Fewer and fewer people are surfing the internet

October 7, 2025, 6:34 am | Read time: 3 minutes

An analysis by the paywall service provider Tollbit paints a clear picture: The human share of web traffic is decreasing, while automated access is significantly increasing. More and more, AI-driven bots are taking over the retrieval of content, often without site operators being able to distinguish them from real users. This development increasingly threatens the economic foundation of many online offerings.

Fewer and Fewer Real Visitors

According to Tollbit, the number of human visitors fell by about nine percent in the second quarter of 2025. At the same time, the share of AI bots quadrupled compared to the beginning of the year. Whereas previously there were 200 people for every AI bot, the ratio is now 50 to one. Apparently, many users prefer to use AI-based applications to compile information rather than opening traditional websites directly.

AI Disguises Itself as Human

Particularly challenging are bots that disguise themselves as real users. Using so-called “headless browsers,” which are browsers without a visible interface, AI agents act like humans and do so deceptively well: They load entire pages, solve security queries like CAPTCHAs, and present themselves as known browsers like Google Chrome. This is called “faux human traffic,” leading operators to see seemingly increasing access numbers in their statistics that do not reflect real visitors.

Google, AI Overviews, and the Consequences

Google also contributes to the shift in traffic behavior. Since the global introduction of AI-based “AI Overviews” in October 2024, the activity of the so-called crawler, an automated program that searches web content, has increased significantly. Tollbit records a 34.8 percent increase in so-called crawls, or individual page requests by these systems.

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At the same time, many sites receive fewer genuine referrals from Google. Whereas a year ago about 450 users per 100 crawls were directed to a website, now it’s only about 300. Google’s share of total external referrals fell from over 90 to around 84 percent.

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Traditional Protective Measures Barely Work Anymore

While operators try to exclude bots through blocklists or rules in the robots.txt, a text file, many of these mechanisms are losing effectiveness. According to Tollbit, more than 13 percent of all AI crawlers ignored the corresponding guidelines in the second quarter of 2025–four times as many as at the end of 2024. Particularly noticeable are accesses from well-known companies like OpenAI, Meta, ByteDance, and Perplexity, which repeatedly access content despite bans.

A Web in Transition

AI is fundamentally changing the internet. More and more data traffic comes from machines that neither consume content nor generate revenue. For business models, such as publishers that depend on reach, advertising, and subscriptions, this poses a real threat.

According to “t3n,” experts are therefore calling for new rules for dealing with automated access. AI agents should be clearly identifiable and fairly contribute to the use of third-party content. However, as long as such standards do not exist, human traffic will continue to decline–and bots will slowly take over the internet.

This article is a machine translation of the original German version of TECHBOOK and has been reviewed for accuracy and quality by a native speaker. For feedback, please contact us at info@techbook.de.