AI + a16z Enabling Agents and Battling Bots on an AI-Centric Web
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Jun 13, 2025 
David Mytton, CEO of Arcjet, dives into the complexities of web access and bot detection. He discusses the growing need for advanced security measures in an AI-driven landscape, where distinguishing between beneficial bots and malicious ones is crucial. Mytton emphasizes the importance of low-latency, full-context security checks for effective fraud prevention. The conversation also highlights innovative methods for managing automated traffic and the evolving role of AI agents in the digital environment.
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Nuanced Bot Traffic Management
- Modern web traffic is increasingly automated with both good and bad bots mixed in.
- Site owners must decide which automated traffic to allow based on application context, not just block all bots blindly.
Limitations of Robots.txt
- robots.txt is a voluntary, decades-old standard to control crawler access.
- Its enforcement is weak, so bad bots often ignore it or exploit it to find restricted content.
OpenAI Bots Use Cases
- OpenAI has multiple bots with different purposes: training, search indexing, real-time query answering, and agent interaction.
- Blocking all OpenAI bots would lose valuable traffic and use cases, like AI agents making purchases on behalf of users.