AI bots target e-commerce sector, Akamai report warns

The online commerce sector has become a primary target for cybercriminals due to the rise of agentic commerce and autonomous AI-based tools. According to Akamai’s State of the Internet (SOTI) report, nearly 47.9% of global commerce traffic observed in December 2025 consisted of AI-based bots.

Security experts highlight several emerging threats, including the hijacking of legitimate AI agents to steal stored payment credentials and the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to create “Frankenstein” accounts—synthetic identities designed to bypass static defense systems. These autonomous shopping agents pose a challenge because they can mimic human micro-behaviors, making signal isolation difficult.

Additionally, the report notes an increase in application-layer DDoS attacks, web application attacks, and a narrowing gap between traditional attacks and targeted API exploits. AI training crawlers account for over 70% of bot triggers in the commerce sector, with entities such as OpenAI, ByteDance, and Anthropic identified among the bots.