The internet in 2025: Bigger, more fragile than ever – and ‘fundamentally rewired’ by AI

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The internet is bigger and more fragile than ever, thanks to larger attacks.
• Much of that growth is driven by bots and AI crawlers.
• Increasingly, we use smartphones and satellites to access the web.

According to Cloudflare, the internet’s second-largest content delivery network (CDN), global internet traffic grew nearly 20% in 2025. You and I watching more YouTube videos is not what’s driving that…