The internet was created to connect people, but much of the activity taking place online today does not come directly from people.
Every time someone opens a website, watches a video, sends a message or searches for information, a human may be behind the activity. However, billions of other requests are generated automatically by search-engine crawlers, security systems, software applications, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, monitoring services, advertising systems, malicious bots and other machines.
This raises an interesting question: How much of the internet is actually used by humans?
The surprising answer is that there is no single number that can accurately describe how much of the entire internet is human activity. However, measurements of web traffic provide an important picture of how much automated activity now exists online.
More than half of web traffic may now be automated
One of the most widely cited measurements comes from Imperva’s annual Bad Bot Report.
According to the 2026 Imperva Bad Bot Report, automated traffic accounted for 53% of web traffic in 2025, while human activity accounted for approximately 47%. This means that, according to Imperva’s measurement, automated systems generated more web traffic than humans for the second consecutive year.
This is a significant change from earlier years.
Imperva reported that humans generated 50.4% of internet traffic in 2023, while bots accounted for 49.6%. In 2024, automated traffic increased to 51%, overtaking human activity.
However, these figures should not be interpreted as meaning that 53% of everything on the internet is “used by robots.” They describe web traffic measured by a particular cybersecurity company using its own network and methodology.
That distinction is important.
Another measurement gives a very different picture
Cloudflare, which operates a large global network, also measures the difference between human and automated traffic.
Its current worldwide traffic data show approximately 65% human and 35% bot traffic for HTTP requests during the selected measurement period.
Cloudflare’s 2025 Year in Review also explains that it uses its own methods to classify requests as human or bot traffic. It notes that not all bots are malicious: some perform useful tasks such as search-engine indexing, security scanning and website monitoring.
Why is Cloudflare’s figure different from Imperva’s?
The answer is that they are not measuring exactly the same thing.
Different companies observe different portions of the internet. They may also use different definitions, datasets, time periods and methods for identifying automated requests.
Therefore, it would be misleading to say that “exactly 53% of the internet is used by bots” or that “exactly 47% is used by humans.”
The more defensible conclusion is that automated activity represents a very large share of modern web traffic, and in some major measurements it has exceeded human-generated traffic.
What is a bot?
A bot is software that performs tasks automatically over the internet.
Some bots are useful and legitimate.
For example, search engines use crawlers to discover and analyse web pages. Google explains that its search engine uses automated programs called web crawlers to explore the internet and find pages that can be added to its search index.
Other legitimate automated systems monitor websites, check security, provide services, collect information or perform repetitive tasks that would otherwise require human effort.
Therefore, bot does not automatically mean bad or dangerous.
Good bots and bad bots
Automated traffic can broadly be divided into useful or legitimate automation and malicious automation.
Good bots
Good bots can perform useful functions such as:
- Crawling websites for search engines
- Monitoring website availability
- Checking security
- Collecting information for legitimate services
- Supporting automated applications
- Performing technical tasks
For example, Google’s crawler helps the search engine discover webpages so that relevant information can appear in search results.
Without automated crawling, modern search engines would have a much harder time keeping track of the enormous amount of information published online.
Bad bots
Bad bots are automated programs used for harmful or abusive purposes.
They can be used for activities such as:
- Credential attacks
- Account takeovers
- Data scraping
- Fraud
- Spam
- Price manipulation
- Inventory abuse
- Automated attacks against websites and APIs
Imperva reported that bad bots accounted for 37% of all internet traffic in 2024, representing a substantial increase from 32% in 2023.
This does not mean that 37% of all internet users are criminals. Rather, it means that requests identified as malicious automated traffic represented that share of the traffic measured in Imperva’s dataset.
Artificial intelligence is changing the picture
The growth of AI has added another layer to automated internet activity.
AI systems need information. Some AI companies and other organisations use automated crawlers to access publicly available web content for purposes such as search, retrieval, research or training, subject to the applicable rules and permissions.
Cloudflare reported that Googlebot generated the highest volume of request traffic to its network in 2025 and noted that it crawled millions of websites for search indexing and AI-related purposes.
At the same time, AI tools have made it easier to create sophisticated automated systems.
Imperva’s 2026 report said that AI agents are increasingly moving beyond simply crawling websites. Some can retrieve information, interact with online services, execute workflows and act on behalf of users.
This creates an interesting question for the future: If an AI agent searches the internet because a human asked it to find something, should that activity be considered human or machine activity?
There is no universally accepted answer.
Human activity can also be hidden behind machines
Another reason the question is more complicated than it appears is that people increasingly use software to perform activities on their behalf.
Consider an online shopping application.
A person may ask an application to find a product, compare prices and alert them when the price falls. The application may then make numerous automated requests to websites.
Those requests are technically generated by a machine, even though a human initiated the task.
The same principle applies to search engines, recommendation systems, automated assistants and other digital services.
Consequently, dividing internet activity into simply “human” and “bot” can sometimes hide the relationship between the two.
What does “internet traffic” actually mean?
Internet traffic refers to the flow of digital information between devices and online services.
It can involve:
- Web-page requests
- Images
- Videos
- API requests
- Software updates
- Data transfers
- Automated crawlers
- Online applications
- Security systems
- Other network activity
A single human can generate many individual requests during one online activity.
For example, opening one webpage can cause a browser to request the page itself, images, fonts, scripts, advertisements and other resources.
Consequently, one person visiting one webpage does not equal one unit of internet traffic.
