Lumen CEO says AI bots are taking over the internet

issued Wednesday, April 15, 2026 · 06:54 am

Kate Johnson, CEO of enterprise networking giant Lumen Technologies, said AI bots now make up more than half of the planet’s internet traffic, forcing executives across sectors to rethink how their companies handle everything from customer service requests to hidden network threats.

Mr Johnson wrote an open letter to his fellow business leaders on Monday, warning they must prepare for a seismic shift in AI-driven traffic patterns at a volume and speed that is difficult to predict.

“The intensity, pace and volume of data is increasing very rapidly,” she said in an interview. “More than 50 percent of the traffic on the internet today is created by autonomous workers, which is amazing because, as most CEOs will tell you, we are just beginning our AI journey. So if we already have 50 percent, imagine what it will be like in one year, three years, five years.”

Johnson said companies that rely on computing power and data processing can no longer take physical network capabilities for granted.

Organizations that were purchasing network capacity to cover configured volumes and routes should reconsider those static patterns and consider switching to a consumption-based model.

Johnson took the helm at Lumen, which handles 65 percent of the world’s internet traffic, in November 2022, the same month that OpenAI’s ChatGPT was first released. Since then, she has pivoted Lumen to adapt to the AI ​​boom.

Under the Johnson administration, the company sold its consumer fiber business to AT&T for US$5.75 billion and used the proceeds to pay down US$4.8 billion in debt. She aims to save US$1 billion by the end of 2027 and has signed a US$200 million software partnership with Palantir Technologies.

Johnson said the relationship will allow Lumen to better understand the scope and needs of its customer base and suggest “what the next logical business opportunity is.”

Lumen is incorporating AI into its operations using multiple large-scale language models to help identify network threats.

The company announced that it detected traces of activity related to the Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon, which targeted U.S. communications networks in late 2024, and subsequently expelled the person believed to be responsible. AI capabilities, such as those currently on display in Anthropic PBC’s powerful new Mythos model, will only improve such responses, she said.

“The way we detect and stop threats is through observation,” Johnson said. “Threat actors can actually gather intelligence on vulnerabilities in record time, which means they need equal or better AI capabilities to thwart their intelligence.”Bloomberg