Automated traffic exceeds human traffic online, Cloudflare report says

Automated scripts now generate almost 60 percent of worldwide internet traffic, according to a Cloudflare report published last week. The report includes traditional crawlers, search indexers, malware bots, and newer AI agents. Cloudflare’s CEO said bots passed human traffic for the first time in internet history.

Country-level differences Iran’s network shows the highest share of automated traffic, with estimates between 75 and 80 percent bots. The same report places Israel’s bot traffic at 18 percent, with periodic spikes attributed to foreign operations.

Theory background The Dead Internet Theory, discussed in online forums since the late 2010s, predicted that most online activity would eventually come from bots. The Cloudflare data indicate that humans are now the minority of internet operators.