A new study says the internet is getting closer to the “Dead Internet Theory,” with AI-generated content rapidly growing across the web. Institutions like Imperial College London, Stanford University, and the Internet Archive analyzed data from the Wayback Machine to understand how people build new websites. The findings say that AI plays a big role in how many new sites go online today.
The study found that by May 2025, yes, a year ago, about 35.3% of newly created websites used AI tools in some way or another in their creation process. It also says that around 17.6% of new websites were fully AI-generated, with machines writing all or nearly all of the text, as reported by Gizmodo.
The Dead Internet Theory is an online idea that claims most online content comes from bots and automated systems instead of humans. Originally, people framed it as a conspiracy, but we may be slowly turning this conspiracy theory into a reality with AI generated content slowly taking over the internet. The study says AI-generated pages are full of facts, but the writing tends to feel similar across sites and lacks the human feel to it, the human touch.
This can affect how people experience the web. Users may find the same AI-shaped answers everywhere, lacking originality.
It’s worth taking a moment to highlight that ExtremeTech is fully written by humans with no AI generated content whatsoever. We have been human written since our inception and will remain so for some time to come. Even if the internet does fall to the bots, know that you’ll have at least one place you can come for Extrem Technology news without AI slop.
