Our Take From The Gartner® Market Overview for Bot Protection and Management Solutions 2026

Gartner has just released a report on the Bot Protection and Management market that we believe provides strong new validation for this fast-growing category. We believe this reflects the strategic priority of bot and agent trust management for cybersecurity leaders, who now have credible business justifications to carve out a distinct line item in security budgets.

As Gartner states:

“Organizations are increasingly seeking solutions that provide comprehensive visibility, governance and mitigation capabilities, reestablishing bot protection and management as a distinct market rather than a stand-alone feature.”

We’re pleased to share that DataDome has been recognized as an Example Vendor in this report, which follows our recognition as a Sample Vendor in Gartner Hype Cycle for Application Security, 2026. We broke that down here.

In our view, the conversation around bot management is shifting from basic detection to how businesses govern all automated traffic, including AI agents.

Our take

We believe the market is changing fast, and here’s our perspective:

• Bad bot traffic is outpacing human traffic. Our State of Bot & Agent Security Report 2026 found that bad bot traffic grew 124% in 12 months, over 9x the growth rate of human traffic.
• Bot and agentic traffic has become a true business issue. When automated traffic inflates sessions, skews conversion rates, or targets checkout, security, marketing, and revenue teams, all have a stake.
• Intent matters more than a bot-or-human label. Much automated traffic isn’t clearly good or bad until you know what it’s trying to do. A price-comparison agent and a scalper can look alike at first glance, so continuously analyzing behavior through the buyer journey is critical.
• Agents are changing how people shop. Customers increasingly send agents to research and compare, so blocking by default risks turning away real demand.

Gray bots: Neither clearly good nor clearly bad automated traffic

Gartner states:

“This has created a new category of ‘gray bots’ that cannot be clearly classified as good or bad without evaluating their intention and business relevance.”

In our view, a gray bot is automated traffic whose trust level depends not only on identity but also on intent. We believe gray bots emerged as AI assistants, answer engines, and agents began visiting websites on behalf of people and models, not only for search engines.

AI agents are now part of your traffic

Our threat research shows how Muse and Dots are already shopping online. Some agents shop, compare, and book for real customers. Others scrape content or probe for fraud opportunities.

We believe every business needs to decide which agents it welcomes, which it limits, and which it blocks. That decision must happen continuously and in real time, evaluating what each agent is trying to do and applying context such as which part of your site it touches. Intent, not a bot-or-human label, must drive the decision.

The good news: we believe you can welcome helpful agents to drive business growth and stop harmful ones that drive fraud costs without adding friction. Three moves help security and fraud teams get there:

1. Classify, don’t just block. A blunt block can cost you customers whose agents shop for them. Know what is on your site before you pick a response.
2. Analyze intent and risk in context. An agent comparing prices and one testing stolen credentials can look alike on the wire. We believe intent, and the sensitivity of the targeted page, should drive the response.
3. Enforce by policy. We believe the rules should exist before the traffic arrives: which agents may do what, and how often.

What’s next

Gartner also estimates wide adoption by 2028:

“80% of enterprises with critical public-facing web applications will adopt a bot protection and management solution owned primarily by the cybersecurity team.”

Gartner also contrasts bundled and dedicated solution approaches: 

“Buyers have a choice to make between existing bundled WAAP platform add-ons for basic threat mitigation and stand-alone solutions/offerings to gain the deep visibility and policy control needed for complex governance.”

In our opinion, that gives CISOs a credible case to fund it as their own budget line item, not as a feature of a CDN or WAF contract.

Where DataDome fits

We started over 10 years ago asking “are you a human?” Then bots got better, as did fraud networks, and now we have AI agents. The sophistication kept changing, so a single check at the door was never enough.

With agents, who they claim to be tells you very little. What matters is what they do once they’re in. So we built Agent Trust around intent. Every agent gets a 100-point score that updates as its behavior changes, and businesses decide what each one can do.

Good agents get through, and bad ones don’t. That’s the whole idea.

DataDome delivers traffic you can trust across websites, mobile apps, APIs, and MCP servers. Malicious automation gets blocked, while legitimate users and trusted agents keep moving.

Is your site protected against bots and spoofed AI agents? Test your site for free.

Gartner disclaimer

Gartner, Market Overview for Bot Protection and Management Solutions, 4 November 2026. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.