Findings reveal rapid growth in agentic traffic and a growing gap between consumption and value

DataDome, the leader in bot and agent trust management, today released The AI Traffic Report Q2 2026: Agentic Traffic Surged 45%, With Meta Taking the Lead, an analysis of the scale, composition, and shifting dynamics of AI traffic across the web from April to June of 2026.

The findings reveal that AI agent traffic is not only growing at an accelerating rate but also changing in ways that challenge how organizations control agent access, infrastructure costs, and business value. AI agents are becoming more purposeful, more varied, and harder to manage with a one-size-fits-all approach.

• AI agent traffic surged 45% QoQ. DataDome's network processed 17.7 billion AI agent requests in Q2 2026, up from 12.2 billion in Q1.
• Meta has taken over the AI web. Meta-ExternalAgent grew +74% QoQ and Meta-WebIndexer grew +163% QoQ. Together, Meta's two agents now account for the majority of all AI agent traffic on DataDome's network, a dominance that did not exist in Q1.
• Crawl volume and referral value are moving in opposite directions. ChatGPT-User, the top agent in Q1, declined 6% QoQ in absolute request volume. Yet ChatGPT remains the overwhelming leader in referral traffic, commanding 80–88% of all AI referrals every month, and growing +17% QoQ.
• MCP traffic is now a measurable network signal, with peaks approaching 500,000 requests per day and clear daily usage cycles, reflecting an ecosystem in active exploration.
• Agent trust adoption is accelerating. 54% of DataDome customers have already implemented agent trust policies, recognizing that at this scale, distinguishing between agents that serve business objectives and those that simply consume infrastructure is no longer optional.

“Q2 showed us that the ground is shifting faster than most organizations realize. Meta now dominates AI traffic on our network, MCP traffic has emerged as a real signal, and ChatGPT is driving more referral value with fewer crawls,” said Jérôme Segura, VP of Threat Research at DataDome. “What the data makes clear is that not all agents are created equal. The organizations building policy around these distinctions are the ones gaining an edge, and that's exactly why agent trust adoption is accelerating."

DataDome experts will be on site at Black Hat USA 2026 (booth #4157) from Tuesday, August 4, through Thursday, August 6, to discuss this latest research. Attendees can stop by for a live demo, a real-time threat assessment of their own traffic, and direct conversations with the team shaping what comes next in bot and agent trust management. Organizations evaluating solutions or looking to understand where agentic threat management is headed are encouraged to book a meeting in advance.

For the full findings from DataDome's report, click here. Follow DataDome on YouTube and LinkedIn for regular updates from Galileo, DataDome's threat research team, and to learn how DataDome's bot protection can help your organization manage the next generation of automated threats.

About DataDome
DataDome delivers real-time bot and agent trust management, providing complete visibility and control over all traffic—whether human, bot, or AI. Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ for Bot and Agent Trust Management Software in 2026, DataDome is trusted by enterprises like Etsy, PayPal, and SoundCloud. Acting as a traffic control plane, DataDome's multi-layered AI engine leverages thousands of models and 5 trillion signals daily to analyze intent and stop fraud in under 2 milliseconds, letting legitimate users through seamlessly across websites, apps, APIs, and MCPs. A recognized Leader on G2 across several categories, DataDome stops 20K+ attacks every second, delivering protection that outperforms.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260716617247/en/