Bot Bait

June 11, 2026

Radio has been fighting—and losing—the digital wars for far too long. Our once vaunted advertising medium is considered passe in too many circles. The bright shiny promise of a brave new digital world has hypnotized too many products and services into thinking that this is the only way to compete.

If only there was an alternative narrative.

Photo by Alex Knight from Pexels.

Here’s one. According to a recently released study by Cloudflare, bots and AI agents now outnumber humans in the digital realm. According to their study, 57.4% of internet traffic is generated by bots. That means only 42.6% is coming from humans.

The fraud in digital advertising has been well documented and is likely growing. That potential advertiser who touts all their “traffic” may not be aware that more than half of the visits to their web site are not potential customers.

But wait, there’s more.

According to an article by NBC news, humans may visit five web sites before making a purchase while bots will “visit” 5,000 (oh, and they don’t make purchases). Additionally, user-driven AI requests account for just 3% of all traffic.

Imagine, if you will, that more than half the listeners to your radio station were actually machines. (Insert your favorite listener joke here).

Advertisers often say Google is their number one referral tool. However, radio is a prime driver of awareness for those Google searches. Yes, things like SEO are important. Google is today’s version of the Yellow Pages (look that up, kids). Radio plants the seed in the minds of real people who use that knowledge to look for more detail on products they are interested in. You could say radio is a prime catalyst for that process.

This is not to say digital advertising is bad. It has a place in any media mix. But Radio not only delivers results – it reaches actual human beings.

Our strength is that human to human connection. Studies like the one cited above point to the urgent need for radio to invest in that human capital. Expand our emotional involvement with our audience. Develop a level of trust AI agents cannot deliver.

Not yet, anyway.

Here is the NBC article I referenced.

Feel free to tell me I’m full of it: sallan@researchdirectorinc.com

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