Researchers are tracking a Chinese AI ‘agent fleet’
In Brief Posted: 7:35 AM PDT · October 5, 2026 Image Credits:Carol Yepes / Getty Images Russell Brandom Researchers are tracking a Chinese AI ‘agent fleet’ A new fleet of AI agents is making its presence felt on the internet. On Sunday, a group of independent researchers posted preliminary findings…
Annons
Annons
In Brief Posted: 7:35 AM PDT · October 5, 2026 Image Credits:Carol Yepes / Getty Images Russell Brandom Researchers are tracking a Chinese AI ‘agent fleet’ A new fleet of AI agents is making its presence felt on the internet. On Sunday, a group of independent researchers posted preliminary findings about the agents, observing that they seem to be running on Tencent’s infrastructure and targeting Alibaba’s map service, Amap. Researchers, however, resisted the term “swarm,” noting that there seems to be little coordination between their different queries. “‘Agent fleet,’ not ‘swarm:’” one researcher wrote in the preliminary report, “many parallel agents on the same kind of task, with no sign of communication between them.” The agents were discovered by monitoring traffic to the domain-scanning service urlquery, a technique that previously revealed long-running activity by OpenAI agents. AI agents often use urlquery to load websites that they cannot access directly, leaving a record of their activities that can be valuable to researchers. In this case, the record showed queries to Alibaba’s Amap service, seeking directions to different entrances of various public places, including a park, a zoo, and a hospital. The research is ongoing and so few details are available, but the behavior shows how persistent AI agent activity has become on the internet. In the wake of the Hugging Face incident, many researchers are actively monitoring for rogue agent activity on the internet. Much of that activity has been easy to find because agents tend to use the same techniques and make little effort to conceal themselves. In this case, the agents don’t seem to have been doing anything more nefarious than side-stepping Alibaba’s API rules — but we may not always be so lucky. Topics AI, AI agents, alibaba, In Brief, Tencent October 13 – 15 San Francisco Get 50% off a second passThe Disrupt experience is meant to be shared. Get your pass and bring a colleague, partner, or peer at 50% off. Cover more ground by making connections, building momentum, and discovering what’s next in the startup ecosystem. BOOK NOW Newsletters See More Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news Related AI Instinct brings its AI agent to group chats, even for friends without an account Sarah Perez 10 hours ago Apps TikTok rolls out an AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout Aisha Malik 11 hours ago Venture At 19, founder raises $11M for Ghost, maker of a $3,499 computer for personal AI Dominic-Madori Davis 11 hours ago Latest in AI AI OpenAI will start watermarking ChatGPT’s text in the EU Aditya Mehta 8 hours ago AI Reflection debuts Beam, an open-weight AI model to rival Chinese models at lower compute cost Rebecca Bellan 9 hours ago AI Instinct brings its AI agent to group chats, even for friends without an account Sarah Perez 10 hours ago