The Complete List of AI Crawlers and User Agents in 2025
If you want to control how AI systems access your website, you need to know which bots are actually visiting it. AI crawlers are now used for search indexing, training data collection, content retrieval, summarization, and real-time answer generation.
The problem is that most site owners still don't have a clear map of the AI bot landscape. This guide gives you a practical reference: what the main AI crawlers are, who operates them, what they typically do, and how to manage them with robots.txt and site policies.
Why AI Crawlers Matter
AI crawlers affect several important parts of your website strategy:
- AI search visibility — if important bots cannot access your site, your content may be less likely to appear in AI-generated answers
- Content usage control — some bots are associated with training or large-scale retrieval workflows
- Infrastructure costs — crawler traffic can increase server load and bandwidth usage
- Policy decisions — you may want to allow some bots and restrict others
That makes AI crawler management a core part of modern technical SEO.
What Is an AI Crawler?
An AI crawler is an automated bot that accesses websites on behalf of an AI product or platform. Depending on the provider, the bot may be used for:
- discovering and fetching web pages
- indexing pages for AI-powered search
- retrieving content for real-time answers
- gathering training data
- validating or refreshing previously seen content
Not all AI bots behave the same way. Some are clearly documented. Others are less transparent. Some are tied to search products, while others are more focused on training or browsing tools.
Major AI Crawlers and User Agents in 2025
Below is a practical reference table covering major AI-related bots that site owners often care about.
| Bot / User Agent | Operator | Typical purpose | Common policy decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Training / content discovery | Mixed: allow or block based on policy |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | User-initiated browsing / retrieval | Often allowed |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Large-scale web crawling used by many AI systems | Often reviewed carefully |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | AI-related crawling / retrieval | Often allowed for visibility-focused sites |
| anthropic-ai | Anthropic | AI crawler identifier seen in documentation/policy discussions | Review and verify behavior |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Search/retrieval for Perplexity answers | Often allowed |
| Googlebot | Web search indexing | Usually allowed | |
| Google-Extended | Controls use in some AI-related contexts | Often reviewed separately | |
| Bingbot | Microsoft | Web indexing for Bing | Usually allowed |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Search-oriented crawling / retrieval | Often allowed |
| Amazonbot | Amazon | Search and AI ecosystem crawling | Case by case |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | Crawling tied to search/AI ecosystems | Case by case |
| meta-externalagent | Meta | Retrieval / AI-related access patterns | Often reviewed carefully |
| meta-externalfetcher | Meta | Content fetching for platform features | Often allowed selectively |
| Applebot | Apple | Search and assistant ecosystem crawling | Usually allowed |
Important: Bot names, documentation, and behaviors can change. Always verify against current provider documentation and your own logs.
OpenAI-Related Bots
OpenAI has become one of the most important sources of AI-driven traffic and visibility questions.
GPTBot
Typical role: Associated with AI training and broad content collection decisions.
Many publishers specifically reference GPTBot in robots.txt because it is one of the clearest examples of an AI-specific crawler. Some sites allow it to improve AI ecosystem visibility; others block it to reduce training exposure.
ChatGPT-User
Typical role: User-triggered retrieval when someone uses browsing or website access features.
This bot is often treated differently from training-related bots because it is more closely tied to real-time user requests.
OAI-SearchBot
Typical role: Search and retrieval-oriented access.
Where supported or documented, this bot may represent access patterns closer to AI answer generation than model training. For many sites, this is easier to justify allowing.
Anthropic-Related Bots
Anthropic is increasingly relevant for AI visibility, especially for sites that want to be discoverable in Claude-related workflows.
ClaudeBot
Typical role: AI retrieval and platform-related access.
This bot is often discussed in the context of Claude's ability to access and understand public web content.
Other Anthropic identifiers
You may also see references such as anthropic-ai depending on policy documentation, traffic logs, or implementation details. The exact naming may vary by environment, so verify against current official guidance.
Perplexity-Related Bots
PerplexityBot
Typical role: Retrieval and citation support for Perplexity answers.
