OpenAI’s automated crawling activity is estimated to have nearly tripled after the launch of GPT-5, according to a new analysis from Botify and guest author Chris Long.
On the Botify dataset, the OpenAI search session now logs more events than its training session. That’s a change from the pre-GPT-5 era.
Long, founder of SEO consultancy Nectiv, analyzed nearly 7 billion OpenAI-bot log events from Botify’s business client dataset from November 2024 to March 2026.
What the Data Shows
Two out of three OpenAI Botify users measured a performance increase during the launch of GPT-5.
OAI-SearchBot, which retrieves content when ChatGPT performs web searches, recorded approximately 3.5x more events after August 2025. That works out to approximately 2.2 billion additional events in the Botify dataset.
GPTBot, which collects training data, recorded approximately 2.9x more events in the same time period. That’s another 1.8 billion events.
The third user agent, ChatGPT-User, has gone in the opposite direction. Long-term we report a 28% decrease in ChatGPT-User log events between December 2025 and March 2026. ChatGPT-User fires when a ChatGPT session downloads a page on behalf of a user, so the decrease measures user-initiated downloads included rather than overall ChatGPT usage.
The long period offers two possible readings. Another is that several sessions may start downloading pages in real time. Another, suggested by the Botify team, is that OpenAI may rely more on cached or indexed resources, reducing the need to fetch pages in real time. Long does not choose between them.
Search Bot Now Outpaces Training Bot
Prior to GPT-5, OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot performed almost in volumes even on the Botify dataset, with an average of about 0.95 search events per training event. After GPT-5, that ratio increased to about 1.14.
The pattern is consistent with what Dan Petrovic wrote in August 2025 about GPT-5, saying that OpenAI was looking for more answers through live search than trained memory. Botify’s data is consistent with that study.
Industrial Decline
Post-GPT-5 search bot growth varies by industry. Healthcare sites saw approximately 740% more OAI-SearchBot activity after launch; Media and Publishing, 702%; and Marketing, Software, and Sales, 190-216%.
Travel sites had a very small increase of 30%. The balance of search and training also varies. We are long reporting a +256% resolution difference for OAI-SearchBot to GPTBot for Media/Publishing, the biggest gap ever. Software and Internet depend on search, training like healthcare and retail, with -50% and -33%. GPTBot works very well overall.
Botify and Long suggest that OpenAI routes accelerate brands differently: news queries trigger live searches, health and product queries rely on trained knowledge.
How OpenAI’s Crawl Compares to Google’s
Even after three iterations, OpenAI’s crawl function is much smaller than Google’s.
In Botify’s most recent 30-day window, Googlebot registered 18.2 billion events, compared to 887 million events from OpenAI searchers combined. That puts OpenAI at about 4% of Google’s analytics volume.
Last year, the same comparison was Google’s 15 billion events to OpenAI’s 207 million events, or about 1.38%. The gap is closing, although Google’s visibility is still 20 times greater in absolute terms.
Bingbot registered about 5.49 billion events in the latest window, putting OpenAI at about 14% of Bing.
How to Make Commercial Content
Botify’s dataset, which includes business customers in retail, ecommerce, technology, publishing, travel and marketplaces. The analysis was done by Long as a guest writer on Botify’s blog.
To be clear, Botify sells log analysis and AI bot management software, and the post promotes a follow-up webinar and product demo.
The dataset turns to the websites of large companies rather than the opposite part of the web.
Why This Matters
On the Botify dataset, OAI-SearchBot now generates more log events than GPTBot. Sites that only block GPTBot do not block the bot OpenAI says is used to display websites in ChatGPT search results.
Sites that block OAI-SearchBot may not be included in ChatGPT search results.
How Does This Relate to Other Reports?
Botify’s findings are consistent with patterns reported by other vendors. An Alli AI analysis covered earlier this month found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT-User made 3.6x more requests than Googlebot on a small WordPress-heavy sample. Hostinger’s analysis found OAI-SearchBot’s website coverage to reach 55% while GPTBot’s coverage dropped. Akamai’s latest bot traffic report showed OpenAI leading AI bot traffic on publishing sites.
Reports suggest that the clarity of AI training and AI search crawling needs to be measured separately, especially as OAI-SearchBot’s work grows.
