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 resisted the term “swarm,” noting little coordination between queries. “‘Agent fleet,’ not ‘swarm:’ 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 they cannot access directly.
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 agents don’t seem to have been doing anything more nefarious than side-stepping Alibaba’s API rules — but researchers warn we may not always be so lucky.