Researchers Track Chinese AI 'Agent Fleet' Targeting Alibaba's Amap

The researchers resisted calling the group a “swarm,” saying there was little evidence of coordination among the 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. AI agents often use URLquery to load websites they cannot access directly, leaving a record of their activity that can be useful to researchers. That technique previously revealed long-running activity by OpenAI agents, according to the report.

In this case, the URLquery 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 few other details are available.

Even so, 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 online. 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 do not appear to have done anything more nefarious than side-stepping Alibaba’s API rules. But the researchers and observers warned that the same kind of activity may not always be so benign.