Enabling Agents and Battling Bots on an AI-Centric Web

In an episode of the a16z AI Podcast, Joel de la Garza interviews David Mytton, CEO of ArcJet, about the challenges and changes in web security due to the rise of AI agents and bots. They discuss how traditional methods of blocking bots are becoming too imprecise and can inadvertently block legitimate AI traffic that drives revenue. Mytton explains the importance of understanding the context of application traffic to differentiate between good and bad bots, highlighting the nuances required to manage AI agents like those from OpenAI. The conversation covers strategies for controlling traffic flow at internet scale, including using robots.txt, IP reputation, user agent strings, and fingerprinting techniques. They also explore emerging solutions like Apple's Privacy Pass and Cloudflare's efforts to identify automated requests, emphasizing the need for granular control to allow beneficial AI interactions while blocking malicious ones. The discussion concludes with a look towards the future, where edge-based AI inference could enable real-time analysis of web requests, enhancing both security and advertising capabilities.