Since Perplexity heavily cites sources in its responses, many publishers want to allow Perplexity-related crawling as part of an AI SEO strategy.
If your goal is to appear in answer engines, Perplexity is often one of the highest-priority AI crawlers to evaluate.
Google and Microsoft AI-Relevant Bots
Even though Googlebot and Bingbot are not branded purely as AI crawlers, they matter because both companies now integrate AI deeply into search experiences.
Googlebot
Still essential for search indexing and visibility. Strong performance in AI Overviews often still depends on traditional crawlability and indexing foundations.
Google-Extended
A separate control token used in some AI-related content usage policies. Some sites allow Googlebot but block Google-Extended depending on content-use preferences.
Bingbot
Important for Bing and Microsoft ecosystem visibility, including Copilot-related discovery.
Common Crawl and Other Broad Web Crawlers
CCBot
Operated by Common Crawl, CCBot is significant because Common Crawl data is used across many research and AI workflows.
This means your decision about CCBot may affect broader exposure beyond a single consumer AI assistant.
Other broad crawlers
Depending on your niche, you may also encounter bots from Amazon, ByteDance, Meta, Apple, and emerging AI startups. Not every crawler has equal strategic value, so your policy should reflect your goals.
How to Check Whether These Bots Are Allowed
The simplest place to start is your robots.txt file.
Example: allow a specific bot
User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /
Example: block a specific bot
User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: /
Example: separate policies for different bots
User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: ChatGPT-User Allow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Allow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /
This kind of setup lets you distinguish between broad training access and user-driven retrieval access.
How to Decide Which AI Crawlers to Allow
There is no universal answer. Your policy depends on your business model, content strategy, and infrastructure tolerance.
You may want to allow AI crawlers if:
- you want better AI search visibility
- your business benefits from citations and brand mentions
- you publish educational or product-comparison content
- you want to appear in answer engines such as Perplexity or AI assistants
You may want to restrict some AI crawlers if:
- your content is expensive to produce and easily repurposed
- you are worried about training use more than referral value
- your site experiences heavy bot load
- you want more control over which platforms can access your content
Recommended Decision Framework
| Site type | Likely approach |
|---|---|
| Publisher / blog | Allow key retrieval bots, review training bots carefully |
| SaaS marketing site | Usually allow major AI and search bots |
| E-commerce site | Allow search/retrieval bots that support product discovery |
| Documentation / help center | Often beneficial to allow answer-oriented bots |
| Paywalled media | More restrictive policy may make sense |
| High-cost infrastructure site | Tighter controls and rate management may be needed |
Best Practices for AI Crawler Management
1. Separate visibility from training decisions
Do not treat every AI bot the same. A user-facing retrieval bot may create real business value, while a broad training bot may not fit your policy.
2. Review server logs
Documentation is useful, but your own logs tell you what is really happening.
Look for:
- request frequency
- top requested paths
- status codes
- bandwidth impact
- suspicious user-agent strings
3. Keep policies simple
Avoid overengineering your first version of robots.txt. Start with clear decisions for the bots you actually care about.
4. Document your choices
If your team changes crawler policy later, you should know why the original decision was made.
5. Revisit policies regularly
The AI crawler landscape is evolving quickly. A bot that did not matter six months ago may be important now.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Blocking all bots by default | Can destroy AI visibility and even hurt search performance |
| Allowing everything without review | May expose content beyond your comfort level |
| Ignoring user-initiated bots | Misses opportunities for citation and discovery |
| Never checking logs | Leaves policy decisions disconnected from reality |
| Treating names as static forever | Bot identity and documentation can change |
Final Thoughts
AI crawler management is now part of technical SEO, brand visibility, and content governance. The goal is not to allow or block everything blindly. The goal is to make deliberate choices based on how each bot affects discovery, citation, control, and cost.
If you care about AI search, start by identifying which crawlers matter most to your site, then make your robots.txt policy reflect those priorities.
Want to quickly see whether your site is allowing or blocking important AI bots? Use SeenByAI to check your crawler settings, review AI visibility issues, and identify what to fix first.