grown steadily. With the rise of generative AI, some bots have taken a step further: they now mimic human behavior, automate content production, or bypass detection systems.

Bots? #

The word bot no longer refers only to the basic scripts crawling web pages in the 2000s. Today, the spectrum extends from harmless crawlers to generative AI capable of writing, publishing, or simulating dialogue.

Two broad categories emerge: the so-called useful bots that index, test, or optimize — and all the others.

Bad bots — those stealing data, overloading servers, bypassing captchas, or imitating human behavior — now account for over one-third of total internet traffic.

The boundary between human interaction and synthetic signals is collapsing. As AI infiltrates the network, distinguishing the two becomes increasingly theoretical. We are entering a digital era where it is nearly impossible to know who speaks, who clicks, or who creates.

Toward a Synthetic Web #

This shift isn’t merely technical. It fundamentally redefines the nature of the digital space.

When half of online interactions are no longer human, the web stops being a neutral platform for human exchange. It becomes a composite environment, saturated with automated signals, optimized by — and for — algorithmic systems.

The phenomenon is discreet but systemic. It affects the economy (fraud, manipulation), infrastructure (network saturation), and information itself: synthetic content, fake profiles, and automated interactions gradually distort the online landscape from any authentic reflection of reality.

This drift is already underway. The real question is how far it will go.

New Digital Landscapes #

Drawing clear lines in a landscape blurred by automation is no easy task. Bots, AI, and generative systems are not going away. Their presence becomes more structural with each passing day.

Three key points emerge:

• Synthetic traffic is reshaping digital environments at their core.
• Humans are losing part of their visibility and authenticity: content, interactions, and data increasingly mix with artificial signals.
• This hybridization of the web is not the result of a conspiracy, but of a foreseeable evolution: as infrastructure grows more complex, countless doors open where exploitation and fraud become highly profitable.

The Rise of a New Myth #

This isn’t about burying the internet or surrendering to fantasies. But it’s clear that the digital space has drifted far from its founding myth — a neutral, open network, controlled by its users.

As automation seeps into every layer, the real question is no longer whether technology is changing, but in which direction we still intend to steer it — and with what democratic leverage.