[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang (황치규)] Web traffic generated by AI agents has surpassed human traffic for the first time in the internet’s history, SiliconANGLE reported on Thursday.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince (매튜 프린스) said on social media platform X (Twitter) that Cloudflare Radar data from the company’s internet tracking tool showed this.

Cloudflare said AI agent bots accounted for 57.4 percent of total web traffic, while human traffic was 42.6 percent. Prince said he had initially expected this point to come by late 2027, but it became reality much earlier.

AI agent traffic here refers to traffic generated when AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini search the internet to answer user questions. While a person may browse 4 to 5 sites to buy shoes, an AI chatbot searches as many as 5,000 sites for the same task.

There are regional differences. In North America, bot traffic was 68.6 percent, well ahead of humans at 31.4 percent. In the U.S. Midwest, humans were at 54.5 percent, higher than bots at 45.5 percent. In Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, the bot share reached 97 percent during peak traffic hours. In authoritarian countries such as Cuba and Laos, human traffic led at 80.8 percent and 84.7 percent, respectively. Bots lead in North America, Europe and Africa, while human traffic is still higher in Asia, Oceania and South America.

Some view the data as lending weight to the so-called "dead internet" theory that web activity will ultimately be filled only by interactions among AI agents. About 40 percent of Facebook posts are generated by bots, and music streaming platform Deezer said 44 percent of newly uploaded music is generated by AI, SiliconANGLE reported.