OpenAI, Meta, ByteDance Lead AI Bot Traffic In Publishing

Akamai analyzed AI bot activity by inspecting application-layer site visitors from its bot administration instruments.

Commerce drew essentially the most AI bot site visitors at 48%. Media, which incorporates publishing, video, social media, and broadcasting, got here second at 13%.

Publishing corporations accounted for 40% of all AI bot exercise in media, forward of broadcast and OTT at 29%.

OpenAI generated essentially the most AI bot site visitors hitting media corporations, with 40% of its media requests going to publishing corporations. That’s partly as a result of OpenAI runs a number of bots. GPTBot handles coaching, OAI-SearchBot powers AI search, and ChatGPT-Person retrieves content material in actual time.

Meta and ByteDance had been the second- and third-largest operators. Anthropic and Perplexity rounded out the highest 5 at decrease volumes.

Why Akamai Says Fetcher Bots Are The Greater Concern

The report teams AI bots into 4 varieties based mostly on conduct.

Coaching crawlers and fetchers account for many of the AI bot exercise Akamai noticed in media, which incorporates publishing. Coaching crawlers acquire content material to construct language fashions. They made up 63% of AI bot exercise focusing on media in H2 2025.

Fetcher bots seize particular pages in actual time when somebody asks an AI chatbot a query. They made up 24%, and publishing accounted for 43% of that fetcher exercise.

Akamai argues that fetcher bots are the extra rapid income concern, despite the fact that coaching crawlers generate extra whole site visitors. When a fetcher bot pulls an article to reply a chatbot question, the person will get the knowledge with out visiting the writer’s website.

How Publishers Are Responding

It’s value noting that Akamai sells bot administration instruments, and the report’s suggestions level towards its personal merchandise and companions.

The commonest responses amongst Akamai’s clients are deny (blocking requests outright), tarpit (holding connections open to waste bot sources), and delay (including a pause earlier than responding). One unnamed writer selected tarpitting over blocking, managed 97% of AI bot requests, and stored the door open to potential licensing offers.

The report argues in opposition to blanket blocking, saying some AI corporations are keen to pay for content material entry and that blocking all bots removes that possibility.

Trying Forward

The report’s high takeaway is the excellence between coaching crawlers and fetcher bots. Blocking a coaching crawler can affect how your content material helps construct future AI fashions. Blocking a fetcher bot impacts whether or not your content material seems in AI responses proper now.

Featured Picture: la pico de gallo/Shutterstock