This is one reason traffic percentages should not be interpreted as percentages of people.
Traffic is not the same as users
This is perhaps the most important point when discussing how much of the internet humans use.
Suppose 100 people visit a website, but automated systems generate 200 requests while those people generate 100 requests.
It would be wrong to conclude that two-thirds of the website’s users are machines.
The measurement is about requests, not necessarily about individual users.
Similarly, a single bot can generate an enormous number of requests because it can operate continuously and much faster than a human.
A human might read a webpage for several minutes. A bot can potentially make thousands of automated requests during the same period.
Therefore, a smaller number of machines can produce a very large amount of traffic.
Bots are not always visible to users
Most people do not notice the automated activity taking place around them.
When you visit a website, you may see an article, photograph, advertisement or video.
Behind the scenes, however, software may be checking the website for security threats, crawling its pages for search indexing, monitoring its availability or interacting with its APIs.
Cloudflare’s analysis demonstrates how significant this hidden activity can be. The company reported that Googlebot alone accounted for more than a quarter of the verified bot traffic it observed in 2025.
This means that the internet people experience through their screens is only part of the activity occurring across online systems.
The internet is increasingly a conversation between machines
The traditional image of the internet is people communicating with other people.
A person writes a message.
Another person reads it.
Someone publishes an article.
Someone else visits the website.
But modern internet infrastructure increasingly involves machine-to-machine communication.
Servers communicate with other servers. Applications communicate through APIs. Search engines crawl websites. Security systems scan networks. Cloud services exchange data. AI systems retrieve information. Automated trading and business systems communicate continuously.
As a result, the internet is no longer simply a network where humans interact with computers.
It is also a network where computers constantly interact with other computers.
Is the internet becoming less human?
It would be too simplistic to conclude that humans are disappearing from the internet.
People remain responsible for much of the activity that matters most online.
Humans create news stories, videos, music, photographs, software, social-media posts, businesses and conversations. People also initiate many activities that are subsequently carried out automatically by software.
What has changed is the amount of automated activity surrounding human activity.
The rise of AI agents may increase this further. A person may increasingly ask an AI system to search, compare, summarise, book, purchase or perform other online tasks.
In such cases, the human remains the person who initiated the activity, while the machine performs much of the online interaction.
Why this matters for websites and online businesses
The growth of automated traffic has major implications for website owners.
A website owner may assume that a large number of requests means a large number of potential customers.
That assumption can be wrong.
Some traffic may come from:
- Search crawlers
- AI crawlers
- Security scanners
- Scrapers
- Advertising systems
- Monitoring services
- Malicious bots
- Automated applications
Businesses therefore need tools that can distinguish between useful traffic, legitimate automation and harmful activity.
This is particularly important for websites that handle accounts, payments, personal information or APIs.
Does more bot traffic mean humans are using the internet less?
Not necessarily.
The fact that automated traffic is increasing does not mean that humans are spending less time online.
The two things can happen simultaneously.
Human internet use can continue to grow while automated activity grows even faster.
For example, people may continue to spend more time watching videos, communicating, shopping and reading online while AI systems, search crawlers, security tools and other automated services generate an even greater number of requests.
Therefore, the rise in bot traffic should not automatically be interpreted as a decline in human internet use.
So, how much of the internet is actually used by humans?
There is no single scientifically established percentage for the entire internet.
However, available measurements show that automated activity has become extremely significant.
Imperva’s 2026 Bad Bot Report estimated that automated traffic represented 53% of web traffic in 2025, compared with about 47% attributed to human activity in its dataset.
Cloudflare’s worldwide measurement, meanwhile, currently shows approximately 65% human and 35% bot traffic for HTTP requests during its selected measurement period.
These numbers should not be treated as contradictory evidence about who “really uses the internet.” They demonstrate that the result depends heavily on what is being measured, where the data comes from and how automated traffic is classified.
The safest conclusion is therefore this:
Humans are still at the centre of the internet, but machines now generate an enormous amount of online activity. In some large-scale measurements, automated traffic has already overtaken human-generated web traffic.
And as search engines, AI systems, automated applications and digital services become more capable, the distinction between “human internet activity” and “machine internet activity” is likely to become increasingly difficult to define.
Disclaimer
This article is intended for general educational and informational purposes only. The percentages cited in this article come from specific measurement systems and datasets and should not be interpreted as a definitive measurement of every activity occurring across the entire global internet. Different organisations use different methodologies, definitions and network samples, so their estimates can vary. The terms “human traffic” and “bot traffic” also refer primarily to measured web requests or activity, not necessarily to individual people or users.
References
Cloudflare. (2025). The 2025 Cloudflare Radar Year in Review: The rise of AI, post-quantum, and record-breaking DDoS attacks. Cloudflare Blog. Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review
Cloudflare. (2025). The crawl-to-click gap: Cloudflare data on AI bots, training, and referrals. Cloudflare Blog. The crawl-to-click gap
Cloudflare. (2026). Traffic worldwide. Cloudflare Radar. Cloudflare Radar – Traffic Worldwide
Google. (2025). In-depth guide to how Google Search works. Google Search Central. Google Search Central – How Google Search works
Imperva. (2024). Bots now make up nearly half of all internet traffic globally. Thales. Imperva – Bots now make up nearly half of all internet traffic globally
Imperva. (2025). 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report. Thales. 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report
Imperva. (2026). Bad Bot Report 2026: Bots in the agentic age. Thales. Imperva – Bad Bot Report 2026
