A major new study drawing on data from the Internet Archive has found that roughly one in three websites created since 2022 was generated by artificial intelligence, marking what researchers describe as one of the most rapid transformations in the history of the internet.

The paper, titled "The impact of AI-generated text on the internet" and co-authored by researchers from Stanford, Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive, found that by mid-2025, approximately 35% of newly published websites were classified as AI-generated or AI-assisted, up from zero before the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.

The researchers tested six widely held theories about the effects of AI-generated text on the web, including whether it was producing more disinformation, creating a homogenised writing style, or producing text with lower factual accuracy.

Contrary to expectations, the study found that only two of the six hypotheses held up. AI-generated content was making the internet less semantically diverse and notably more positive in tone overall, but was not causing a measurable increase in verifiably false statements and was not reducing the rate at which websites cite their sources.

The researchers said they are working with the Internet Archive to turn the study into a continuous monitoring tool rather than a static snapshot, and plan to add more granularity by examining which categories of websites are most affected and how impacts differ by language.