AI Agent Traffic Grew 8x in Two Months, and a16z Says Firms Must Court Agents
TLDR
Andreessen Horowitz says AI agent traffic grew eightfold in two months, and that firms need to court these agents; October data from HUMAN customer sites shows Meta's Muse made 59% of agent requests and OpenAI 30%.
Optimixed Overview
Optimixed's original report on this story.
As the a16z report is described, AI agent traffic grew 8x in two months, and the firm argues companies must court AI agents as that traffic rises. Data cited from HUMAN customer sites shows Meta's Muse accounted for 59% of agent requests in October, with OpenAI at 30%. The report was first covered by PPC Land.
How we got here: earlier coverage
On October 15, DataDome reported that Meta's Muse AI bot generated one-third of all AI browser traffic in its first nine days, mostly from CDN infrastructure rather than consumer devices. On October 20, reporting said Meta Muse and OpenAI Dots access websites through cloud browsers and connectors rather than traditional crawling, potentially circumventing robots.txt rules and affecting analytics tracking. Now, Andreessen Horowitz says AI agent traffic grew eightfold in two months, and October data from HUMAN customer sites shows Meta's Muse made 59% of agent requests and OpenAI 30%.
Summary of earlier coverage
- Nov 6Amazon Lets Outside Stores List in Its Search for Free, as Bot Protection Blocks an AI Agent
Amazon now lets outside stores list in its search for free, bot protection blocked an AI agent at 29 of 200 retailers, and Google AI Mode began booking plumbers.
- Oct 20Personal AI agents like Meta Muse and OpenAI Dots are bypassing traditional web crawling through cloud browsers
Meta Muse and OpenAI Dots access websites via cloud browsers and connectors rather than traditional crawling, potentially circumventing robots.txt rules and affecting analytics tracking.
- Oct 17Meta's Updated Terms Grant Access to Crawl Advertisers' Websites for AI Training
Meta has updated its terms to permit crawling and AI training on advertiser websites starting October 30, 2026.
- Oct 15Meta's Muse AI bot captures one-third of all AI browser traffic within 9 days of launch, DataDome reports
Meta's Muse AI bot generated one-third of all AI browser traffic in its first 9 days, mostly from CDN infrastructure rather than consumer devices, per security firm DataDome.