Source: The consolidation of web scraping in the age of AI agents

The birth of a data titan

The web data collection market has undergone a radical metamorphosis that marks a before and after in digital infrastructure. The formation of Source, a conglomerate based in Vilnius, Lithuania, brings together five brands that until recently operated as direct competitors in the proxy and scraping market: Oxylabs, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy), Webshare, ScrapingBee, and the residential bandwidth platform Honeygain. This consolidation, valued at $3.6 billion, represents a strategic response to the insatiable demand for structured data to fuel Artificial Intelligence.

Historically, the proxy and data extraction sector was a highly fragmented market, dominated by players competing intensely for market share through aggressive pricing and niche marketing. The emergence of Source is not a simple merger and acquisition move; it is the industrialization of the AI supply chain. Just as the rise of data centers was the pillar of the cloud computing era, the consolidation of Source underscores that the new 'oil' is real-time, clean, and massive-scale data.

AI as a growth engine

Source's central thesis is that AI agents, next-generation search engines, and Large Language Models (LLMs) have altered internet consumption dynamics. According to corporate data, the demand for scraping services has quadrupled in the last twelve months. This phenomenon is consistent with the transition from static AI—trained on historical datasets—to dynamic AI that requires constant access to the open web to verify facts, compare prices, or analyze current trends.

Processing 1.5 million requests per second, Source positions itself as the connective tissue of the 'intelligence economy'. The company is expanding its capabilities toward search APIs designed specifically for autonomous agents. This evolution suggests that scraping is no longer a tool for human analysts, but a critical infrastructure layer that allows software agents to 'navigate' and interact with the web autonomously, reducing the latency between a real-world event and its availability in an AI model.

Real competition or corporate facade?

Source's structure raises fascinating questions about market transparency. For years, developers and companies have used technical benchmarks and reviews to choose between Oxylabs, Smartproxy (now Decodo), or ScrapingBee. The reality is that, behind the scenes, the consolidation has been progressive: Oxylabs acquired Webshare in 2022 and ScrapingBee in 2025, while the relationship with Honeygain dates back to 2021. The novelty is the formalization of Decodo under the same roof. Vytautas Savickas, former leader of Decodo, has taken the helm of the group, consolidating a centralized leadership that seeks to avoid market cannibalization through audience segmentation: Oxylabs for large AI labs, Decodo for the mid-market, ScrapingBee for developers, and Webshare for individual users.

Legal challenges and the future of the open web

The backdrop of this consolidation has complex legal nuances. The scraping industry has been under scrutiny by major platforms; for example, Reddit initiated legal action in October 2025 against Oxylabs, alleging the evasion of anti-scraping measures to obtain user comments. This scenario suggests that the unification seeks not only operational efficiency but also a single, powerful voice to defend the concept of 'responsible access to public web data' against growing paywalls and restrictions imposed by Big Tech to protect their own AI models.

It is important to note that the legality of scraping remains a murky area. While U.S. jurisprudence (such as the *hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn* case) has tended to favor access to public data, tech companies are implementing increasingly sophisticated technical measures (advanced CAPTCHAs, browser fingerprinting). The creation of Source could be seen as a collective defense strategy: by pooling patents, legal compliance, and engineering resources under one entity, the group is better equipped to navigate high-profile litigation that could define the future of the open web.

Perspectives for companies and developers

For the ecosystem, this consolidation implies greater professionalization of extraction tools. While there was previously a fragmentation of providers, companies can now access an ecosystem that covers the entire value chain. However, this also introduces centralization risks. If a single entity controls a significant portion of the infrastructure powering AI agents, its ability to impose prices or usage policies increases exponentially. The AI era is not eliminating scraping; it is industrializing it, turning a technical practice into a fundamental pillar of modern software architecture.