Google has introduced a new user agent, called Google-Agent, that shows what AI agents are doing for users, marking the transition to agent-driven web interactions.
What’s going on. Google added Google-Agent to its list of user-enabled agents on March 20 and has begun rolling them out slowly.
- The Google-Agent user agent identifies requests made by AI agents using Google’s infrastructure, including testing tools such as Project Mariner.
How does this work. Google-Agent appears in HTTP requests when an AI agent visits a site to complete a user-initiated task.
- Examples of usage include browsing pages, checking content, or taking actions such as submitting forms.
- This differs from Googlebot and other search engines, which run continuously in the background without direct user input.
IP range. Google shared the IP ranges of its desktop agents:
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; + Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36
And the IP range of its mobile agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +
Why do we care. This allows you to identify the traffic driven by the agent in the server logs. Now you can distinguish traditional crawling activity from visits initiated by real users by AI agents. That should help you track agent-assisted conversions, understand the behavior of emerging users, and optimize agency searches.
What they say. According to Google’s announcement:
- “The Google user agent is coming out in the next few weeks, and will be used by Google agents managed by Google’s infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions at the user’s request.”
What you can watch. Early volumes will be lower as the release continues, but now is the time to establish a base. What to do:
- Monitor Google-Agent activity logs.
- Make sure CDNs and WAFs are not blocking the published IP range.
- Ensure that important site actions, including forms and flows, are handled by automated agents.
Celebrate deeply. Google is releasing Google-Agent: Here’s what you need to know
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