India has emerged as the most targeted country for AI bot activity in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Japan and China, according to a new State of the Internet (SOTI) report released by Akamai Technologies
The Digital Fraud and Abuse Report 2025 found that AI-powered bot traffic surged by 300 per cent over the past year, driven largely by large-scale content scraping across industries. India alone recorded 3.2 billion AI bot triggers, making it the most affected market in the region. Across Akamai’s global platform, AI bots now account for nearly 1 per cent of total bot traffic, generating billions of automated requests that distort website analytics and disrupt digital operations.
The report noted that the sharp rise in bot activity is undermining traditional web-based business models, particularly for publishers and content-driven companies. Bots extract data and content without contributing value, leading to inaccurate audience metrics and declining advertising revenues.
Beyond scraping, Akamai warned that the growing availability of AI tools has lowered the barrier for cybercriminals to launch impersonation attacks, phishing campaigns, social engineering scams, and identity fraud using AI-generated documents and images.
Among industry sectors, the publishing industry was the most affected, accounting for 63 per cent of AI bot triggers within the digital media segment. The commerce industry recorded more than 25 billion bot requests over a two-month period, while in healthcare, over 90 per cent of AI bot activity was linked to data scraping by search and AI training bots.
The report highlighted that while some bots perform legitimate functions such as search indexing and accessibility support, malicious bots—including those used for ad fraud, return fraud, and automated scams—are increasing costs, slowing websites, and skewing business metrics.
To counter these threats, Akamai recommended that organizations align their defenses with the OWASP Top 10 frameworks for web applications, APIs, and large language models. These frameworks help organizations identify vulnerabilities and prioritise security measures based on risk.
“The rise of AI bots has moved from being a security issue to a business-critical concern,” said Rupesh Chokshi, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Application Security at Akamai. He added that companies must act quickly to ensure secure AI adoption and protect digital operations.
Now in its 11th year, Akamai’s State of the Internet reports draw on data from the company’s global infrastructure, which handles more than one-third of worldwide web traffic.