Fastly reports AI-generated web traffic grows 6.5 times faster than human traffic

Fastly’s global network analysis shows AI‑generated requests increased about 30 % from January to May 2026, a growth rate roughly 6.5 times that of human‑generated traffic in the same period. The study found that 51 % of AI requests required a fetch from the origin server, compared with less than 9 % for human requests, raising costs and latency for site operators.

Traffic linked to the Claude model surged more than 555 % since the start of the year, highlighting the expanding role of AI crawlers, fetchers and agents that retrieve fresh data for real‑time answers. Fastly says firms must move beyond merely blocking malicious bots and start strategically managing AI traffic to capture value while protecting infrastructure.