The internet landscape is undergoing fundamental changes. According to data from the analytics company Servicepipe, traffic from artificial intelligence bots to Russian media websites and e-commerce platforms has doubled over the past year. Currently, this segment accounts for 2% of total visits. Experts warn: while bots previously simply scanned networks, they are now actively consuming content, which poses serious consequences for the business models of publishers and retailers.

Explosive growth and new realities

The growth dynamics are impressive. In June of this year, AI bots most frequently visited media resources and marketplaces. Their share accounted for 1% of the total traffic tracked by Servicepipe. For comparison: last year, these figures were significantly more modest — 0.5% for media and only 0.3% for e-commerce.

However, average figures hide peak loads. On days with major news events, the share of AI traffic on media sites spikes to 3.5%. A similar situation is observed in retail: during major sales periods on trading platforms, this figure reaches 3%. By the end of the first half of 2025, information websites had already lost about 30% of their organic traffic due to algorithmic activity.

Why do bots choose these sites?

The demand for resources among artificial intelligence depends directly on the value of the information and the frequency of its updates. Bots trained on open data are looking for high-quality and verified materials. This is why the top visited sites include:

  • Media resources where information is updated hourly.
  • Educational websites with high-quality content.
  • Marketplaces where the assortment is constantly adjusted and new customer reviews appear.

This content is ideal for training neural networks, but it creates a risk of direct copying of materials and assortments without compensation to copyright holders.

Market reaction: from Ozon to Wildberries

Major market players have already noticed a paradigm shift. Ozon confirmed the trend, noting that while this is currently a small share of total traffic, the dynamics clearly indicate a change in how users interact with marketplaces. Wildberries and Russ went further, viewing the growth of AI traffic as a signal that personalization and chat formats are becoming the new standard for customer service.

New conditions could radically affect the business models of companies earning from advertising. They may have to review their sales strategies, as traditional methods of attracting attention may give way to algorithmic interaction.

Global context and Russian specifics

Russian AI services have been connecting to open resources for a long time, using them to search for information and prepare answers. Neural networks currently only slightly increase the technical load on sites, but they create a real threat of content copying.

The situation in the world is developing according to a different scenario. In the US, AI developers have already begun concluding licensing agreements with publishers and paying for unique materials. There, just like with traditional search engines, official and editorial publications carry more weight than messages on forums and chats.

Russian resources are currently forced to find their own ways to solve the problem. The main protection method is limiting free access to materials. Open reprints, unfortunately, most often end up in the training arrays of algorithms, becoming their "food" without compensation.