The artificial intelligence industry is currently moving toward subscription-based payment models, which is also changing the way internet traffic works.

人工智慧產業目前正趨向於訂閱制付款模式，這也正在改變網路流量的運作方式。

Currently, AI users must choose between free access and paid subscriptions. According to data from the Bank of America Institute, about 3% of households used paid AI services as of February, which is a 10% increase from the previous year. Users generally pay for subscriptions to get more powerful models and special features. OpenAI executives emphasized that while they first used paywalls to manage technical demand, they expect a shift toward 'agentic AI'—systems that can complete complex tasks independently. Because these systems are expensive to run, permanent subscription plans will likely be necessary.

目前，AI 使用者必須在免費存取與付費訂閱之間做出選擇。根據美國銀行研究中心的數據，截至二月，約有 3% 的家庭使用付費 AI 服務，比去年增加 10%。使用者通常支付訂閱費以獲取更強大的模型和特殊功能。OpenAI 高層強調，雖然他們最初使用付費牆來管理技術需求，但預計將轉向「代理式 AI (agentic AI)」——即能夠獨立完成複雜任務的系統。由於這些系統的運行成本昂貴，永久性的訂閱計劃可能是必要的。

At the same time, the structure of the internet is changing. Cloudflare reports that AI bots now create more traffic than humans, accounting for 57.4% of all requests. This is happening because AI agents perform a large amount of research for their users. However, this trend varies by region; for example, North America has a very high bot-to-human ratio, whereas Asia and South America still have more human traffic. Consequently, some people are discussing the 'Dead Internet Theory,' as AI content becomes more common on social media.

與此同時，網路的結構正在改變。Cloudflare 報告指出，AI 機器人目前產生的流量已超過人類，佔所有請求的 57.4%。這是因為 AI 代理為其使用者執行了大量的研究工作。然而，這一趨勢因地區而異；例如，北美的機器人與人類比例非常高，而亞洲和南美洲仍以人類流量為主。因此，隨著 AI 內容在社群媒體上變得更加普遍，有些人開始討論「死網理論 (Dead Internet Theory)」。

Companies are responding to these changes by finding new ways to earn money. Meta has launched 'Instagram Plus' to reduce its dependence on advertising and has introduced AI agents to handle customer service. To fund these AI investments, Meta also reduced its workforce by 10%. Furthermore, analysts suggest that in the future, AI services might be bundled with other utilities, or AI agents might be charged to access human-created content to keep the web free for people.

企業正透過尋找新的獲利方式來應對這些變化。Meta 推出了「Instagram Plus」以減少對廣告的依賴，並引入 AI 代理來處理客戶服務。為了資助這些 AI 投資，Meta 還削減了 10% 的人力。此外，分析師建議，未來 AI 服務可能會與其他工具綑綁銷售，或者對 AI 代理存取人類創作的內容收取費用，以維持網路對人類的免費開放。

AI is changing from a simple tool into a basic part of the internet, which means we need new economic systems to replace traditional advertising.

AI 正在從一個簡單的工具變成網路的基本組成部分，這意味著我們需要新的經濟系統來取代傳統廣告。