Bots Heighten the Need for Social Intelligence
February 11, 2026 | Agassy Rodriguez
The rise of AI has increased the number, impact, and sophistication of online bots and their activities. Bots are automated social media accounts programmed to mimic human behavior (e.g., liking, sharing, or commenting on posts). In 2024, bot activity accounted for almost half of all internet traffic, and bad bot activity was nearly a third of all traffic.
The rise in bot activity for higher ed hasn’t escalated as quickly as it has for consumer brands, with some facing coordinated attacks aimed at influencing audiences and their perceptions. The Strategic Advisory Practice tracks and assesses social intelligence data across news sites, social media platforms, forums, and online spaces every day, using context clues and nuance to understand narratives and advise our clients.
Human discernment is essential for accurately detecting and interpreting bot-driven activity, making deliberate, expert-led social listening more critical than ever. Social intelligence helps you manage risk to your brand and reputation by anchoring decisions in historical context so your campus can anticipate what’s coming next, rather than simply react to it.
How social intelligence experts identify and handle bots:
Review and contextualize mentions and account information to determine possible bots; including checking when the account was created, looking for non-human patterns, and determining if the topic is predisposed to bot conversation.
Label suspicious or problematic accounts irrelevant; if they pose a safety risk, we determine if and how to share them with the client.
Stay current with Brandwatch features and strategies for identifying bots, and participate in discussions about tactics such as using automated categories to capture suspected bot content.
Learn more about our expertise.
1 2024 Bad Bot Report. Imperva. https://www.imperva.com/resources/resource-library/reports/2024-bad-bot-report/
2 Bot Networks Are Helping Drag Consumer Brands Into Culture Wars. Patrick Coffee, The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/articles/bot-networks-are-helping-drag-consumer-brands-into-the-culture-wars-63dffa04