In 2026, the most meaningful IP-related shifts in security and fraud won’t come from louder attacks, but from quieter, more sophisticated activity that blends seamlessly into normal user behavior. Here are predictions from Spur co-founders Riley Kilmer and Ethan Smith, and CTO Alastair Parr.
As agentic AI systems become embedded in everyday workflows, they introduce new forms of automated, service-to-service traffic that existing detection methods weren’t designed to handle. At the same time, residential proxy networks are rapidly evolving into a core piece of AI infrastructure – one that obscures true user intent, geographic reality, and accountability. In the face of these shifts, organizations are under pressure to reduce friction for legitimate users while still enforcing increasingly strict regulatory and security requirements.
The following predictions outline the major forces we think will shape the next phase of IP intelligence: the rise of agent-driven traffic; the growing abuse potential of residential proxies; the shift toward passive security signals; and the renewed importance of accurate, real-time geo-verification. Together, these predictions point to a 2026 where visibility, not just control, becomes the defining advantage.
Agentic AI Traffic Will Create the Next Major Security Blind Spot
Significant issues will arise when agentic AI systems act on behalf of users. These agents will make purchases, create and manage accounts, and engage directly with various platforms, generating a new level of automated service-to-service traffic that few security teams can detect or validate. Existing methods of detecting cookie and session replay attacks will not hold up against such federated automation.
Organizations will need innovative ways to verify automated actions, as well as identify when AI activity routed through residential proxy networks is malicious.
Residential Proxy Traffic Will Emerge as a Major AI Risk Vector
Many AI firms will use residential proxy networks to scrape data and run real-time, agent-based tools. These proxy systems are often composed of everyday devices, such as phones, TVs, and apps, that quietly use someone’s internet connection – something most consumers aren’t aware of. Proxy companies are already using AI-driven demand to position themselves as legitimate infrastructure.
As AI adoption increases, residential proxy services will proliferate, drawing more mainstream scrutiny to their sourcing and to how easily they can be exploited for fraud and the large-scale facilitation of cybercrime.
Passive Security Will Become a Core Requirement for Reducing User Friction
Organizations are making efforts to reduce CAPTCHA usage, repeated logins, and other controls that aren’t user friendly and slow down conversions. As security teams look to reduce user friction, they will rely more on passive signals – such as location integrity, network quality, and obfuscation checks – to determine who gets an easier path with less friction and which sessions require targeted verification.
Accurate Geo-Verification Will Rise to the Forefront of Compliance and Risk Management
Companies in regulated industries will face greater pressure to verify the geographic location of users, not just where the IP address appears to indicate they’re located. As it becomes easier for users to hop resources and mask their location, teams will require precise real-time geographic signals to enforce gaming rules, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) restrictions, financial controls, content streaming restrictions, and state-based consumer protections. Geo-resilience will shift from a background check requirement to a priority on the frontline for security and compliance.
How to Adapt Your IP Intelligence Program in 2026
These trends all point to the same reality: traditional security signals are no longer sufficient in an internet increasingly powered by automation, AI agents, and obscured infrastructure. Knowing what is happening is no longer enough — organizations must understand who or what is behind each interaction, where it’s truly coming from, and whether it can be trusted.
That’s where Spur comes in. Spur helps companies regain clarity in an environment designed to blur it. By providing deep visibility into IP behavior, residential proxy networks, location integrity, and obfuscation techniques, Spur enables teams to confidently distinguish real users from automated agents, detect proxy-based abuse, and enforce geographic and compliance controls without adding friction for legitimate traffic.
With Spur, you can centrally:
- Observe: Continuously observe global network traffic, anonymization infrastructure, and routing behavior across hundreds of millions of IP addresses and more than 1,000 VPN and proxy services.
- Enrich: Analyze and classify each IP using 20+ technical attributes spanning geography, ASN, tunnel metadata, and behavioral signals.
- Act: Distribute intelligence through flexible delivery options – API, on-prem data feeds, and edge session enrichment – and integrations into common security, fraud, and authentication tooling, ensuring the same fidelity and explainability everywhere.
As agentic AI expands and proxy infrastructure becomes more normalized, the companies that succeed won’t be the ones that block the most traffic — they’ll be the ones that make smarter decisions with better signals.
For more on how Spur powers better IP decisions, including helping security and fraud teams stay ahead of what’s next, contact us for a strategy briefing. To experience our high-fidelity IP intelligence in action, sign up for a free trial today.
